May

29-30
2008

Past Event

What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small

Thursday, May 29 - Friday, May 30, 2008
The Brookings Institution

1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Bill Easterly and Jessica Cohen of Brookings recently convened a conference with leading development experts to explore one of the most vexing issues of global development: what do we really know about what works and what doesn’t when fighting global poverty? The conference focused on the ongoing debate over which paths to development really maximize results: a big-picture approach focusing on the role of institutions, macroeconomic policies, growth strategies and other country-level factors; or a more grassroots approach focusing on particular microeconomic interventions such as conditional cash transfers, bed nets, teaching materials and other micro-level improvements in service delivery on the ground. The conference objective was to shed light on both schools of thought, with the goal of achieving a consensus on how to best leverage limited resources and time in the race to lift the lives of the world’s poorest.

Related Book: What Works in Development? Thinking Big and Thinking Small

The related conference papers detail critical lessons from development experiences and propose new ways of tackling some of the toughest issues.

View the conference agenda »

DRAFT CONFERENCE PAPERS:

Agenda