A CGD blog. The World Bank management’s Evolution Roadmap suggests the institution is reconsidering its ‘twin goals’ mission statement of eradicating extreme poverty (ending $2.15 poverty by 2030) and boosting shared prosperity (raising the incomes of the bottom 40 percent in each country). It is reassuring tha…

A CGD blog. At the Annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF last year, shareholders asked the World Bank to come up with a set of proposals to evolve a larger role in climate and other global public goods. The Bank’s first response came pretty quick: by mid December, only a couple of months…

A CGD blog. Late last year, the World Bank Group issued a roadmap on its potential evolution in response to shareholder pressure at this year’s Bank-Fund annual meetings. The roadmap document has been widely shared with member governments. As reported by Reuters and Devex on the basis of leaked copies, it propo…

A CGD blog. What’s to love about the Effective Altruism movement (beyond the fact that it is a bunch of people who are committed to working to make things better for others) is that it thinks about everybody worldwide equally when looking for problems to solve. What’s to love a little less is that, when…

A CGD blog. It’s important that the upcoming US-Africa Leaders Summit focuses on much more than aid and security. The Biden administration should say a lot about US financial flows to the region and how they will be improved, but summit commitments must go far beyond that.

A CGD blog. The IFC isn’t finding more private sector projects to support in IDA countries even with the backing of both PSW financing and retained earnings used to hire more staff to look for projects. Absent actual projects to invest in, PSW resources are increasingly committed to regional and global faciliti…

A CGD blog with Samuel Huckstep. COP27, just concluded in Sharm El-Sheikh, was dubbed the ‘implementation COP’ by its Egyptian hosts. But it’s very difficult to implement without workers. The COP27 agreement emphasises that a “just and equitable transition” must include “workforce and other dimensions.” This short, vague language c…

A CGD blog. The Open Contracting movement, pushing to make government procurement worldwide considerably more transparent and efficient, has been a huge success. Today, more than 50 countries and cities are implementing policy changes from open electronic bid processes and publishing contracts to posting inspec…

A CGD blog. Last month, I spent an enjoyable if fractious couple of days in Vienna, taking part in a meeting of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime 2nd Task Force on the Measurement of Corruption. The task force is meant to help the office “define and refine methodologies for measuring corruption and to…

A CGD blog with Samuel Huckstep. The UK currently has a shortage of nearly 47,000 nurses in the NHS a Global Skill Partnership could help solve NHS staff shortages. The UK will gain much-needed skilled nurses at a cheaper cost than if they had been trained in the US, while the sending country benefits from…