A CGD blog. The process of procuring goods and services to deliver US development assistance remains shut down. June 17th marked 259 days into the 2025 fiscal year. At an equal daily rate, you’d expect cumulative new obligations across the US government at that point to be running at about 70 percent of the tot…

A CGD blog. China’s relationship with multilateral development institutions, including the World Bank, is of great interest to US lawmakers. In particular, there is concern over the fact that the World Bank lends to China and sometimes finances Chinese contractors to work on projects in its member countries, ev…

A CGD blog. Haiti finds itself on the list of countries facing a Trump administration travel ban for the second time in two terms. The official reasons are that Haitians often overstay their visas and that there is a risk of the “establishment of criminal networks, and other national security threats.” But Hait…

A CGD blog with Justin Sandefur. The White House has presented further details of its FY 2026 budget request. It includes a proposed two-thirds cut to global health and humanitarian funding. Such a reduction is impossible to reconcile with assurances from the administration that it is preserving life-saving assistance. A rough esti…

A CGD blog. FEWS NET, the US-financed famine early warning system, was one of the casualties of the US foreign assistance “pause.” The good news is that it has resumed operations. But what it has to report is deeply concerning.

A CGD blog. In August last year, I made a modest proposal to China’s Minister of Finance regarding IDA, the soft lending arm of the World Bank that works with the poorest countries. I suggested China might want to become an equal IDA shareholder to the US. While Beijing did increase its contribution in the…

A CGD blog. The Trump administration insists it is preserving life-saving assistance as it dismantles USAID. The evidence to date is that it is failing in that task-significant award cancellations and payment delays mean that people are dying. The administration’s proposed budget (which includes a 62 percent cu…

A CGD blog with Rachel Bonnifield. The US pays-by far-the highest prices for on-patent prescription drugs of any country on earth. The White House just issued an executive order purporting to fix this problem. But the proposed solution-that the US should pay the “most-favored-nation” price for prescription drugs to “bring prices fo…..

A CGD blog. On April 22nd, MCC staff were told the agency would be effectively shuttered, with most work immediately suspended. The agency’s model means its spending is concentrated in a few countries. For a subset of those countries, the impact will be considerable.

A CGD blog with Justin Sandefur. We’ve previously looked at the sectoral and geographic impact of the proposed USAID award cuts. But for those who want to see US foreign assistance back on its feet, it is also worth looking at the impact on awardees-the firms, nonprofits, and international organizations that implement USAID projec….