Charles Kenny
Books, Papers and Articles
Charles Kenny writes about global development — what’s working, what isn’t, and how the world can do better. An economist who spent fifteen years at the World Bank, he is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.
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A CGD blog with Prashant Yadav. Policy forged at pace and during extreme circumstances will often leave something wanting. We want more resilient supply chains, but we shouldn’t sacrifice the benefits that existing supply chains have created, nor should we needlessly penalize developing countries in the race for resilience.
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A CGD blog. Over the last sixty years, we have seen many changes in what constitutes a “rich” country, but little difference in what counts as a poor country requiring significant development assistance. While donor status appears more closely tied to relative income, significant recipient status appears to hav…
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For Slate. Title says it all.
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A CGD policy paper with Euan Ritchie and Lee Robinson. This paper outlines the broad rationale for approaches beyond patents to support the development of technologies specifically useful to developing countries and the role for aid-funded approaches within that. It outlines some of the mechanisms that can be used and summarizes their strengths and weaknesses. The exercise suggests the need for an ecosystem of support mechanisms, and a concluding section asks how the United Kingdom’s official development assistance (ODA) for R&D could better support such an ecosystem. The UK government has committed to establishing a new institution to fund non-ODA R&D, modelled on the Advanced Research Projects Agency. We talk about how a similar model would work for development-orientated research, and what amendments may need to be made to ensure ODA-funded R&D reaches its potential. (see also the policy brief on our conclusions of the research overall. Bottom line: ODA for R&D is good, how the UK is spending it is bad).
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A CGD blog. Providing reliable electricity is complex and expensive: large power plants can be billion-dollar investments. As a result, a growing number of cash-strapped developing countries are signing power purchase agreements with electricity providers to shift investment costs to the private sector.
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A CGD blog with Charles Kenny. Philippe Le Houerou, the Chief Executive of the IFC has announced his intention to step down in September. His legacy will include a significant effort to focus the work of the corporation on development impact and the world’s poorest countries. Le Houerou has had some success. But a look …
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A CGD blog. Imagine the young George Washington said, “I cannot tell a lie. I did not cut down the cherry tree,” then added sotto voce, “’twas the hatchet that did it.” Multilateral development banks (MDBs) and development finance institutions are dissembling in the other direction when it comes to their impact…
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A CGD blog with Euan Ritchie. Euan Ritchie and Charles Kenny take a closer look at the Newton Fund and ask if it is focused on the right places.
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A CGD blog with Euan Ritchie. Directing innovation to overcome barriers to development in the world’s poorest countries is surely a good use of aid, then. But who should decide the barriers to overcome, and how should the research and development be supported?
Charles Kenny 