A CGD blog with Janeen Madan Keller. Without global action, by 2050 there could be as many as 10 million antimicrobial resistance-related deaths each year. An important and often overlooked part of the problem is the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals. CGD recently convened a roundtable discussion with technic…
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 Rajesh Mirchandani. What impact does corruption have on development, and what’s the best way to stamp it out? In a new book called Results, Not Receipts CGD senior fellow Charles Kenny offers a way to strengthen the case for aid and reduce corruption at the same time: focus on outcomes, rather than …
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Results Not Receipts: Counting the Right Things in Aid and Corruption is a CGD book.
In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, the US Agency for International Development supported the Afghan Ministry of Public Health to deliver basic healthcare to 90 percent of the population, at a cost of $4.50 a head. The program played a vital role in improving the country’s health; the number of children dying before the age of five dropped by 100,000 a year. But accounting standards at the Ministry of Public Health concerned the US Special Investigator General for Afghanistan. There was no evidence of malfeasance, nor argument about the success of the program. For all that the results were fantastic, receipts were not in order. The investigator called for the health program to be suspended because of “financial management deficiencies” at the ministry.
Results Not Receipts: Counting the Right Things in Aid and Corruption explores how an important and justified focus on corruption is damaging the potential for aid to deliver results. Donors treat corruption as an issue they can measure and improve, and from which they can insulate their projects at acceptable costs by controlling processes and monitoring receipts. But our ability to measure corruption is limited, and the link between donors’ preferred measures and development outcomes is weak. Noting the costs of the standard anticorruption tools of fiduciary controls and centralized delivery, Results Not Receipts urges a different approach to tackling corruption in development: focus on outcomes.
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A CGD blog. When you read what economists have to say about development, it is easy to be disheartened about the prospects for poor countries. One big reason is that slow changing institutional factors are seen as key to development prospects. I’ve just published a CGD book that’s a little more opti…
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For US News and World Report –the world is getting more peaceful and collaboration is increasingly important to US and global well-being.
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For Irin news, with Tanvi Jaluka.
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For Quartz –the world is slowly getting less racist.
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American mortality exceptionalism isn't just about old people. For the Economist.
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For the Economist. Evidence suggests the policies will increase murder rates.
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A CGD blog. The World Bank’s soft lending arm for poorer countries, IDA, is busy rolling out a new $2.5 billion Private Sector Window. (See last year’s outline proposal for reference.) Bigger private sectors in IDA countries would be hugely welcome, so there is much to like in the broad th…
Charles Kenny 