Aid Isn’t Fairy Dust is a CGD note. Long-term changes and the lessons of the past decade suggest rhetoric around what aid can accomplish needs to be dialed down. It is largely macroeconomically irrelevant in middle-income countries and has a weak record in leveraging or crowding in other resources. But aid still has a vital role to play in the poorest countries, and this is where we should spend it.
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 Policy Paper. The World Bank has “ambitious” climate targets that have been accompanied by a growing proportion of its lending being labeled as climate finance. At the same time, the way that finance is defined makes it difficult to know how different the World Bank’s portfolio would look absent a climate finance target. Similarly, the World Bank has introduced a shadow price of carbon (SPC) for use in project analysis, but it does not advertise cases (if any) where the use of the SPC has changed investment choices or project design. This paper takes a brief look at the World Bank’s lending portfolio as well as the economic analysis sections of recent World Bank project appraisal documents to see if they can provide any evidence on the question, “do climate targets and carbon prices change the portfolio?” The answer to “can they provide evidence’ is “suggestive at best.” But while there is some evidence of some impact, there are also reasons to doubt it is large.
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A CGD Note. As part of a general revival of interest in industrial strategy and job creation, some multilateral development bank (MDB) stakeholders suggest there may be a role for MDB-financed procurement to more strongly favor local suppliers through local content rules. This note discusses local procurement rules in general and the (small) role of MDBs in government procurement, and argues that MDB procurement rules around local content should make preferences flexible, optional, and justified on a case-by-case basis.
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A CGD blog with Ian Mitchell et al. As COP30 begins in Belem, Brazil, against a backdrop of tighter budgets, political headwinds, and a retreating US, questions remain over whether this summit can deliver real action on climate and development. From the launch of a new tropical forest fund to efforts to build a carbon pricing coali…
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A CGD blog. How much do World Bank targets, rules about project appraisals considering mitigation and adaptation, and a shadow price of carbon make a difference to what the World Bank actually finances? In a new policy paper, I try to answer that question looking at both finance trends and the project appraisal…
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A CGD blog. I have just published a note about enforced local preferences in multilateral development bank (MDB)-financed procurement. The paper assumes the reader believes such preferences might be good for client countries. Of course, many of those calling for such preferences are not as concerned with develo…
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A CGD blog with Eeshani Kandpal. A recent PowerPoint presentation presents the outline for the institutional structure of “The WBG Knowledge Bank.” But a knowledge bank owes it to its stakeholders impartial and transparent consideration of all the available evidence, as well as the generation of new evidence where it is needed. And…
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A CGD Note. LICs are not only home to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, they are also fragile states at high risk of conflict, with limited capacity to provide global public goods from security to biodiversity and pandemic control. Providing coordinated support in areas from finance through market access and migration opportunities, the G20 could accelerate LIC progress towards comparative prosperity, self-reliance and stability to considerable global benefit.
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A CGD blog with Sanjeev Gupta. As the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings get underway, five CGD experts lay out what they’re paying attention to, from sovereign debt swaps to US comments about IMF mission creep.
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A CGD blog with Markus Goldstein. The United States-long the world’s largest provider of lifesaving assistance and the largest humanitarian donor to many countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa-saw a sharp reversal in early 2025. The US administration imposed a temporary funding freeze, cancelled most assistance awards, and clos…
