Blinken’s Nigeria speech was a notable departure from his predecessor’s comments when it came to Africa, signaling that the Biden administration was distancing itself from Trump’s view of Africa. That speech, and the new strategy, recognized the continent’s indispensable role in the provision of glo...

We’re losing legends at a frankly alarming rate: one week after I lamented the loss of Diana Kennedy, we open by lamenting the loss of Bill Russell. If you’re a basketball fan, Russell is to Jordan and LeBron what Thanos was to Loki: the big bad. We argue about whether LeBron (10 finals, 4 wins) or ...

At the July G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors, a panel of experts (of which I was one) presented their report on the capital adequacy of the MDBs. Why care? the answer, quite simply, is that hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. As with any bank, small changes in th...

A more useful starting point in answering questions such as this is to reframe space as infrastructure, akin to roads or power. Road systems and electricity grids, for example, don’t directly feed people, but they do contribute greatly to the ability to grow, move, store, and sell agricultural goods...

Ukraine’s dire financing situation is front and center in the debate over how the world will weather the war being waged by Russia. The IMF will play an important role in extending credit to Ukraine directly, but the institution is also being used a conduit for other countries’ assistance. In this b...

While many small firms closed their doors during the pandemic, surprisingly few larger firms failed. Instead, they survived by cutting costs and forgoing investment, depleting their productive capital in the process. A new report from CGD and the IDB examines the challenges faced by firms during the...

It’s clear that development agencies will be faced with hard choices in the years to come. CGD’s 2022 Development Leaders Conference will bring together senior policymakers from official bilateral and multilateral development agencies and institutions to explore the way forward for development, dur...