I’ve taken pride over the years in CGD’s success as a think-and-do tank in coming up with new “products” (outcomes of think/research) and working with officials around the world to see them adopted and implemented (outcomes of do/outreach and advocacy)). New products that change people’s lives in go...

This blog post is based in part on a presentation delivered by Nancy Birdsall on March 19th, 2022 as part of the MIT Seminar XXI program, hosted by Kenneth Oye.

Biniam Bedasso argues that free school meals improve enrollment, attendance, learning outcomes and help food-insecure countries. But Farzana Afridi thinks we need more evidence on long-term gains.

In 2021, Ghana announced a plan to issue sovereign bonds of up to $2 billion, with proceeds due partially to fund a free secondary school program. Just months later, Ghana’s rising debt burden means this is no longer feasible. Can developing countries tap the social bond market in order to fund publ...

The use of foreign aid to support poor countries with inadequate implementation capacity and weak regulatory institutions has at times, been described as “pouring money into a leaky bucket.” Given that there is seldom a quick fix for inadequate state capacity, aid programs can employ internal contro...

Obviously, an ethical vaccine distribution would start with a far more equitable sharing of vaccines between rich and less-rich nations. More pragmatically, the current huge imbalance in the global distribution of shots invites another outbreak of a new variant, against which the US and other high-i...

Every now and then we get asked by education donors whether and how they should fund the private education sector. It’s an important question: around 20 percent of children enrolled in primary school in low income countries attend private primary schools.