In timely and incisive analysis, our experts parse the latest development issues and events, providing practical solutions to new and emerging challenges.
International institutions, development agencies, and the global development community must step up to assist the growing financial and humanitarian crisis. CGD experts advise.
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...
The benefits of space technology are substantial, most simply demonstrated by how it contributes to every UN Sustainable Development Goal. Most countries’ economies and industries are already dependent on satellites to some degree, for position, navigation, and timing data (transportation, power gri...
On his first trip to Africa, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Germany intends to buy natural gas from Senegal, to reduce its dependence on Russian gas. A German government official added that the country might become an investor in Senegal’s massive GTA gas field. Germany has invited Senegal, ...
Pretty much everyone following the war in Ukraine has seen satellite imagery of Russian convoys trundling across Ukraine, or read about Elon Musk’s delivery of 5,000+ Starlink satellite-internet receivers. News reports are backed up by a wealth of satellite data, which has short-circuited Russia’s a...
The US government wants to fund as many new clean energy projects in Africa as possible, but the pool of bankable utility-scale generation projects is running dry. In 2021, the DFC approved none. To accelerate Africa’s energy transition and scale its clean energy markets, the US needs to focus far m...
Every nation on Earth uses space in some way. Satellite communications, GPS, and satellite remote sensing are woven into the fabric of the world economy, and more nations are starting to realize that it’s in their national interest to develop an endemic, foundational space capability.