A half-day global virtual event to examine the pressing questions the development community must address in the coming decades.
Climate change, conflict, food insecurity, and pandemics. These global challenges are growing in urgency and complexity—and they are not confined by borders. While wealthy countries are aging and their growth rates are faltering, the traditional manufacturing-led path to rapid growth in poorer countries is narrowing.
In the face of headwinds to global prosperity and increasing geopolitical, economic, global health and environmental insecurity, development agencies and multilateral institutions are struggling to keep pace. How will development cooperation and institutions evolve to address the issues that have come to define the current and future development era? Do we have the will to establish policies today in preparation for a world and global economy that will look radically different in 30 years?
Agenda
*All event times are Eastern Time (US & Canada)
8:30am: Welcome & Special Conversation on the Development Challenges of Tomorrow
- Masood Ahmed, President, Center for Global Development
- Baroness Minouche Shafik, Director, London School of Economics
9:00am: Panel 1 – The Future of Development
What are the prospects for development over the next 30 years?Growth in higher-income countries is projected to slow in the coming decades. Alongside stagnant global trading opportunities his will transform the shape of the global economy and place lower-income countries in a new – and challenging – economic position. Can we shift to a new model of mutually beneficial global exchange based not on goods but on greater equality of opportunity and the movement of people and ideas? And will we respond with the urgency and scale needed to improve lives and expand prosperity?
Facilitator
- Charles Kenny, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
Panelists
- Dany Bahar, Associate Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs, Brown University; Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development
- Mayra Buvinic, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Center for Global Development; Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation
- Amanda Glassman, Executive Vice President of CGD, CEO of CGD Europe, and Senior Fellow
- W Gyude Moore, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development; Senior Fellow, United Nations Foundation
- Justin Sandefur, Co-Director of Education Policy and Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
10:00am: Panel 2 – The Future of Development Cooperation
How can development cooperation providers meet today’s urgent global and local needs while preparing our world for tomorrow’s challenges? Conflict in Ukraine, the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, and devasting effects of climate change are straining an increasingly precarious global economy – threatening progress to fight poverty. In the face of overlapping crises and beyond, will we meet the demand for new forms of international cooperation between development agencies and their partners now and in the future?
Facilitator
- Mikaela Gavas, Co-Director, Development Cooperation in Europe Program and Senior Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development
Panelists
- Carin Jämtin, Director General, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA)
- Antón Leis Garcia, Director General, Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID)
- Alexandre Lévêque, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Global Affairs Canada (GAC)
11:00am: Panel 3 – The Future of the Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) System
How do we reform the World Bank and other multilateral development banks to lead the fight against the world’s most pressing challenges? The international community cannot meaningfully address the many concurrent global crises we face without a well-resourced and agile MDB system. But the COVID pandemic—and the unprecedented series of global shocks that followed—have laid bare the limitations of the MDB toolkit when it comes to tackling crises that defy national borders. The challenge ahead is how to make the MDB system more relevant for today’s world. This discussion will assess what the 21st century MDB should look like and where do shareholders, including the US and China, stand.
Facilitator
- Clemence Landers, Policy Fellow, Center for Global Development
Panelists
- Nancy Birdsall, Senior Fellow and President Emeritus, Center for Global Development
- Leslie Maasdorp, Vice President, New Development Bank
- Scott Morris, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Development
- Vera Songwe, Chair, Board of Directors, Liquidity and Sustainability Facility (LSF)
Join the conversation. Submit your questions to events@cgdev.org, tweet @CGDev #CGDTalks, or post via YouTube comments.
