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181. GAVI's Future: Steps to Build Strategic Leadership, Financial Sustainability, and Better Partnerships

Author:
Amanda Glassman, Lisa Carty, J. Stephen Morrison, and Margaret Reeves
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
On June 13, the GAVI Alliance convenes its first pledging conference in London with the aim of securing $3.7 billion to immunize an additional 250 million children by 2015. Founded in 2000, GAVI is an innovative partnership that combines donors, partner governments, UNICEF, WHO, civil society, and the private sector. It is designed to accelerate the financing and delivery of selected vaccines and related health services to the world's most disadvantaged populations. As GAVI enters its second decade of operations, it has established itself as a quiet success. And as it strives to sustain and expand its model of operations, it simultaneously strives to make itself better known and understood; better led, managed, and resourced; better assured of essential high-level political and financial support; and better served by well-functioning relations with its many essential partners.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Health, and Foreign Aid

182. New SME Financial Access Initiatives: Private Foundations' Path to Donor Partnerships

Author:
Benjamin Leo
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
In recent years, a number of private foundations and organizations have launched ambitious initiatives to support promising entrepreneurs in developing countries, on both a for-profit and not-for-profit basis. Many of these programs have focused exclusively on building business capacity. While these tailored programs play an important role in supporting small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development, their overall effectiveness remains hamstrung in part by continuing constraints on entrepreneurs' access to expansion and operating capital. Simultaneously, the U.S. government, other bilateral donors, and international financial institutions (IFIs) have launched a series of initiatives that provide both financial and technical assistance to SMEs in developing countries. Surprisingly, collaboration or formalized partnerships between private foundations and donor agencies has been somewhat limited-particularly on a strategic or globalized basis. This paper is targeted for these private foundations, especially those focused on women entrepreneurship. First, it provides a brief literature review of the rationale for and against SME initiatives. Second, it presents an overview of existing targeted USG and IFI programs. Lastly, it offers several new, incremental options for private foundations to establish focused partnerships with donor agencies in support of their ongoing organizational goals.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
United States

183. Cash at Your Fingertips: Biometric Technology for Transfers in Developing and Resource-Rich Countries

Author:
Alan Gelb and Caroline Decker
Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Cash transfers are often a good way for developing countries to address economic and social problems. They are less expensive than directly providing goods and services and allow recipients the flexibility to spend on what they need the most, but for many developing countries, the technical requirements for large-scale programs have been prohibitive. Now, however, biometric technologies have improved and become ubiquitous enough to allow the confident identification and low cost needed to implement successful cash-transfer programs in developing countries. This paper surveys the arguments for and against cash-transfer programs in resource-rich states, discusses some of the new biometric identification technologies, and reaches preliminary conclusions about their potentially very large benefits for developing countries. The barriers to cash-transfers are no longer technical, but political.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Science and Technology, and Foreign Aid

184. The Best Things in Life are (Nearly) Free: Technology, Knowledge and Global Health

Author:
Charles Kenny and Ursula Casabonne
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Casabonne and Kenny argue that two major factors underlie improved global health outcomes: first, the discovery of cheap technologies that can dramatically improve outcomes; second, the adoption of these technologies, thanks to the spread of knowledge. Other factors have played a role. Increased income not only allows for improved nutrition, but also helps to improve access to more complex preventative technologies. Institutional development is a second key to the spread of such complex technologies. Nonetheless, evidence of dramatic health improvements even in environments of weak institutions and stagnant incomes suggests that the role of these factors may be secondary.
Topic:
Development, Health, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

185. The Future of Development Finance

Author:
Nemat Shafik
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Development finance is at a turning point. There is talk about a "triple revolution of goals, actors and tools." As much of Asia grows its way out of poverty, aid will increasingly be focused on Africa and on countries plagued by instability, or with governments unable to meet the basic needs of their populations. A growing share of development finance will be directed to tackling global public goods-like climate change, conflict prevention, and public health. Responsibility for addressing global challenges will increasingly be borne by coalitions that cut across states, the private sector, and civil society. These networks to address poverty and global issues will become a feature of the international architecture in a multipolar world. The rules of the game and the tools of development assistance need to evolve to focus on transparency, results, accountability, a market-driven division of labor and flexible partnerships for the future development finance system to become an effective tool of global problem solving.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Climate Change, Development, Environment, and Health

186. Focus UNFPA: Four Recommendations for Action

Author:
Katie Stein
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
With a new executive director appointed in November 2010, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is in a position to re-assert its role and lead the world's effort toward landmark achievements in improving women's health and well-being. The Fund's performance will literally be a matter of life or death for millions of women and children. The numbers speak for themselves: an estimated 215 million women lack access to modern contraceptives, and there are approximately 350,000 maternal deaths each year. As the lead agency for the United Nations' work on population and reproductive health, UNFPA can reduce this terrible and unnecessary toll of lost lives.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Gender Issues, Health, and United Nations

187. Growing Business or Development Priority? Multilateral Development Banks' Direct Support to Private Firms

Author:
Guillermo Perry
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Direct support to private firms in developing countries constitutes a large and growing share of multilateral development banks' financial activities. This trend contrasts with the advice MDBs gave developing countries until a decade ago to privatize or liquidate the development banks supporting private firms, or to transform them into nonbanking development agencies. Opinion has changed since then, especially after development banks successfully intervened in the recent financial crisis. In this brief, Guillermo Perry assesses whether arguments in favor of such MDB direct support are valid and whether MDBs are living up to priorities coherent with such arguments. He finds that they do so only partially. His recommendations include deepening MDB support to small and medium enterprises, reducing the procyclicality of MDB lending, increasing the share of MDB loans and guarantees to private firms that are made in domestic currencies, and paying more attention to firms in infrastructure and social sectors and to those introducing new products, exports, or technologies.
Topic:
Development, Foreign Aid, Foreign Direct Investment, and Financial Crisis

188. Find Me the Money: Financing Climate and Other Global Public Goods

Author:
Nancy Birdsall and Benjamin Leo
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
The global community faces a number of critical challenges ranging from climate change to crossborder health risks to natural-resource scarcities. Many of these so-called global commons problems carry grave risks to economic growth in the developing world and to the livelihoods and welfare of their people. Climate change is the classic example. Despite the risks involved, donor governments have funded programs addressing global challenges such as climate change at far lower levels than traditional programs of country-based development assistance. The prospects for dealing with such global challenges will depend at least in part on new collective financing mechanisms.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Health, Humanitarian Aid, and Foreign Aid

189. Constraints to Domestic Enterprise Financing in Post-Conflict Liberia

Author:
John Gorlorwulu
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Countries emerging from protracted and devastating conflicts are often seen as needing significant external intervention in their financial markets to rebuild their private sector and promote quick and effective economic recovery. Despite enormous challenges, the provision of credit or the implementation of various lending schemes often dominate efforts to promote domestic private-sector recovery in the immediate aftermath of conflict. This approach raises a number of questions: First, how effective are loan programs in the development of domestic enterprises in the immediate aftermath of conflicts? Second, can loan programs work without significant improvements in the business climate? How sensitive is the design of lending programs to the success of domestic enterprise development projects following devastating conflicts? This paper explores the experience of the Liberian Enterprise Development Finance Company, which was established in 2007 to provide medium-and long-term credit to small and medium domestic enterprises. In addition to shedding light on the challenges such an enterprise faces in a post conflict environment, the paper explores whether the strategies employed are effective and if there are opportunities for effecting remedial changes that could improve the outcomes of such a program in post-conflict environments generally.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Development, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
Africa and Liberia

190. Fair Shares: Crediting Poor Countries for Carbon Mitigation

Author:
David Wheeler
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
This paper computes national carbon mitigation costs using two simple principles: (1) Incremental costs for low-carbon energy investments are calculated using the cost of coal-fired power as the benchmark. (2) All low-carbon energy sources are counted, because reducing carbon emissions cannot be separated from other concerns: reducing local air pollution from fossil-fuel combustion; diversifying energy sources to reduce political and economic risks; and building competitive advantage in emerging clean-energy markets. The paper estimates energy growth and incremental costs for biomass, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear in 174 countries from 1990 to 2008. Then it compares national mitigation burdens using per-capita mitigation expenditures as shares of per-capita incomes. The results undermine the conventional view of North-South conflict that has dominated global climate negotiations, because they show that developing countries, whether by intention or not, have been critical participants in carbon mitigation all along. Furthermore, they suggest that developing countries have borne their fair share of global mitigation expenditures. But they also show that expenditures for both developed and developing countries have been so modest that low-carbon energy growth could accelerate greatly without undue strain.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Economics, and Energy Policy