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2. 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
- 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
3. Measuring the Quality of Aid: QuODA Second Edition
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall, Homi Kharas, and Rita Perakis
- Publication Date:
- 11-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- As demonstrated by the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and Accra Agenda for Action, the development community has reached a broad consensus on what constitutes good practice for the delivery of development assistance. But since these high-level agreements were made, there has been almost no independent quantitative analysis of whether donors are meeting the standards they have set for themselves.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Treaties and Agreements, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Paris
4. Income Distribution: Effects on Growth and Development
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall
- Publication Date:
- 04-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- I review the literature on the effects of inequality on growth and development in the developing world. Two stylized facts emerge from empirical studies: inequality is more likely to harm growth in countries at low levels of income (below about $3200 per capita in 2000 dollars); and it is at high levels of inequality (at or above a Gini coefficient of .45) that a negative association emerges. Between 15 and 40 percent of the developing world's population lives in countries with these characteristics, depending on the inclusion of China, whose level of inequality has recently been measured at almost .45. Theory and evidence suggest that high inequality affects growth: (1) through interaction with incomplete and underdeveloped markets for capital and information; (2) by discouraging the evolution of the economic and political institutions associated with accountable government (which in turn enable a market environment conducive to investment and growth); and (3) by undermining the civic and social life that sustains effective collective decision-making.
- Topic:
- Development, Humanitarian Aid, Political Economy, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- China
5. Do No Harm: Aid, Weak Institutions, and the Missing Middle in Africa
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall
- Publication Date:
- 03-2007
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The implicit assumption of the donor community is that Africa is trapped by its poverty, and that aid is necessary if Africa is to escape the trap. In this note I suggest an alternative assumption: that Africa is caught in an institutional trap, signaled and reinforced by the small share of income of its independent middle-income population. Theory and historical experience elsewhere suggest that a robust middle-income group contributes critically to the creation and sustenance of healthy institutions, particularly healthy institutions of the state. I propose that if external aid is to be helpful for institution-building in Africa's weak and fragile states, donors need to emphasize not providing more aid but minimizing the risks more aid poses for this group in Africa.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Development, Government, and Humanitarian Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa
6. Payments for Progress: A Hands-Off Approach to Foreign Aid
- Author:
- Nancy Birdsall and Owen Barder
- Publication Date:
- 12-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- There are significant differences of opinion about the merits of additional aid in meeting the MDGs, including whether and how aid should be given in 'fragile states', whether additional aid on the scale envisioned can be effectively used even in well-managed economies, and whether the aid system, particularly in highly aid-dependent countries, undermines instead of strengthens local institutions. We discuss an approach to scaling up foreign aid that would explicitly be aimed at strengthening local capacity and institutions, including in fragile states. “Payments for progress” would link additional aid to clear evidence of progress already achieved on the ground. This approach would give flexibility and autonomy to local institutions, providing an opening for local institutional experimentation, while at the same time ensuring that aid pays only for real, measurable achievements. Donors would bind themselves as a group to pay a specific amount for clear evidence of progress against one or more agreed goals in low-income developing countries. Developing country governments would present an independently audited statement reporting their progress on the measures, and donors would pay the agreed amount. Payments would be determined as a function of the outcomes, and not linked to the implementation of any particular policies, any other intermediate outputs, or “tied” to purchases from particular suppliers or companies. Governments that found ways to provide services efficiently and so reduce the costs of providing them would benefit from a larger surplus. We discuss the issues such an approach raises—in setting the benchmarks against which progress is measured, in avoiding cheating, and in managing unintended negative consequences of an incentives-based approach. We conclude with a summary of the advantages for donors and recipients.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Humanitarian Aid, and Third World