Center for Global Development

The Center for Global Development is an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington D.C. and London. CGD works to reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world's top decision makers. Over the next two years, CGD will be conducting rigorous research and proposing practical solutions to drive broader mandates, better governance, and modern business models at the multilateral development banks.

Recent Posts

Replenishing Africa’s Development Fund: A Time for Ambition

May 19, 2022

The stakes are high for the African Development Fund (AfDF) as it kicks off its replenishment fundraising exercise this spring. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are still grappling with the health and economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, with over 30 million of their citizens pushed into poverty since the onset of pandemic. According to the IMF, an extra $425 billion in SSA government spending will be needed over 2021-2025 to make up for the lost ground in the fight against poverty. African countries are also strongly impacted by the [...]

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How We Can Put SDRs to Work in the Fight Against Climate Change—The Multilateral Development Bank Option

April 25, 2022

The world is in economic crisis and climate change is threatening our very existence. Many countries are in desperate need of financing to confront acute needs for energy and food, while at the same time facing huge investment costs to adapt to climate change and retool economies to low-carbon production. In such times it should be unthinkable to leave any assets unused. But that is just what is happening now: Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) are sitting idle in many countries’ central banks. With a political push and some technical innovation, [...]

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Message to Donors: The African Development Fund Replenishment Needs Ambition

April 19, 2022

The stakes are high for this year’s African Development Fund (AfDF) replenishment. The AfDF, the arm of the African Development Bank that targets the region’s poorest countries, is Africa’s only dedicated grant and concessional financing fund. Its mission is deeply relevant with the African continent facing a frightening confluence of severe crises including the economic fallout from COVID, an escalating food crisis, the damage to global growth of the war in Ukraine, the effects of rising global interest rates and inflation, and rapidly accelerating climate change that disproportionately threatens countries [...]

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Country Platforms and Delivery of Global Public Goods

January 20, 2022

This paper discusses three potential requirements for country platforms to facilitate effective delivery of GPGs. We propose that existing country platforms be repurposed to coordinate the contribution of domestic and external stakeholders to GPG delivery efforts at the country level. For this proposed approach to be successful, an explicit link must be introduced between country-level efforts and global initiatives to provide GPGs. There is also merit in setting up country and global coordination mechanisms, with relevant agencies assigned to operate them both at the national and international levels. Using relevant [...]

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