Preventing dangerous climate change is critical for promoting global development, and saving tropical forests is essential to doing both. CGD senior fellow Frances Seymour, coauthor of a new CGD book, explains why forests are key not only to meeting the objectives of the Paris climate agreement, but also to making progress on the sustainable development goals.

Today's podcast brings you highlights of an excellent discussion at CGD's offices in London which involved, among others, CGD’s Owen Barder. The discussion was organized and broadcast by BBC Radio and focused on the UK’s aid budget, including attempts to make aid more transparent, ways to tackle corruption, and how to think of international development in a political landscape where major countries seem to be turning inward.

"Private sector" appears 18 times in the outcome document from last year’s UN Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa—exactly the same number of times as "international cooperation." One year into the SDGs, where are those ideas that bring private sector ingenuity and capital into achieving the development goals? In this podcast, we'll introduce you to one of them.

CGD senior fellow Mayra Buvinic discusses what’s changed in the evidence base on women’s economic empowerment, and how the findings could appeal to the incoming Trump administration.

CGD founding president Nancy Birdsall discusses three simple, specific ideas for the next US president on development policy, gender, and health, and explains why development should be a priority for the next administration. 

Changing the law is a good start, but real progress requires changing minds. Former President of Malawi Joyce Banda and FGM survivor Kakenya Ntaiya explain why working with existing power structures is the most effective way to protect girls from harmful practices.

The multilateral development banking (MDB) system is regarded as having been remarkably successful—but is the model still fit for purpose? CGD president Nancy Birdsall and senior fellow Scott Morris delve into a new CGD report's recommendations on how to make MDBs more effective.

Lawrence H Summers, former US Treasury Secretary and the CGD Board Chair, explains why the World Bank and the regional multilateral development banks (MDBs) are well-placed to help address some of today’s urgent problems, including climate change, pandemics, and the problems of large-scale forced migration.

CGD's Bill Savedoff and Justin Sandefur (who leads our education research through the RISE project) discuss their contributions to and assessment of the education Commission's Learning Generation report.

The plight, peril, and potential of refugees and displaced people has been near the top of the political agenda around the world for many months, culminating in two large summits of world leaders during the UN General Assembly in New York. CGD experts Michael Clemens and Cindy Huang discuss what they hope comes out of the New York summits.