For a long time, foreign policy was largely "a world minus women," says Valerie Hudson, Professor and George H.W. Bush Chair at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. That's beginning to change, as policymakers increasingly recognize gender as a critical factor in the success or failure of programs. What's missing, says Hudson, is hard data. That's where WomanStats comes in.

WomanStats is a large, open-access database of information on the status of woman in 175 nations around the world. In this week's podcast, Hudson, a lead researcher on the project, explains how the security of women relates to the security of nations and why the WomanStats data is crucial for better foreign policy.

The United States has been the leader of the free world for decades, championing a liberalized open global economy, the modernization of states, and a system of global institutions and rules that has lifted millions out of poverty. However, US development policy has remained narrowly focused on aid as the major tool for building prosperous societies abroad – even as the rise of China and other emerging markets and the dramatic increase in private capital and remittance flows are putting a growing premium on other, underexploited US tools for encouraging growth in the developing world.

This week I speak with Ben Leo, one of the primary authors of a new series of papers aimed at addressing the problems in 2016 and beyond. The White House and the World  presents more than a dozen concrete and practical policy proposals – ranging across trade, energy, migration, investment, and climate policy, as well as greater effectiveness of US foreign aid programs – that will promote growth and reduce poverty abroad.

With the third international Financing for Development conference taking place only a week from now in Addis Ababa, I sit down with Charles Kenny to take stock of this marquee event. We discuss its importance and what one might reasonably hope is achieved there.

He oversaw implementation of the MDGs, so what does Sir Suma Chakrabarti think of the SDGs that will replace them? Now President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Chakrabarti is a former Permanent Secretary of the UK’s Department for International Development. He gave me his thoughts on the upcoming Addis Ababa Financing for Development Conference, the future role of multilateral development banks in development financing, as well as EBRD’s work amidst the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Elizabeth Littlefield, President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, sits down with me to discuss the agency's success in leading the transition from aid to private finance (despite its modest size), as well as what it has in store for the remainder of the Obama presidency.

The media often characterize immigrants and refugees as a burden, according to my guest this week, CGD board member and former deputy secretary-general of the UN Mark Malloch Brown. Lord Malloch-Brown says that past experience shows that refugees not only land on their feet after fleeing their circumstances, but are a “shot in the arm” to the economies of countries they arrive in.

If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you do with the money? Whatever difficulty you have in arriving at an answer, imagine the dilemma an entire nation might face. Several countries have struck gold and squandered it. In this podcast, Todd Moss explains how countries can make the best use of their natural resource revenues: by giving it to the people. By providing a portion of natural resource revenue to citizens, countries can build a tax base and strengthen the pact between citizens and their governments. 

The African Development Bank has just elected its new President, Akenwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for Nigeria. My guest this week Bobby Pittman watched the multi-stage election process unfold in Abidjan. Pittman was a senior adviser to President Bush on Africa and now runsKupanda Capital, an investment firm focused on Africa. Bobby shares his thoughts on Adesina's winning qualities and what his focus should be for the bank.

Tobacco related diseases cut short the lives of 100 million people last century, a number expected to surge to 1 billion this century, according to CGD senior fellow Bill Savedoff. Tobacco use has the makings of a staggering epidemic, one taking an increasing toll on low- and middle-income countries. Bill and I discuss the health costs imposed on those countries and policies for curbing tobacco usage.

The Sustainable Development Goals should be “ambitious but not ludicrous” says John Norris, a member of the President’s Global Development Council, set up in 2012 to advise the administration on US development policy.

Norris, a former staffer at the UN and USAID, and now at the Center for American Progress, told the CGD Podcast there should be “far fewer goals” than the current 17 and “far fewer targets” (right now there are 169).