Ivanka Trump Spearheads New Fund for Women Entrepreneurs: Four Questions to...
At a recent G20 dialogue in Berlin, Angela Merkel unveiled plans for a new fund—spearheaded by Ivanka Trump—to promote women’s entrepreneurship. But given that President Trump’s draft FY2018 budget...
View ArticleCongress Sets Course for Foreign Aid Spending through September
Congress has officially wrapped up the FY2017 appropriations process—a mere seven months behind schedule. Much has changed since last fall, including the rhetoric on US foreign aid spending from the...
View ArticleA Sound Choice for USAID Administrator
That sound you hear is the foreign aid community’s collective sigh of relief following the White House’s announcement of its intention to nominate Ambassador Mark Green as USAID administrator.Blog: US...
View ArticleGood Faith or Hostile Takeover? How to Judge a Development Re-org Plan
Policy guidance issued recently by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney on “Reforming the Federal Government,” along with Secretary of State Tillerson’s plans to streamline and...
View ArticleUS Already $26 Billion Short of “Fair Share” Standard for Development Aid
A joint analysis with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows the Trump Administration’s proposed budgets cuts could leave US development spending further behind than ever on its fair...
View ArticleThere Is an Emerging Trump Philosophy for Foreign Assistance
The Trump administration has had very little to say about foreign assistance, apparently preferring to let the budget knife do its talking. But if we want to discern some sort of guiding philosophy to...
View ArticleThe Trump Budget Is Wrong to Axe OPIC: It Doesn't Distort Markets, It Creates...
The Trump Administration is making a mistake, based on a flawed premise, by putting the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) on the chopping block in its recently released budget...
View ArticlePresident Trump’s First Budget Slashes Foreign Aid
The full budget features a 32 percent cut to topline funding for the Department of State and Foreign Operations, leaving few programs that would completely escape the axe. It’s hard to read this as a...
View ArticleAmid a Dire Foreign Affairs Budget Request, A Quiet Vote of Confidence for MCC
The Trump administration’s first budget deals a harsh blow to the international affairs budget. With a topline reduction of 32 percent, few programs avoid cuts. One that fares relatively well, however,...
View ArticleForeign Military Financing Program Loans: The Good, the Bad, and the...
As indicated in the Trump administration’s skinny budget released in March, the FY18 budget request incorporates the idea of transitioning the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program from grants to...
View ArticleLeaving the Paris Climate Agreement Would Be a Shameful Act of Self-Harm
A decision by President Trump to remove the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement would be a shameful act of self-harm. The decision would hurt everyone in the world, and poor people...
View ArticleGet Up to Speed on What President Trump’s Budget Would Mean for Foreign Aid
The White House delivered an FY2018 budget request, featuring deep spending reductions, to a less-than-receptive Congress early last week. In a series of blog posts, CGD experts sounded off on the...
View ArticleTwo Smart Development Bills: Can Many Actors Pursue One Purpose?
Two bills just introduced in the Senate and the House, both called the Economic Growth and Development Act, take on a central challenge in US development policy and programs: lack of collaboration to...
View ArticleFour Ideas for OPIC’s New Leadership
On June 5, President Trump announced his intent to nominate Ray Washburne as the President of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and David Bohigian as Executive Vice President. OPIC, as...
View ArticleSecretary Tillerson to Testify, Tough Budget Questions Ahead
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is likely to face some tough critics when he heads to Capitol Hill this week. In his first appearance(s) before Congress since his January confirmation hearing,...
View ArticleA Bipartisan View from Three Former Treasury Officials
For the US Development Policy Initiative’s inaugural Voices of Experience event, three former Treasury Under Secretaries for International Affairs took the stage: Tim Adams of the Institute of...
View ArticleRex Tillerson’s Hearings Before Congress: What Was Said and What CGD Experts...
Here, CGD experts Amanda Glassman, Scott Morris, and Jeremy Konyndyk weigh in on some of the key points we heard (and live tweeted) during Secretary Tillerson’s testimony before the Senate Foreign...
View ArticleTime to Apply a New Sanctions Tool on Venezuela?
The controversy surrounding the recent purchase of Venezuelan government bonds by Goldman Sachs is a great reminder of the role that “preemptive contract sanctions” could play in the struggle against...
View ArticleTime for Some Credit Counseling for the World Bank’s Biggest Deadbeat Donor
At a recent budget hearing, committee chairman Hal Rogers drew Mnuchin’s attention to the fact that the “past due” notices from the World Bank and regional MDBs are now approaching a record $2 billion....
View ArticleWhere Is Trump Headed on Foreign Aid? Five Takeaways from the Tillerson and...
After months of speculation, we are finally getting some clarity on the broad outlines—and internal debates—of development policy under the Trump administration.Blog: US Development PolicyAuthor(s):...
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