Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Center for Global Development 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. The world has signed up to a set of development goals for 2030. Reaching these objectives will require a commitment to smart policies that maximize returns on scarce resources and draw upon evidence to maximize positive impact.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Sustainable Development Finance
To meet the Sustainable Development Goals, development finance must increase from billions to trillions. Our work focuses on unlocking more finance more effectively from existing and emerging sources, and on allocating those funds to meet both ongoing needs and future challenges.
Education
CGD's work in this area seeks to better understand the sources of global learning gaps and to identify solutions to help close these gaps.
Financial Inclusion and Regulation
CGD’s work in this area focuses on strengthening financial systems in development countries through innovation and regulation.
Gender and Equality
CGD’s work on gender focuses policies in aid, development finance, trade, migration and peacekeeping that will improve women’s economic empowerment worldwide.
Global Health Policy
With more countries rising out of poverty, global health progress faces new challenges. CGD work focuses on building sustainable health systems, efficient global health financing, improving global health security, addressing disease and treatment inequities, and designing fiscal policies for better health.
Governments and Development
Development is about more than foreign aid. Policies and programs of major country governments across many areas wield enormous influence on global progress. CGD provides data, evidence, and solutions that can help guide US Development Policy, UK Development Policy, and European Development Policy. We also produce the Commitment to Development Index that annually ranks the richest countries in the world according to how well their policies help improve lives in the developing world.
Migration, Displacement, and Humanitarian Policy
Today's displacement crisis calls for more than closed-border policies or traditional short-term humanitarian aid: it requires far-sighted development solutions that create economic opportunities. CGD brings evidence to these contentious political issues and devises policy solutions so migrants, refugees, and their hosts can thrive together.
Where we work
Awards
Highly Transparent Think Tanks (five stars) 2014
Transparify
External reviews

Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of list subscribers
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Adults
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
CGD's newsletter subscribers encompass an audience comprised of staff and stakeholders at government institutions, international institutions, non-profits, and more.
Number of public events held to further mission
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of attendees present at rallies/events
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Attendees to CGD's virtual and in-person events.
Number of overall donors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of convenings hosted by the organization
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Private events designed to convene critical stakeholders to engage on specific research and policy topics.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
CGD works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous, independent research and engagement with the policy community. The policies and practices of the rich and the powerful—in rich nations, as well as in emerging powers, international institutions, and global corporations—have significant impacts on the world's poor people. CGD aims to improve these policies and practices through economic research and policy engagement to expand opportunities, reduce inequalities, and improve lives everywhere. In CGD’s nearly 20-year history, our work has led to a measurable impact on the actions of development policymakers—from our proposal to build a full-service development finance institution to changing the conversation on China’s development debt.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Since its founding in 2001, CGD's data-driven approach to new ideas has informed the practices and policies of a variety of development actors and institutions. The Center's reach stems from a unique formula of independent and empirical research, timely and tactical outreach to decision makers, practical experience within the policy world, and our staff's passion for our mission.
The Center's research investigates the most pivotal issues of development policy, including migration, aid effectiveness and innovation; climate change; global governance; technology, global health and education; private investment and access to finance; and trade. CGD organizes work that is related to proposals for specific, practical policy improvements into initiatives, such as Development Impact Bonds, Cash-on-Delivery Aid, Commitment to Development Index (CDI), Europe Beyond Aid, and Tropical Forests for Climate and Development. Much of the Center's work is conducted by working groups of experts across disciplines who come together to find solutions to difficult policy challenges. Recent working groups include Unintended Consequences of Rich Countries' Anti-Money Laundering Policies on Poor Countries, the High Level Panel on the Future of Multilateral Development Banking, Energy Access Targets, and Value for Money: An Agenda for Global Health Funding Agencies.
CGD continues to capitalize on its institutional strength and academic rigor—pillars that have allowed it to actively engage with policymakers and other leaders in the international development space. It works to ensure that CGD research products and policy recommendations help inform the views and actions of policymakers, advocates, and public-opinion leaders by providing timely policy analysis derived from independent, nonpartisan research.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
CGD's senior researchers and other experts are intellectual leaders in the field of economic development policy, combining academic rigor and practical experience to reduce poverty and inequality. The Center's visiting and non-resident fellows contribute an added level of knowledge to CGD's work. Many are simultaneously employed at leading universities, institutions, and NGOs around the world.
CGD also provides promising young researchers from developing countries an opportunity to work for one year at the Center as part of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) fellowship. CGD's complete staff listing includes policy analysts, program managers, communications professionals, and research assistants. The Center's growing Alumni Association links former staff, visiting fellows, and other associates, offering periodic updates on their diverse contributions to shared global prosperity after they leave CGD.
CGD benefits from the support and guidance of an influential Board of Directors composed of prominent individuals from the public and private sectors with a passionate commitment to international development. Its Advisory Group of top-tier development economists, political scientists, and policymakers helps CGD maintain the high quality of its research and identify over-the-horizon issues for proactive detection. Additionally, CGD works with others through contractual and informal partnerships with a wide range of organizations who share complementary goals.
CGD's position as an “insider-outsider"—an organization that understands the pressures, constraints, and systems of government policymaking while maintaining external its independence and credibility—lends CGD a unique comparative advantage in its research and engagement with the policy community. Using this approach, CGD is well placed to gauge how to most effectively devote its resources at any given time depending on policy opportunities that arise. Overall, CGD devotes roughly 40 percent of its resources to longer term research and 60 percent to initiatives and immediate policy opportunities; this tilt toward work that is actionable in the nearer term reflects CGD's commitment to being a “think and do tank."
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
CGD has earned a reputation as a "think and do" tank, where independent research is channeled into practical policy proposals that help to shape decisions in rich-country capitals and international financial institutions. In over a decade, CGD has, with a unique combination of rigorous and data-driven analysis, strategic opportunism, and savvy outreach, moved a number of ideas to action. The Center has informed and shaped a number of policies of international financial institutions, the G-8 and G-20, and various governments.
Thanks to CGD's approach of melding empirical research with timely nonpartisan policy outreach, it has been able to develop pragmatic policy recommendations to tackle global challenges such as climate change, poor schooling, energy poverty, trade barriers, immigration restrictions, and money laundering and tax avoidance. CGD has put on the global agenda—and sometimes helped to drive to implementation—proposals to accelerate vaccine development; to permit migration as a tool in disaster recovery; to write down $18 billion in Nigerian debt; to make the World Bank more effective, accountable, and legitimate; and to create a new international institution for independent evaluation of poverty-reduction efforts.
Policy change takes time, however, and since its founding in 2001, CGD has persistently identified pragmatic steps that can facilitate the process of moving evidence-based research and policy recommendations into measurable impact. As the international development landscape has evolved over the past decade, so has CGD—its cadre of scholars, experts, and allies continually stay abreast of these changes and proactively develop frameworks for step-by-step policy solutions. By conducting independent economic research on development issues, CGD helps produce the building blocks and momentum necessary to make the policies and practices of rich institutions and governments better, safer, and more humane.
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT
Board of directorsas of 10/17/2022
Lawrence H. Summers
Harvard University
Edward W Scott
Masood Ahmed
Amrita Ahuja
Caroline Atkinson
Afsaneh Beschloss
George Casey
Jr.
Mary Ann Etiebet
Debra Fine
Tony Fratto
David F. Gordon
Brad Horwitz
Stephen T. Isaacs
Donald Kaberuka
John Lipsky
David Marchick
Robert McCarthy
Luis Alberto Moreno
Bobby J. Pittman
Shubhi Rao
Smita Singh
Karen Spencer
Judy Woodruff
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Not applicable -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Not applicable
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
No data
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 11/16/2020GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.