The Economic Support Fund has been used recently to finance (ia): the budget of the government of Ukraine; private sector development, governance, fighting disease... now the Administration wants to use $1.4 billion from it for (short thread)... www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Please Pope Leo: speak to this foolish meanness. Sometimes it's embarrassing (and maddening) to be even a "fallen-away" Catholic: www.cgdev.org/blog/catholi...

Favorite World Bank graph of all time. Now I know your fancy econometricians with their highfalutin' views on causality and its demonstration might want to argue, but sometimes evidence speaks for itself. Almost Perfectly matches a graph of global GNI over time and the conclusion is obvious.

"This new tax on highly educated workers [the H1-B $100k fee]—127 times higher than the US visa fees for workers without a high school degree—is effectively a skill penalty." www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

Global Aid Freeze tracker surveying US foreign assistance implementing partners on impacts of aid cuts. Lots of info here and if you are an implementing partner please fill out their survey. www.globalaidfreeze.com

Some not-totally-disinterested and probably not-original thoughts on what foundations should be doing at a time like this. www.cgdev.org/blog/foundat...

Some not-totally-disinterested and probably not-original thoughts on what foundations should be doing at a time like this. www.cgdev.org/blog/foundat...

Awesome

Please do not forget to panic about this: www.cgdev.org/blog/us-fund...

Blog: The World Bank and Climate Projects- A Matter of Definition. For climate finance at the Bank, almost everything counts in small amounts. In some ways that's fair, but it does make it hard to tell if things are additional, useful or well targeted. www.cgdev.org/blog/world-b...

New note on the status of PEPFAR from Ramona Godbole, formerly of USAID, for @CGDev. 24% by value of USAID’s PEPFAR awards have been reported terminated, including 16% lifesaving HIV programming. Thread and link below.

this awesome

"Long-wrought WTO agreement aimed at reducing overfishing takes effect" apnews.com/article/wto-...

15 days to the end of the fiscal year. Administration meant to give 15 days notification to Congress of new obligations. So today is last day to obligate any expiring funds. Better hope pocket rescission deemed constitutional? www.cgdev.org/blog/theres-... www.cgdev.org/blog/pocket-...

US Administration said it was going to have a "180 day review" of involvement in international organizations. 223 days later there's still no review, but US has simply stopped paying membership dues to the considerable majority of organizations.

ICYM: International bodies for which the US Administration has apparently stopped paying assessed dues include (thread):

Nodding along with this (too).

Short thread for those most interested by the fact US has zeroed out payments to NATO. US owes about 77m Euro to the 2025 NATO (civilian/HQ) budget. So far it has paid zero.

Blog: US Funding of International Organizations Has Collapsed With weeks left in FY, US has paid zero toward assessed (membership) contributions to WHO, WTO, FAO, ILO, UNESCO, NATO, OECD, WMO, WIPO & more. FY26 budget suggests paying dues to only 7 out of 46 organizations under the IO account.

Blog: US Funding of International Organizations Has Collapsed With weeks left in FY, US has paid zero toward assessed (membership) contributions to WHO, WTO, FAO, ILO, UNESCO, NATO, OECD, WMO, WIPO & more. FY26 budget suggests paying dues to only 7 out of 46 organizations under the IO account.

Yay H.R. 1764 that would exempt IDA from certain US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration requirements! (Worth ~$700m to IDA over five years at no cost to US taxpayer) www.cgdev.org/blog/how-leg...

Some good news: the administration is moving ahead with plans to put up to 2 million people on lenacapvir (shot that prevents HIV infection). apnews.com/article/hiv-...

Thread of some USAID projects (still) cancelled that were providing lifesaving support, from the Project Resource Optimization list. They could still be restarted, they could still save lives...

Thread of some USAID projects (still) cancelled that were providing lifesaving support, from the Project Resource Optimization list. They could still be restarted, they could still save lives...

This new World Bank procurement rule makes borrowers have to jump through bureaucratic hoops if they *don't* want to impose quotas, or jump through hoops showing they've imposed quotas. But that's only *one* of the ways it is just really silly....

"the Italian government continues to stand out for the tones of its language and the dramatization of the phenomenon of landings from the sea....it also reveals serious contradictions with its vision... above all having opened the doors to the entry of 450,000 workers in three years"

ICYMI: World Bank panders to unreasonable donors by making life harder for borrowers (again).

New blog. The World Bank’s New Local Labor Procurement Rule: Mostly Ineffective, Marginally Harmful, and Considerably Craven. Adding more sludge to World Bank bureaucracy to pander to a few shareholders. Multilateralism not at its finest. www.cgdev.org/blog/world-b...

A thread and blog as to where (I think) we are on US foreign assistance, rescissions, and delivery, starting with global health.

I'm glad China and Africa read my tweet. x.com/charlesjkenn...

A day of shame for the UK. A political party proposes mass deportations and the response from other political parties is not to condemn this as going further than even Mosley or the National Front.

Lisa Cook documented the devastation of the end of Reconstruction. This graph, from her paper "Violence and Economic Activity," shows the effects of Jim Crow on Black patenting and newspapers. As she said on Planet Money: "1899 was the peak year for African American patents per capita. It still is."

This is very well worth the read.

1. Immunization programs save millions & are very cost-effective, especially in poorest countries. 2. Giving a very poor family $1k especially in a famine and especially around childbirth likely has a *big* impact on infant mortality. Let's do both as often as possible (it should be always).

To any @financialtimes.com editors out there... Hed: "Development finance could fill the gaps left by cuts in aid programmes" Dek: "DFIs can provide an essential source of financing for businesses" Problem: that's not what the cut aid programmes did. www.ft.com/content/cf1c...

My article The New Economic Geography is out today in @foreignaffairs.com Please read! (Ungated link, suitable for sharing) shared.outlook.inky.com/link?domain=...

Approximate list of USAID and State awards by status from Wayan Vota at Career Pivot. Suggests very considerable terminations of State awards, too. mypivot.substack.com/p/updated-st...

Blog: fixing the spending crisis at the Department of State. Compared to FY24 obligations, FY25 (post rescission) budget, and OMB forecasts for FY25 spending, actual FY25 obligations are running far behind across the major US foreign assistance accounts....

Nancy Lee on proposed cuts to MCC programs. Confusing that MCC, seemingly aligned with focus on supporting friends & economic partners, & countering Chinese investment offer, is under attack from an admin that says it wants more focus on that. www.cgdev.org/blog/what-ar...

Some broadly hopeful news on FY26 US international development budget from @ecollinson.bsky.social and Justin Hurley. House >> administration proposal. www.cgdev.org/blog/house-a...

“People are already dying.” @charlesjkenny.bsky.social at @cgdev.org spotlights some of the lifesaving #GlobalHealth programs and clinical trials—including a PATH-led malaria vaccine study—halted by US aid cuts, and the human costs of aid withdrawal. ⬇️

Blog on the rescissions package. Good news: Global health largely protected, language on preserving HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, nutrition, & maternal * child health spending. If translated into ongoing programs, would considerably reduce risk of deaths from cuts.

Blog on the rescissions package. Good news: Global health largely protected, language on preserving HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, nutrition, & maternal * child health spending. If translated into ongoing programs, would considerably reduce risk of deaths from cuts.

"Each uncounted life is a missed opportunity to better understand the world, to track progress, spot emerging problems, answer empirical questions, and direct resources efficiently. To build a world where fewer people suffer or die unseen, we must invest resources in seeing more clearly."

I am sure David Lammy is right that "African leaders are fed up with 'ping-pong' funding that begins under one government and is canceled under the next," so look forward to hearing him confirm the UK government will avoid canceling any funding. www.devex.com/news/uk-fore...

"US foreign assistance draws from a pool of finance refreshed by a stream of obligations. The stream has been dry for nearly six months, and the worsening drought will kill many thousands." @charlesjkenny.bsky.social on the ongoing crisis in US foreign aid: www.cgdev.org/blog/ongoing...

New blog: There is a bipartisan consensus to preserve lifesaving US foreign assistance. I list twelve large, lifesaving USAID awards that have been cancelled. If we want to avoid a mounting death toll, these awards need to be reinstated.

From today: www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

I wrote a review of Pippa Norris' book "In Praise of Scepticism: Trust But Verify" for the Economic Record. ia: data Norris presents suggests trust in family and trust in others reasonably strongly correlated, but more weakly with measures of state and global governance

If Secretary Rubio would like to reverse this surely mistaken cancellation of life-saving assistance in DRC, he could start with reinstating awards 720BHA24IO00248 and 72066024FA00002... www.wsj.com/world/africa...