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Joschka Fischer, the 2007 Bartels World Affairs Fellow, speaks at Cornell University.

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Birdsall calls for new policies addressing global poverty

Posted on: 11/20/2008

The new presidents' actions on global poverty will determine the future of U.S. security and prosperity said Nancy Birdsall at her lecture on November 3rd. The Director of the Einaudi Center, Nicolas van de Walle, introduced Ms. Birdsall as a speaker in the Center’s Foreign Policy Distinguished Speaker Series.

Nancy Birdsall, President of the Center for Global Development (CGD), gave a lecture entitled, “A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President.” Her lecture focused around the idea that, “our security and prosperity are more and more dependent on what happens in countries where people are poor by any reasonable standard.” In the new “post-American century,” emerging economies’ GDPs will be overpowering those of the developed world, and by 2050, the majority of the world’s population will be living in developing countries. As the world becomes more globalized, the attitudes and policies of the U.S. towards these developing countries will be integral to the country’s success in the world.

Birdsall showed how modest changes in U.S. policies could greatly improve the lives of poor people in developing countries, thus fostering greater stability, security and prosperity globally and at home. She proposed four themes around which she has based recommendations for the new president. First and foremost, the U.S. must lead from its strengths by putting its technical and business “prowess” to work for the world’s poor. The second recommendation was to build a shared prosperity by creating a more “interconnected world” through trade liberalization, increased immigration and more investments with the development of capital markets. The third recommendation was to “modernize foreign assistance” through better organization; leverage multilateral mechanisms like the World Bank; apply developmental expertise in Iraq and Afghanistan; and develop a better crisis response. Lastly, the U.S. needs to “take a multilateral approach” with stronger support for international institutions that encourage greater engagement from a wider variety of countries.

Birdsall ended the lecture on a mixed note, advising that the president-elect needs to “champion global development” early on in his term to gain support for his global initiatives, but also worrying that enough action might not be taken.

Prior to launching the Center for Global Development, Ms. Birdsall has been in various research, policy and management positions at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. She is the author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books and monographs, including, most recently, The White House and the World: A Global Development Agenda for the Next U.S. President and Delivering on Debt Relief: From IMF Gold to a New Aid Architecture. Ms. Birdsall has been researching and writing on economic development issues for more than 25 years. Her most recent work focuses on the relationship between income distribution and economic growth.

Nancy Birdsall’s talk was part of the Foreign Policy Initiative at Cornell led by the Einaudi Center to maximize the intellectual impact of Cornell’s outstanding resources in this area.

Contact Information
Heike Michelsen
Einaudi Center
255 8926
hm75@cornell.edu

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