Center For Global Development

The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a non-profit think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on international development. It was founded in November 2001 by former senior U.S. official Edward W. Scott, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, C. Fred Bergsten, and Nancy Birdsall. Birdsall, the former Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank and former Director of the Policy Research Department at the World Bank, became the Center's first President.

CGD's stated mission is "to reduce global poverty and inequality by encouraging policy change in the U.S. and other rich countries through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community. Recently, Foreign Policy Magazine's Think-Tank Index listed CGD as one of the top 15 think-tanks in the US. The Center considers itself to be a 'think and do' tank, with an emphasis on producing research that is channeled into practical policy proposals.

The Center is well known for leading debt relief programs, specifically in Nigeria and Liberia. CGD Vice President Todd Moss first proposed the Nigerian debt buy-back, which resulted in the Paris Club of rich nations forgiving 60% of $31 billion of debt. Former CGD senior fellow Steve Radelet advised Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her senior advisors on debt relief and aid coordination.

CGD is also known for creating the program called advance market commitments to encourage vaccine development for specific diseases. The G7 endorsed the approach and the Gates Foundation and five countries gave $1.5 billion to create a vaccine against strains of pneumonia.

With Foreign Policy Magazine, CGD produces the Commitment to Development Index. Generated annually since 2003, the index ranks countries based on how their foreign aid, trade, migration, investment, environment, security and technology policies encourage global development.