CFR health expert Laurie Garrett says the start of a new U.S. administration amid a global economic crisis offers an opportunity to reform the system for delivering foreign aid.
Gallup suggests that the Obama administration's African aid policies focus not just on health, but also on infrastructure development and other areas that many Africans expressed dissatisfaction with in recent polling data.
If it hopes to achieve its foreign policy agenda, the Obama administration will need to undo the damage to the Foreign Service wrought by the Bush administration.
From South Africa to Kenya, hopes are high that Barack Obama will focus new attention on Africa. But given the domestic economic challenges he faces, some African analysts say the continent should concentrate on helping itself.
The impact of U.S. economic woes on foreign policy and national security programs is not yet clear, but sectors from defense to development aid are bracing for tighter budgets.
Iraq says it wants to sell oil contracts to foreign energy firms. The potential impact on energy markets could be large, but practical and political obstacles still prevent rapid production increases.
We are now several months into the global food crisis. Food prices have almost doubled in three years, threatening to push 100 million people into absolute poverty, undoing much of the development progress of the past few years. The new hunger has triggered riots from Haiti to Egypt to Ethiopia, threatening political stability; it has conjured up a raft of protectionist policies, threatening globalization. Yet, Sebastian Mallaby argues that the response to this crisis from governments the world over has been lackadaisical or worse.
Michael Gerson considers the motives of seven senators who are blocking the passage of an A.I.D.S. relief bill, asking “How much do seven members of the U.S. Senate weigh?”
Daniel Gustafson of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says the next president should place agricultural policy high on the development agenda.
Listen to CFR International Affairs Fellow Amy B. Frumin discuss issues surrounding post-conflict reconstruction with students as part of CFR's Academic Conference Call Series.
This call is made possible in part by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.
The author analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.