Center for Global Development

Background

The Center for Global Development (CGD) is a left-of-center think tank based in Washington, D.C. that works to develop economic policies to achieve progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. ¹ It does this through research, data development, consultation, public events, publications, and policy proposals. ³

CGD was founded in November 2001 by Edward Scott Jr., C. Fred Bergsten, and Nancy Birdsall. Scott was a former United States government official, a technology entrepreneur, and a philanthropist. Bergsten was a director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Birdsall was a former head of the World Bank research department. She became CGD’s first president. ⁴

Focus Areas

Center for Global Development focus areas are directly related to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. ⁵ They are left-of-center priority issues such as “climate,” “financial inclusion,” “gender equality and inclusion,” “migration,” and “sustainable development.” ¹

CDG’s research on climate finance supports a “new economic order” by ensuring that higher income countries support the poorer countries to address the impacts of climate. ⁶ As part of its research on government policies, it developed a Commitment to Development Index that ranks countries in their efforts to support poorer countries. ⁷

CDG is a partner of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, which works to ensure that data can be leveraged to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. ^{8 9}

Funding

Donors who contributed over $1 million in 2023 included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, Open Philanthropy, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Additional 2023 donors included the IKEA Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). ²

The Gates Foundation has awarded over $16.4 million to CGD since 2022. Its 2024 donors include Bloomberg Philanthropies, Co-Impact Philanthropic Funds, and the International Rescue Committee. ¹⁰

CGD, along with the World Resources Institute and the Brookings Institution, were named as the top three recipients of foreign funding in a report published by the Center for International Policy entitled “Foreign Funding of Think Tanks in America” in 2020. As of 2020 these organizations received more than $174 million in foreign funding from more than 80 countries and international organizations. ¹¹

Grantmaking

In 2023, Center for Global Development granted Research Triangle Institute $980,799 and Refugees International $387,496 for research projects. ¹² The Research Triangle Institute (RTI) is a nonprofit research institute focused on “improving the human condition” through scientific research with practice areas in health, education, equity, and climate. ¹³ Refugees International is a left-of-center advocacy organization in support of global refugee rights. ¹⁴

In 2023, CGD granted over $2.2 million to the Center for Global Development Europe (CGDE). ¹⁵ The CDGE is a think tank located in London, United Kingdom focused on “research and education on poverty, health, and other issues.” ¹⁶ It was established in 2011 as a separate organization from CGD with a separate board of trustees, but it is a related organization focused on research on “development issues related to how the policies of the rich and powerful impact on the world’s poor and most vulnerable.” ¹⁷

Leadership

Rachel Glennerster became president of the Center for Global Development in 2024. ¹ Previously she was an associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago, the chief economist at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom, and executive director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a board member of Our World in Data. ^{18 19}

Masood Ahmed is president emeritus, serving as president from 2017 to 2024. Ahmed graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science and held leadership positions at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund in the United States, and the Department for International Development in London, United Kingdom. ²⁰

Lawrence Summers has been the board chair since 2014. He is president emeritus of Harvard University. Previously he served as the Director of the White House National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy for the Obama administration, the Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, and a vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is a board member of the Brookings Institution, Teach for America, the Institute for International Economics, and the Partnership for Public Service. Summers is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Group of Thirty. He earned his bachelor of science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. ^{21 22 23}

Edward Scott Jr. was the founding board chair. Scott was an executive in the United States government for 17 years then worked in several technology companies and co-founded BEA Systems, which was later acquired by Oracle Corporation. Scott founded several nonprofit organizations, including Center for Global Development, Friends of the Global Fight with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty. He co-founded advocacy organization DATA along with liberal billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and George Soros. Scott is a board member of the United States Global Leadership Coalition and Peterson Institute for International Economics.” ²⁴