Nancy Birdsall

Birdsall House Rules Lessons about impact and team building I've learned from a true trailblazer

Wow. Thank you Todd! Recommending your Substack...
Birdsall House Rules open.substack.com/pub/toddmoss...

Such great stuff...Renewed congrats to @mclem.org and to @helen-dempster.bsky.social

Thoughtful and thorough piece on the risk to independent research at World Bank of latest reorg. To every economist everywhere working on global development: Read this and resist. @charlesjkenny.bsky.social @eeshani.bsky.social

Commitment to Development Index | Center for Global Development The Commitment to Development Index ranks 40 of the world's most powerful countries on their dedication to policies that affect more than 5 billion people living in poorer nations. Sweden leads this y...

Sweden best. US worst of advanced economies. (SIgh). www.cgdev.org/cdi#/ @cgdev.org

Women Have Been Disproportionately Harmed by Trump Administration Aid, Migration, and Trade Policies The first year of the second Trump administration has seen a broad assault on global flows of goods, services, finance, and people, with an outsize impact on low- and middle-income countries. As a sid...

Well beyond Epstein: the harms to trafficked girls & women worldwide with Trump Admin cuts to "DEI/gender" programs: www.cgdev.org/blog/women-h.... Ths Charles Kenny @cgdev.org

"...the long game requires that the rest of us learn from this revolting era......how to constrain [the rich and powerful]." @rbreich.bsky.social substack...

Come listen learn...what should be the "new course"?

Tough Times, Tough Choices: Charting PEPFAR’s Next Chapter While Safeguarding Its Legacy The Trump administration and key congressional lawmakers are shaping a new US government approach to the future of PEPFAR, alongside other global health programs like malaria and tuberculosis. We prop...

On Pepfar this is smart on the $$ and the politics, and full of ("compassionate", literally) wisdom. Read and see: www.cgdev.org/publication/...

In 2025 We Showed Up: Notes on Resistance to the Regime A young white woman in yoga clothes berating masked ICE agents in a parking lot this spring. A pope speaking up again and again for immigrants. Furious judges dressing down the Trump administration an...

My fellow Americans: Take heart. Resistance is everywhere, all the time. Thanks @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social www.meditationsinanemergency.com/in-2025-we-s...

In 2025 We Showed Up: Notes on Resistance to the Regime Ayoung white woman in yoga clothes berating masked ICE agents in a parking lot this spring. A pope speaking up again and again for immigrants. Furious judges dressing down the Trump administration and...

I took inventory. It looked good.

Opinion | This Is What Democrats Must Learn From Mamdani’s Victory

Mamdani's appeal to me (!) (via @davidwallace.bsky.social): "..in his real-life suit and smile, he looks the part of an eager-beaver student council president." www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/o...

Wonderful: "Mamdani on election night thanked Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas. Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses. Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties. Thanks @hcrichardson.bsky.social @mclem.org

Accessible to all! ...my paper in Journal of Econ Perspectives on World Bank's 1993 East Asian "Miracle" report ("Too Much A Product of Its TIme?") (www.aeaweb.org/full_issue.p...). @cgdev.org @mclem.org @arvind2011.bsky.social @justsand.bsky.social

Birth Announcement: A Sovereign Wealth Fund to Protect Tropical Forests Luckily, good ideas have long half-lives. An idea developed here at CGD in 2018 to protect tropical forests forever (literally forever) will be born officially at COP30 in Belém. At a side meeting dur...

On the long "pregnancy" and the imminent birth of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility: www.cgdev.org/blog/birth-a... @cgdev.org. I never lost hope....Thank you @lulaoficialbluesky.bsky.social

The Backlash Has Arrived: 6 Takeaways From a Good Night for Democrats

Photo tells a story: Women were the driving force behind Abigail Spanberger's win in Virginia www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/u...

Indeed. Jen, the Post misses your thoughtful and well-written commentaries dearly. Your departure was the tip of the 'democracy dies on darkness' iceberg.

Long-run employment effects of Bush-era tariffs: When will they ever learn?

The World Bank Group Reorganization: A Retreat from Research Quality? A recent PowerPoint presentation presents the outline for the institutional structure of “The WBG Knowledge Bank.” But a knowledge bank owes it to its stakeholders impartial and transparent considerat...

Independent research at risk at the World Bank?!??!? Ouch/No! On why that's a bad idea: www.cgdev.org/blog/world-b... @eeshani.bsky.social @cgdev.org

Trump’s Gilded Ballroom and the Fall of the American Republic Tackiness and tyranny go hand in hand

"Tackiness and tyranny go hand in hand": open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

Bring a frog to No Kings protest and have some fun; (Trump hates being laughed at): wIsdom from Bill McKibben: mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?sh...

The charts are terrifying. I hope someone is showing them to Rubio.

Even Federal Court Judges Know the MAGA Justices are Out of Control The Roberts Court makes obvious the need for serious reform

"No other country has true lifetime tenure for its justices, and for good reason". Too bad we do as the Roberts Court is "out of control". contrarian.substack.com/p/even-feder...

Who Bears the Burden? Tracking the Global Impact of Recent US Foreign Policy Shifts Since January, the United States has adopted a range of foreign economic policies with negative impacts on the rest of the world, including higher tariffs on exports, taxes on remittances, and reducti...

See what countries are most affected (negatively) by recent US policy changes. Impressive analysis with depressing result -- poorer countries lose out most. www.cgdev.org/blog/who-bea...

World’s oceans fail key health check as acidity crosses critical threshold for marine life Scientists call for renewed global effort to curb fossil fuels as seven of nine planetary boundaries now transgressed

Better go see coral reefs soon. Take photos for your children Oceans are failing. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Catholic Schools in the Congo Ban Pregnant Girls Almost everywhere, girls who get pregnant in school are allowed to finish their education. Only five countries still have explicit bans or restrictions: Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Kuwait, a...

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...

Bill McKibben on Trump at the UN manages to be funny, sort of:https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-stupidest-speech-in-un-history?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=438146&post_id=174385635&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=jub32&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I like this representation of headwinds!

Can developing countries expect inequality to fall post-structural transformation, as predicted by the Kuznets Curve?

@nbirdsall.bsky.social highlights unforeseen headwinds—populism, climate damage, and more—that pose new challenges ⬇️
https://bit.ly/45DsCr4

This Admin fears experts. I have think of colleagues/friends, now US citizens with US-born children, who are here thanks to those H1B visas.

WGA WRITERS protest abc & disney : “Writers against fascism — this isn’t just about Kimmel, it’s about our ability to say what we want and not be punished by the state… a chilling effect… you don’t capitulate to bullies…”

(from @moreperfectunion.bsky.social )