Charles Kenny
Books, Papers and Articles
Charles Kenny writes about global development — what’s working, what isn’t, and how the world can do better. An economist who spent fifteen years at the World Bank, he is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.
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At the moment this is a draft note. The Claude Code generated underlying analysis and replication package is here.
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A blog for CGD. Its quite possible the US aid cuts are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths or more in humanitarian settings. The data is weak enough that we just don’t know. We should fix that problem.
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A CGD blog with Erin Collinson. A lot of good international organizations, large and small, saw their US funding slashed in 2025.
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A CGD note. The US has played the lead role in a global humanitarian effort responding to that demand, especially with regard to HIV, malaria, and nutrition, alongside maternal and child health. Reforms to US foreign assistance can both honor the compassionate imperative while also improving efficiency, country leadership, and a transition to country financing. But to do so, those reforms must account for the differing capacities of the countries that are part of the process, and design responses appropriately. The rollout of the new Global Health Strategy should be adjusted accordingly.
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A blog for CGD. Data on outcomes like mortality is not only useful for targeting, monitoring and evaluation, it is really important for advocacy.
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New CGD paper (and blog). The reach of electricity in Africa is rapidly extending, not least thanks to an explosion in imports of solar panels. This is good news for the quality of life of people in the region and is the primary route to sustainably extend electricity access, but it imposes some challenges on the utility sector. Most of the panels are being used domestically and at small scale. This worsens what were already considerable financial challenges for utility scale private provision. And it suggests a vital role for publicly funded electricity infrastructure to ensure high-quality, financially sustainable power provision, especially to industry.
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A CGD blog with Euan Ritchie. The OECD DAC is threatening to change the rules around graduation supposedly because it is worried about aid dependent countries that will graduate soon. List of countries worldwide with ODA>10% of GNI that are anywhere near the graduation threshold: (i) Nauru (ii) Palau.
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A blog for CGD. Last time ODA fell by 25%, the DAC responded with a set of ambitious development goals to motivate and target aid where it could do the most good (they ended up as the MDGs). This time, its trying to loosen the definition of ODA so it can be used in countries where it will be less effective. Carsten Staur, Chair of the DAC, was kind enough to respond.
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For In Development with Erin Collinson. The U.S. is now operating an aid program without an aid agency. It isn’t going so well.
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A blog for CGD. Hopefully there’s about to be a lot more effective-altruist-adjacent philanthropic money around. My pitch on spending it: vaccinate everyone against everything all the time.
