What we've written.
What we're reading.

Our own articles in the major outlets, and the writing that informs the work.


What we've written
National Affairs · Summer 2026
Reforming Foreign Assistance
The case for a foreign assistance system that is less bureaucratic, more focused on growth, and built to end — from a former USAID Foreign Service Officer.
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Fox News · July 2025
How You Build a Foreign Aid System That Actually Works
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What we're reading
An Africanist Perspective · May 2026
A Caution Against Faddist Approaches to Industrial Policy
Ken Opalo on why the World Bank's newfound enthusiasm for industrial policy will produce the same faddist failures as every previous orthodoxy — and why African governments should ignore the best-practice packaging.
NBER · May 2026
The Sisyphean Pursuit of Evidence for Poverty Traps
Dean Karlan and co-authors reassess poverty traps: the theory is more often assumed than empirically demonstrated.
Devex · May 2026
Global Health in 2026: Hard Truths from 11 Leaders
Even insiders concede the system is no longer fit for purpose.
U.S. State Department · April 2026
A New Model for Economic Prosperity in Africa
State's Nick Checker on commercial diplomacy: deals over programs, results over disbursement.
Unlock Aid · March 2026
Solutions Index
A reference directory of pacesetting organizations across global health, food security, and nutrition.
Persuasion · March 2026
Growth Is All You Need
Quico Toro on Pritchett's case against RCTs, and for growth-first development.
NBER · December 2025
What Would it Cost to End Extreme Poverty?
Paul Niehaus and co-authors price the end of extreme poverty: 0.3% of global GDP.
Asterisk · 2024
Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses
Karthik Tadepalli on the "missing middle" of development: not household interventions, not growth platitudes, but firm growth — the rigorous, ambitious lens that ties aid to prosperity.
Foreign Policy · April 2024
Trump's Foreign Aid Threat Offers Chance for Change
The reform opportunity hiding in the aid-cuts moment.
CID · May 2021
National Development Delivers: And How! And How?
Lant Pritchett on the case for growth: no country has reached high wellbeing without it.
USAID OIG · September 2019
USAID's Award Oversight Is Insufficient to Hold Implementers Accountable for Achieving Results
Nearly half of sampled awards failed to achieve expected results — yet implementers were generally paid in full. An agency-wide failure of accountability, not a war-zone anomaly.
National Affairs · Fall 2013
Kludgeocracy in America
Steven Teles on why government complexity, not size, is the deeper problem.
CGD · July 2010
The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development
Andrew Natsios on the paradox: the most measurable programs are the least transformational, and the most transformational the least measurable.
In the press
Devex Pro Insider · June 2026
The US Aid Spending Push — and Pull
Michael Igoe on the emerging architecture of U.S. foreign aid — including The New Foreign Assistance and its role in shaping what comes next.
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Devex Pro Insider · May 2026
Foreign Aid's Time of Monsters
Michael Igoe on the interregnum in U.S. foreign aid — the old system dying, the new one still taking shape — and where The New Foreign Assistance fits the moment.
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Devex Newswire · May 2026
Deciphering the US Rules That Have Everyone Guessing
Daniel Handel on the launch of The New Foreign Assistance — and a candid accounting of what went wrong with the old system, and why the rebuild matters.
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