CSIS Launches Forum on Global Development Opportunities
March 17, 2011
WASHINGTON, March 17, 2011 – The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce the launch of the Global Development Opportunities Forum, a public speaker series designed to bring new ideas on advancing global development and entrepreneurship to Washington, D.C.
The forum will engage the world’s most innovative leaders and thinkers on development and entrepreneurship in an ongoing conversation over the next three years. This forum will foster closer ties between government and the private sector to elevate the policy dialogue.
This new initiative comes at a critical time, when the familiar debates over foreign aid have grown tired, stale, and out of date. Challenges to an effective foreign assistance policy are growing: rapidly worsening budget constraints, debate over foreign aid reform, shifts in executive and congressional relations, the lack of a business-sector perspective, continued tensions in civilian-military development cooperation, and the arrival of the G20 world of emerging market powers. Much of the new energy and innovation resides outside of government in the private sector. This forum will be a new platform to highlight the important role that private development actors play in global development at home and abroad.
"The U.S. leadership and influence come in many forms, including our commitment to development assistance," said CSIS president and CEO Dr. John J. Hamre. "At the same time, private-sector investments and capacity building have an important role to play in ensuring growth and helping us stay safe. We see the Global Development Opportunities Forum helping to charter pathways for active collaboration between government and the private sector in the years ahead."
Topics of the forum will range from the future of development finance to emerging technologies and their application to development issues along with other, broader topics such as health, water, energy as a key driver of economic development, and stronger governance. The forum will capture ideas from the private sector, donor country governments, NGOs, and the developing world.
The forum is part of a major initiative at CSIS to shape a new intellectual landscape on global development, set a bipartisan policy agenda, and operationalize key findings. This work grows out of CSIS’s 2007 Smart Power Commission and 2010 Commission on Smart Global Health Policy, both of which influenced public debate in Washington. The first year of the forum will focus on new ideas and innovations around development, and will lead to a fresh, actionable set of recommendations for 2012 and beyond.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, non-profit organization that seeks to advance global security and prosperity by providing strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decision-makers
