President Bush recently called on Congress to increase U.S. food aid and development programs by $770 million. In a recent op-ed, Noam Unger, senior manager of Brookingsí Foreign Aid Reform Project, discusses how U.S. assistance programs should be strengthened in order to improve the effectiveness of Americaís aid during the global food crisis and beyond. Read More

Foreign Assistance Reform, Foreign Aid, Global Food Crisis, Global Governance, Development Missing from the recent IMF-World Bank ministerial meetings was an understanding that policy development needs to be an interactive process, one that includes financial officials and law makers. Colin Bradford advises the world's legislators must be brought into the conversation about global development in order for these discussions to†evolve into successful action. Read More Global Governance, International Monetary Fund, Financial Services, World Bank, Global Economics Rising food prices partly reflect the spillover from high energy costs, and are causing major problems for poor people. Homi Kharas argues for more development assistance for agriculture production to increase food supplies in the long run as well as for more assistance for sustainable development projects to create jobs and higher wages so that poor people can afford the rising costs of food. While the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings made recent headlines, the Global Philanthropy Forum, gathering top private aid donors, fell in the shadows. These private aid donors will likely give more aid to the worldís poor this year than the institutions that convened the Spring Meetings. Raj Desai and Homi Kharas compare these two events and discuss how private aid can help to relieve global poverty.

Rising Food Prices: a Global Crisis