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Technology and Development
Technological advances are a driving force for development. But policy choices determine who benefits. CGD focuses on three key questions around innovation, growth, and inequality: How can governments use existing technologies to deliver services more effectively to citizens? How can international institutions help create and spread new technologies to tackle shared problems like climate change and pandemics? And how can policymakers ensure advances in artificial intelligence, automation, and communications bring shared benefits and not greater global inequality?
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John Polcari
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For the policymaker looking to improve services and the delivery of benefits, or for the financial institution trying to expand its customer base, the gap between technical solutions and the situation of the average technology user represents fertile ground for the many new opportunities that the digital economy provides.
On Friday, the World Bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, told the Wall Street Journal that the Bank unfairly influenced its own competitiveness rankings. He highlighted the case of Chile which suffered lower rankings on the Doing Business index during the Bachelet administration versus the Piñera years, and recalculated these rankings on his personal blog. Today, he issued a clarification of his views.
Recent advances in the scope and sophistication of identification systems could have far-reaching consequences for development. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are common features that ID systems should share if they are to support development.

Digital identification has become a focus for development policies and programs, and not a moment too soon. Identification Revolution: Can Digital ID be Harnessed for Development considers where these trends are heading.
Here at CGD, we’re always working on new ideas to stay on top of the rapidly changing global development landscape. Whether it’s examining new technologies with the potential to alleviate poverty, presenting innovative ways to finance global health, assessing changing leadership at international institutions, or working to maximize results in resource-constrained environments, CGD’s experts are at the forefront of practical policy solutions to reduce global poverty and inequality. Get an in-depth look below at their thoughts on the 2018 global development landscape.
India’s reform of household subsidies for the purchase of LPG cooking gas stands out for a several reasons. The paper provides a detailed picture of the reform through its various stages, including how the process was conceptualized, coordinated, and implemented. It analyzes how such a reform must be able to adapt to concerns as they arise and to new information, how digital technology was used and how it is possible to use a voluntary self-targeting “nudge” to defuse potential resistance to income-based targeting.
With the biometric registration of 9.2 million adults and documentation of 4.5 million children, Malawi has made a massive stride towards SDG 16.9 which requires states to “provide legal identity to all, including birth registration, by 2030”. How has Malawi achieved universal coverage in only 180 days despite lack of key infrastructure and scarce technical resources? What are the potential digital dividends of this initiative for Malawi and its people, and what can development partners and other countries learn from it? Tariq Malik, Chief Technical Advisor of UNDP, who leads this project, will walk us through this journey of success in the heart of Africa.
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