Research Agenda & Publications

The Project on U.S. Leadership in Development, building upon the work of other CSIS programs, identified a set of policy areas for exploration through working group discussions with experts, government officials, and private sector representatives. Throughout the fall of 2011 and into 2012, the findings have been published in a series of short policy papers which serve to highlight the issues and offer recommendations for a broad policy audience, including the executive branch and Congress. These papers have helped to set the research and discussion agenda for 2012-2013. 

Current research projects fall into three general categories:

Trade & Finance

• Sharing Risk in a World of Dangers and Opportunities: Strengthening U.S. Development Finance Capabilities, aims to impact donor resource allocation to support high growth entrepreneurship and provide an approach to leverage limited public sector resources by attracting substantial new private investment.
• Approaches to Reinvigorate the Bilateral Investment Treaty Program, discusses the benefits that bilateral investment treaties offer for the developing world, including the continuous flow of foreign direct investment as well as ensuring protection to U.S. investors from arbitrary, discriminatory, or confiscatory government measures.
• Maximizing Development of Local Content across Industry Sectors in Emerging Markets, examines ways in which corporations and U.S. government agencies can maximize the use of local contracting in new or existing supply chains to help create effective and sustainable development in the developing world.

U.S. Government Organization

• Seizing the Opportunity in Public Private Partnerships: Strengthening Capacity at the State Department, USAID, and MCC, seeks to identify and address the major barriers to partnerships between the public and private sector in development and present a strategy for the U.S. government to move forward.
• U.S. Government Engagement with the Private Sector on International Development, provides a baseline study of USG agencies’ engagement with private companies and provides recommendations on how to enhance the reach, effectiveness, and impact of such collaboration.
• Lessons Learned from USAID Re-Budgeting, provides a study of baseline budgets and private sector contracts for the State Department and USAID, highlighting key challenges for the government and private sector in tackling budget issues.

Sectoral & Regional Issues

• Energy and Development Trends: The Role of Rapidly Emerging Countries, examines the influence of emerging economies – specifically Brazil, China, and India – on energy trends and provides recommendations on how U.S. development programs could capitalize on such trends in order to enhance energy access in the developing world.
• Private-Sector Engagement in Food Security and Agricultural Development, will focus on a layered approach of private sector engagement in agriculture development, and ways in which the U.S. government can engage, facilitate and communicate private sector efforts.
• Corporate Engagement in Natural Disaster Response: Piecing Together the Value Chain, considers the emergence of corporate actors in natural disaster response, drawing from five recent examples: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. 
• The Private-Sector Role in Public Health: Reflections on the New Global Architecture in Health, assesses the multi-lateral health agenda and focuses on areas for private sector involvement around public-private partnerships in global health, including the GAVI Alliance, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and others.
• U.S.-China Parallel Development Assistance Goals: Building on Common Interests, examines China’s official development assistance programs in Latin America and Africa and seeks to identify areas where the United States and China can increase cooperative efforts on development.
• Leading from Behind in Public-Private Partnerships? An Assessment of European Engagement with the Private Sector in Development, seeks to examine private sector philanthropy in European terms as well as how the major donor countries are incorporating the private sector into their development strategies and what best practices may serve as useful recommendations for the U.S.