This year the Center on Global Poverty will be hosting a virtual and in-person series of talks on “The Future of Foreign Aid” and rolling out new research resources, including a small grants program.
The Future of Foreign Aid
A Virtual and In-Person Speaker Series
organized and hosted by Keith Moore
January 16, 2026, 3PM EST
Rachel Glennerster, President, Center for Global Development
Innovation is the main driver of long-term growth and development. It has also allowed substantial improvements in human welfare at a given level of income: life expectancy for low-income countries is much higher now than it was when advanced economies were at similar levels of income. A major reason is the invention and dissemination of simple health technologies like vaccines. But as a world we underinvest in innovation, particularly innovations that benefit low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) or address global public goods like climate change or anti-microbial resistance. In this talk I will discuss using innovative financing techniques such as Advance Market Commitments to stimulate private sector innovation to fill critical needs for new technologies for development. I will end by discussing innovations needed in how we do aid.
February 20, 2026, 3PM EST
Fridah Mubichi-Kut, The Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business & College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Beyond Aid: How Emerging Technologies Can Promote Development in the Absence of Foreign Aid
Development aid has played a significant role in many of Africa’s economic development efforts. Funding focused on education, agriculture, and health care have influenced institutional development, policy, and poverty reduction strategies over the last 60 years. Over this extended period, aid also exacerbated dependency, worsened corruption, and stifled innovation as many prioritized securing donor funds and programs that offered technology transfer. Following the loss of bilaterial aid, particularly from the USA, this talk examines two broad questions. First, how have governments and the local private sector adjusted their priorities following the drastic shifts in bilaterial aid? Second, knowing the African Union has prioritized artificial intelligence (AI) for economic development, how can social enterprises supported by AI encourage investments instead of aid?
March 20, 2026, 3PM EST
Deborah Rubin, Director, Cultural Practices, LLC
Potentials and Pitfalls for Women Agri-entrepreneurs
For two decades both public and private sectors invested in building inclusive agricultural systems, strengthening women’s engagement in food and market systems. USAID launched the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) in 2012 to measure their progress. In 2019, Congress passed Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act paralleling growing corporate and foundation initiatives supporting women’s economic empowerment (WEE). With USAID’s termination, these efforts were quickly dismantled. Although some national and foundation efforts are beginning to replenish public health funding, scant attention is being given to women’s agricultural enterprises. What happened to the idea that, as stated in the 2019 law, “women’s entrepreneurship and economic empowerment is important to achieve inclusive economic growth at all levels of society”? This talk looks at current approaches to preserve gains achieved in law and practice for women’s entrepreneurship in agri-business, and how they might be extended in the new environment for foreign assistance.
April TBD, 2026 3PM EST
Dean Karlan
Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance, Northwestern University
Co-Director, Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University
In this moment of apparent crisis for international development many are calling for a strident focus on using remaining resources to fund clear, tangible, ‘proven’ interventions targeting the most vulnerable groups in the most difficult contexts. But if sophisticated charity becomes the best multilateral agencies and large philanthropies can do, then development professionals will have “defined development down” to the point of abandonment. No country has ever graduated from low to middle-income status or escaped the “middle income trap” on a strategy prioritizing a series of calibrated, technical, micro-interventions, though of course many individuals have benefited from such approaches. Achieving national goals – economic growth, infrastructure, public health, education, housing, transport, regulation, justice – requires comprehensive national strategies and public sector ministries led by qualified teams with high levels of professional ethics, policy skills, and implementation capability. Sustainable national development enhancing the lives of billions is achieved by consistently solving (ever larger, more complex, and often novel) problems, not selling (small-scale, relatively simple, predetermined) solutions.
October 24, 2025, 3PM EST
Mary-Collier Wilks, University of North Carolina-Wilmington
Reimagining Aid: Foreign Donors, Women’s Health, and New Paths for Development in Cambodia
Norms of “global” development, often based on industrialized nations in the West, are being reimagined. In her forthcoming book, Wilks takes readers to Cambodia, a country at the heart of this transformation. Based on a multi-sited ethnography examining aid donors from Japan and the U.S., and the implementation of their aid to women’s health in Cambodia, the book documents two processes in the reimagining of regional development norms. The first is that, foreign donors from the U.S. and Japan bring distinctive priorities alongside their aid programming. The second is that, development actors in Cambodia use differences in donor priorities to argue for two model paths to development, one stereotypical “Western” and the other new and “Asian.” Combining elements of each model, Cambodians construct their own hybrid visions of the role that the state, market, civil society, and gender should play in development.
October 17, 2025, 3PM EST
Rob Bertram, Food Security Leadership Council, ex-USAID
Ending Extreme Poverty and Accompanying Hunger and Child Stunting
Extreme poverty, well beneath the “poverty line”, persists and is concentrated in rural areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Even so, it presents opportunities for focused improvement in which families and communities help themselves. Economics and social science offer powerful tools and evidence for what refocused investment should look like. Results from recent investments to mitigate high food and fertilizer prices feature examples of promising, demand-driven, and market-led solutions reaching scale. The demise of USAID is a setback in the task of ending the worst concentrations of extreme poverty and associated morbidity and mortality, but in its wake a sharper, clearer focus will be needed to achieve fundamental 21st century goals, for example Ending Hunger, Sustainable Development Goal 2.
September 19, 2025, 3PM EST
George Ingram, Brookings Institution
Aid in an Era of Disruption
The presentation will cover the changed global context, hindrances to effective development, and elements of a new aid effectiveness agenda.
Wednesday, May 21, 12PM Eastern time
Sustainable Development Virtual Workshop
Jennifer Keahey, “Indigenous Critiques of Sustainable Development”
JHU Center on Global Poverty Speaker Series with Nilanjan Raghunath, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Singapore University of Technology and Design
Reprogramming Inequality: Rethinking AI’s Role in the Fight Against Poverty
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being adopted in efforts to address poverty through innovations such as algorithmic credit scoring, automated social service delivery, and predictive tools for resource allocation. These technologies are often celebrated for their potential to improve efficiency, expand access, and optimize decision-making at scale.
However, to ensure these tools genuinely support the people they are intended to help, it is essential to consider not only what AI can do, but how and for whom it is being implemented. Who defines the problems AI seeks to solve? Whose perspectives are included in the design of these systems? And how do we ensure that technological solutions remain grounded in the realities of the communities they aim to serve?
This talk explores AI not merely as a set of tools, but as part of a broader system shaped by social, institutional, and ethical considerations. Drawing on practical examples, I will examine how AI is reshaping definitions of “need” and influencing the distribution of support and resources. While these technologies hold promise, they also carry risks—particularly when they reduce complex human experiences to data points or overlook the nuances of daily life in underserved communities.
I will also highlight the critical importance of qualitative methods—such as interviews, ethnographic research, and community engagement—in complementing data-driven approaches. These methods help illuminate what is often invisible in datasets: context, meaning, and human experience.
As a solution, I propose a co-design model for AI in social systems—one that brings together technologists, policymakers, and the communities most affected by poverty. By creating inclusive design processes, supporting interdisciplinary research, and embedding accountability mechanisms into AI development, we can build systems that are not only effective, but equitable. The goal is not to reject the use of AI in poverty alleviation, but to advocate for more thoughtful, inclusive, and accountable systems—ones that are informed by the people most affected and grounded in a deep understanding of social realities.
Thursday, May 1, 1PM Eastern time
Sustainable Development Group Virtual Workshop
Enrique Pumar, “Pragmatic vs. Revolutionary Visions of Sustainability”
Discussant: James Linn
April 25, 2025, 1:00-2:30PM (US Eastern Time)
JHU Center on Global Poverty Speaker Series/ASA Sociology of Development section webinar:
The Attack on USAID
Please join us for a discussion of what happened, why, and where we go from here.
Laura Adams and Anna Calasanti on the experiences of aid agency workers
Blair Glencorse of the Accountability Lab on consequences around the world
Laura Heideman on what happens when donor withdrawal is poorly planned
The US experience in the context of the recent defunding of international development in Europe
Keith Moore: where do we go from here, and are there lessons we could apply to an improved agency?
February 28th, 2025 at 3:00-4:00 (Eastern)
JHU Center on Global Poverty Speaker Series with Fiona Greenland, Associate Professor of Sociology, Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia
Investigating War Crimes as a Cultural Sociologist
Fiona Greenland will discuss her experience as a war crimes investigator for the Conflict Observatory Ukraine and how this work both informed and was informed by her training as a cultural sociologist. Documenting alleged war crimes for international legal accountability mechanisms, including the ICC, requires specific data collection and analysis skills that will be familiar to sociologists. At the same time, some of our discipline’s core concepts – such as representativeness and context – function differently in this space. Part of the talk will provide practical information for sociologists interested in getting involved in human rights and/or war crimes investigations.
February 14th, 2025 at 3:00-4:00 (Eastern)
JHU Center on Global Poverty speaker series with Miri Eliyahu, PhD, Northwestern University
“Industry Research and Global Development: A Different Perspective on Problem Solving”
Miri Eliyahu earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern and has worked as “Industry research and global development: a different perspective on problem solving” at Euromonitor. She will be discussing how work at a global market research firm involved in global development projects for international NGOs, Governments and Universities differs from academic work. From ideation to design, to research and then to implementation, this industry heavy process focuses on the client’s notion of desired outcomes and how to achieve them.
January 24th, 2025 at 3:00-4:00 (Eastern)
“Seminar on Grantwriting”
Enrique Pumar of Santa Clara University will speak about his experiences serving as the Program Director for the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
