Center for Global Development

About: Center for Global Development is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 1472 authors who have published 3891 publications receiving 162325 citations.

Has Microfinance Lost its Moral Compass

Abstract: This paper argues that microfinance in South Asia, like mainstream finance in North America and Europe, "has lost its moral compass". Our particular concern is with microloans to vulnerable clients. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have increasingly focussed on financial performance and have neglected their declared social mission of poverty reduction and empowerment. Loans officers in the field are under enormous pressure to achieve individual financial targets and now routinely mistreat clients – especially poor women. The values of neo-liberal mainstream finance in the rich world have spread to microcredit in the villages of Bangladesh and India. This situation is hidden from western publics who are fed the lie of "the magic of microfinance" by their media, guided by the needs and interests of mainstream finance seeking to provide some "good news" about the financial sector as scandal after scandal unfold. Urgent action is needed, particularly from the leaders of the microfinance industry, to refocus their organizations and workforce on achieving both financial and social performance targets.

Cost Benefit Analysis and Project Appraisal in Developing Countries

Abstract: Part 1 Introduction: cost benefit analysis for developing countries. Part 2 Perspectives on cost benefit analysis: an ODA perspective on the past and future of project appraisal project appraisal at the World Bank reflections on estimating distributional effects. Part 3 Cost benefit analysis - methodological issues: social project appraisal and historical development of ideas on discounting - a legacy for the 1990s and beyond discounting and project appraisal - from the bizarre to the ridiculous the effects method and economic cost benefit analysis - substitutes or complements? shadow pricing without tears - how to estimate acceptable ERRs with minimal data logical frameworks today - increased diversification of the planning format project cycle management (PCM) - a tool for aid effectiveness evaluating concessionality in tied aid projects project failure - the implications of "a 25per cent rule". Part 4 Practical applications: analysis of water supply projects in practice the income distributional effects of a mining project in Brazil cost benefit analysis in the project cycle - the example of French-speaking African countries the evaluation of technical assistance projects for development in Eastern and Central Europe cost benefit analysis of privatization transactions in transitional economies - case study of Poland using project finance to minimise the state budget funding of essential infrastructure in emerging market economies estimating shadow prices in a transitional economy - the case of Lithuania.

A phase I study of enfortumab vedotin in Japanese patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma

Abstract: Locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer is an aggressive form of cancer with high recurrence rates and low survival. Nectin-4 is a cell adhesion molecule commonly expressed in several tumors, including high expression in urothelial cancer. Enfortumab vedotin is an antibody–drug conjugate composed of an anti-Nectin-4 humanized monoclonal antibody linked to the microtubule disrupting agent, monomethyl auristatin E. In this phase I study (NCT03070990), Japanese patients with locally advanced/metastatic urothelial cancer treated with prior chemotherapy, or ineligible for cisplatin, were randomized 1:1 to receive 1.0 mg/kg (Arm A) or 1.25 mg/kg (Arm B) enfortumab vedotin on Days 1, 8, and 15 of each 28-day cycle. Assessing the pharmacokinetic and safety/tolerability profiles of enfortumab vedotin were primary objectives; investigator-assessed antitumor activity (RECIST v1.1) was a secondary objective. Seventeen patients (n = 9, Arm A; n = 8, Arm B) received treatment. Pharmacokinetic data suggest a dose-dependent increase in enfortumab vedotin maximum concentration and area under the concentration–time curve at Day 7. Enfortumab vedotin was well tolerated across both doses. Dysgeusia and alopecia (n = 9 each) were the most common treatment-related adverse events. Regardless of attribution, grade ≥ 3 adverse events occurring in ≥2 patients were anemia and hypertension (n = 2 each). One patient achieved a confirmed complete response (Arm A) and five achieved confirmed partial responses (n = 3, Arm A; n = 2, Arm B). Objective response and disease control rates were 35.3% and 76.5%, respectively. In Japanese patients with locally advanced/metastatic urothelial cancer, enfortumab vedotin is well tolerated with preliminary antitumor activity and a pharmacokinetic profile consistent with prior reports.

Transition and Justice: An Introduction

Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, political new beginnings have increasingly been linked to questions of transitional justice. The contributions to this collection examine a series of cases from across the African continent where peaceful ‘new beginnings’ have been declared after periods of violence and where transitional justice institutions played a role in defining justice and the new socio-political order. Three issues seem to be crucial to the understanding of transitional justice in the context of wider social debates on justice and political change: the problem of ‘new beginnings’, of finding a foundation for that which explicitly breaks with the past; the discrepancies between lofty promises and the messy realities of transitional justice in action; and the dialectic between logics of the exception and the ordinary, employed to legitimize or resist transitional justice mechanisms. These are the particular focus of this Introduction.