Today CGD conducts research and analysis on a wide range of topics related to how rich country policies impact people in the developing world. These include:
Aid Effectiveness
Education
Globalization
Health
Migration
Trade
Research and analysis that is related to proposals for specific, practical improvements in rich country policies is organized into initiatives, such as:

Cash on Delivery: Progress-Based Aid for Education
Confronting Climate Change
Demographics and Development in the 21st Century
The Global Health Policy Research Network
The HIV/AIDS Monitor
Our Commitment to Development Index, conceived in partnership with Foreign Policy Magazine, quantifies the full range of rich country policies that have an impact on poor people in developing countries. The Index’s annual rankings have become a tool for discussions not only of aid, debt and trade, but of environmental, security, and immigration policies.

In the short time since its founding, CGD has rapidly earned a reputation as a unique "think and do" tank, where independent research is channeled into practical policy proposals that help to shape decisions in Washington and other rich country capitals.

The Center''s research and analysis have contributed to a growing recognition of the need for deeper and faster debt relief, and for more and better quality development assistance. Our trade policy research captured the world’s attention, with the oft-cited finding that liberalization could liberate from poverty 500 million people.

We have put on the global agenda proposals to use the market to develop a malaria vaccine; to allow more temporary labor migration; to sell IMF gold to write down poor countries’ debt; to give the World Bank a strong mandate for addressing global warming; and to create a club for independent evaluation of development investments.

Some proposals have already been taken up and are making a difference. Others remind us of how much more remains to be done.