Commitment to Development Award

The Center for Global Development annually presents the Commitment to Development "Ideas in Action" Award to honor an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution to changing the attitudes, policies, and/or practices of the rich world toward the developing world. CGD president Nancy Birdsall and former Foreign Policy magazine editor-in-chief Moisés Naím co-chair a selection panel that includes distinguished leaders of the development community.

2010 Award Recipient: Publish What You Pay

Publish What You Pay, a global civil society coalition, received the 2010 Commitment to Development Award for their dedication to promoting revenue transparency in the oil, gas, and mining industries. The 2010 Commitment to Development Award gives special recognition to Publish What You Pay United States for its role this year in promoting the Cardin-Lugar Transparency Provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This landmark provision requires all oil, gas, and mining companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to publish how much they pay to foreign countries and the U.S. government.

Previous Award Recipients

2009

Diego Hidalgo Schnur received the 2009 Award for his resolute dedication to helping the world’s poorest people. He is the founder or key sponsor of numerous organizations committed to promoting development and democracy across the globe. These include Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA), which produces the Humanitarian Response Index; the Foundation for Research and Investment for the Development of Africa (FRIDA), an NGO that promotes cooperation and development projects in the continent’s poorest countries; and the Toledo International Centre for Peace (CITpax), a Spanish think tank.

2008

The ONE Campaign received the 2008 Commitment to Development Award for their tireless effort to raise awareness of global poverty during the 2008 U.S. presidential elections. Through its ONE Vote ‘08 initiative, ONE mobilized 2 million supporters to sign petitions, raise awareness in their communities, and encourage the presidential candidates to explain how they would improve U.S. policies that affect poor people in developing countries.

2007

Global Witness received the 2007 Commitment to Development Award for exposing how corruption and environmental betrayal go hand-in-hand. Global Witness, a small U.K.-based NGO, helped to bring the problem of conflict diamonds to the world's attention and has crusaded to stop the plunder of rain forests in Cambodia and Burma.

2006

U.S. Congressman Jim Kolbe received the 2006 Commitment to Development Award for promoting innovation within the U.S. foreign aid program. As chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Kolbe helped to make the case for the Bush Administration's aid program, the Millennium Challenge Account. Kolbe was also frank about the broader problems of the U.S.'s highly fragmented and poorly administered aid programs.

2005

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Treasury of the United Kingdom received the 2005 Commitment to Development Award for his efforts to improve the lives of people in developing countries. Brown, who later became the U.K. prime minister, played a key role as chancellor of the exchequer in the notable effort by the U.K. to apply solid economic analysis to the formation of specific proposals to improve rich country policies towards the developing world.

2004

Oxfam International's Make Trade Fair Campaign has been a powerful tool in shaping global trade debates -- at the individual, national and international level. The campaign’s efforts to change world trade rules so that trade can make a real difference in the fight against poverty have been a positive force in demonstrating the effect of rich country policies on developing nations.

2003

The Utstein Group received the 2003 Commitment to Development Award for its dedication, vision, and leadership in reducing global poverty and inequality in developing countries, challenging the norms of the development establishment, and highlighting the importance of policy coherence.