Episode 126: Charles Kenny
Charles Kenny is an optimist. He's the author of several book about global development, including Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More, which was widely hailed across the spectrum and personally endorsed by Bill Gates.
Charles is a fellow with Center for Global Development where his work focuses on a wide array of topics, including the intersection of gender and development and we kick off with a discussion of some new research he's worked on about strategies to reduce the prevalence of female genital mutilation--otherwise known as FGM. (If you are not aware, FGM is the deliberate cutting of female genitalia, often as part of a traditional ceremony in a girl's adolescence. And Charles has researched policies in countries that helped to sharply reduce the number of girls subjected to this practice.)
Charles was born in the United Kingdom to a British father and American mother. He traces the roots of his optimism to his charmed upbringing in academic communities around Oxford and Cambridge. He had a long career at the World Bank before settling into his perch at the Center for Global Development, from which he has written a couple of books--both of which we discuss. This is a great conversation--and we do have an interesting discussion about the problem of measuring country's well being exclusively by looking at its economic growth.