Lee Crawfurd

Lee Crawfurd

@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Global Development https://www.cgdev.org/expert/lee-crawfurd

4.5K followers1.4K following2K posts

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Siddhartha Haria
@siddhharia.bsky.social

We don’t need to wait to scale up blood lead testing - we can make more use of fingerpick tests now. New post with Eric Trueswell and William Seitz www.cgdev.org/blog/case-sc...

cgdev.orgThe Case for Scaling Fingerprick Blood Lead TestingWe should scale up blood lead testing now. Fast, easy-to-use fingerprick tests are already widely used in surveillance programs in the US and other high-income countries. These tests cost less than ot...
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

Georgia has made great strides in tackling lead exposure. How did they do it? @mariajot.bsky.social & Caroline Mallory investigate Blog: www.cgdev.org/blog/small-c... Paper: www.cgdev.org/publication/...

cgdev.orgA Small Country's Big Fight: Georgia's National Response to Childhood Lead ExposureOur interviews and the evidence make clear that though Georgia has made real progress in tackling lead poisoning in children, work is not finished. About 15 percent of children still have BLLs above 5...
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

1/6th of World Bank spending is for private sector development. What does it actually do? Álvaro González proposes a simple test - it should aim to correct market failures. Only 29 of 156 current projects pass. www.cgdev.org/publication/...

cgdev.orgA Rule for Private Sector Subsidies: Additionality and Competitive Allocation at the World Bank GroupThe World Bank has yet to pin down a working definition for what it labels as private sector development (PSD). At different times during the past half-century, some of that work might reasonably be d...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Center for Global Development
@cgdev.org

Could funding GPE help bring more World Bank financing into education? Biniam Bedasso, @leecrawfurd.bsky.social, and Karen Mundy find that countries receiving @gpforeducation.bsky.social grants are more likely to subsequently receive IDA education financing, especially in LMICs. go.cgdev.org/4xxraRr

go.cgdev.orgThe Best Way to Get More World Bank Money into Education Might Be to Fund GPEIn the current international aid environment, where bilateral funding for education has been significantly cut, multilateral financing mechanisms are likely to play an increasingly important role in enabling low- and middle-income countries to access th...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Aveek Bhattacharya
@aveek18.bsky.social

Replying to @aveek18.bsky.social

Another opportunity to dig out my @smfthinktank.bsky.social paper with @leecrawfurd.bsky.social an @lgilbert.co making the case for a national lead screening program: www.smf.co.uk/publications...

smf.co.ukFailure to lead: The case for a UK lead screening programme - Social Market Foundation.This briefing examines the scale of lead exposure among children in the UK and makes the case for a national screening programme.

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Center for Global Development
@cgdev.org

Does an extra year of schooling really deliver little to no economic return? 🎒 @leecrawfurd.bsky.social re-examines the evidence and finds returns of around 5–6% per additional year of schooling, even after correcting for publication bias. www.cgdev.org/publication/...

cgdev.orgThe Returns to Education: A CommentClark and Nielsen (2026) assemble a large dataset of quasi-experimental studies and argue that the causal return to an extra year of schooling is close to zero once one corrects for the selective publ...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Will Reid-Tong
@willthong.com

Really good stuff from @paulnowaktuc.bsky.social here - more Labour MPs should be saying the same. Mahmood's ILR reforms are unfair, will undermine migrant integration and only embolden the far right's attack on the world's best and brightest who want to contribute to the UK 👏

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social

Excellent by @paulnowaktuc.bsky.social on Mahmood's settlement proposals “You end up with Reform claiming a woman born in Somalia who's lived here most of her life, worked hard and contributed to our society,somehow isn’t fit to hold elected office.” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

What are the returns to education? Most studies say 9%. A new meta-analysis claims publication bias means the true number is 0-3%. I replicated their analysis & think a fairer number is more like 6%. Blog: cgdev.org/blog/school-... Paper: www.cgdev.org/publication/...

cgdev.orgSchool Pays, Even If There Is Publication BiasA new paper by Gregory Clark and Christian Nielsen makes the bold claim that the true average increase in earnings for each extra year of school is somewhere between 0 and 3 percent. Not the 9 percent...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Aveek Bhattacharya
@aveek18.bsky.social

Important piece by @ruthjoneslabour.bsky.social in @labourlist.bsky.social, calling for the national screening committee to hurry up and review screening for harmful lead exposure. Ours is a "remarkably complacent and cavalier approach". We must take the issue more seriously, as in the US/France.

labourlist.org'Lead is still harming British children. Why aren’t we screening for it? - LabourListScreening for lead needs to become the norm. We cannot afford to continue to wait, for the children’s sake.

Lee Crawfurd reposted

C. Kirabo Jackson
@kirabojackson.bsky.social

Classic result: countries with higher test scores grow faster; years of schooling add little once scores are included. Concern: reverse causality—in the original evidence, some measured growth occurs before scores are observed. I revisit both with cleaner timing, newer data— kirabojackson.com/blog

kirabojackson.comBlog — C. Kirabo JacksonWriting and analysis by C. Kirabo Jackson on education, human capital, public policy, and the economy.

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Center for Global Development
@cgdev.org

Where should new philanthropy invest in education? @leecrawfurd.bsky.social highlights 34 organizations working across foundational learning, school access, early childhood, nutrition, education technology, and more, with an eye toward scale and cost-effectiveness. https://go.cgdev.org/4xopSZr

go.cgdev.orgHow to Spend Your AI Philanthropy on EducationIf I worked at a frontier AI lab and just became an overnight billionaire, my first thought would be to do something simple and give it all to GiveDirectly or GiveWell. But organisations in the busine...
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

Are developing countries doing "what works" in education? Increasingly yes! At least according to our new analysis of 743 national education plans. @theomitchell1.bsky.social @noamangrist.bsky.social Biniam Bedasso, Maleeha Hamid, Euan Ritchie www.cgdev.org/blog/are-dev...

cgdev.orgAre Developing Countries Tackling the Learning Crisis with What Works?Here we present a new analysis of national government education sector plans from 134 countries spanning nearly three decades (2000–2025), which we refer to throughout as “education plans”. We see cle...
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

So this was fun... its relatively rare for academic journals to publish formal critical comments on articles. I just received my first... and its from the lead industry. Here's our rebuttal: "Big Lead is Still Downplaying the Harms" www.cgdev.org/blog/big-lea...

cgdev.orgBig Lead is Still Downplaying the HarmsOur recent paper in Environmental Pollution estimates that lead battery recycling might account for a third of global lead exposure, significantly larger than previous estimates (open access CGD worki...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Jonathan Portes
@jdportes.bsky.social

Replying to @jdportes.bsky.social

The correction bsky.app/profile/jdpo...

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social

The Times corrects its splash story headlined "Migrant care workers bring dozens of family members." The Times got this totally wrong. It then used its own error as the basis for an editorial calling explicitly for forced expulsions of people living here legally. www.thetimes.com/comment/regi...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

Refugee Action
@refugeeaction.bsky.social

"I feel no different from someone in an open prison." Chuma describes life in the UK's asylum system, where people are often banned from working while they wait for a decision, living in inhumane conditions.

Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

Some unpleasant lead recycling arithmetic from Micaella Rogers - Demand for car batteries in small low-income countries like Malawi is too low to sustain safe recycling - Unsafe recyclers in Malawi can pay more than safe recyclers elsewhere, so export doesn't work either

Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

20 years later, can we track down the people taught to read in primary school through different RCTs? We're going to try, here are the studies we're looking at, are we missing any?

Lee Crawfurd reposted

A.S. Paglayan
@aspaglayan.bsky.social

Brief pause from Messi's magic to share my new piece in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Education as a Political Institution" which explains why we should stop treating education as just another public service Open access here: tinyurl.com/yezzkam5

tinyurl.comEducation as a Political InstitutionEducation institutions are fundamentally political. They mold political values, shape inequality, create opportunities for patronage through teaching jobs, and can even be used for political surveilla...
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

How common is child sexual harassment and abuse in schools? How you ask matters. In Malawi, 4% of 8-12yr olds report sexual harassment or abuse by school staff, if you ask face-to-face. Let them answer privately on a tablet, it that rises to 17%. 1 in 6 children aged 8-12.

Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

Important new @cgdev.org research by @gsmarrelli.bsky.social, Esme Kadzamira, Thi Le, & Tionge Saka Blog: www.cgdev.org/blog/how-and... Paper: www.cgdev.org/publication/...

cgdev.orgHow and Where We Ask Matters: New Evidence on Measuring Violence Against Children in SchoolsGlobal estimates suggest that one billion children have experienced physical, emotional, or sexual violence—and this number is likely an undercount. Most estimates rely on survey data in which respond...

Lee Crawfurd reposted

New Security Beat
@newsecuritybeat.bsky.social

The World Bank spent over $3 billion funding water supply projects. But when the Water Institute tested in Ghana, Mali, and Niger, over 82% of rural water systems contained lead. In a new piece, Lee Crawfurd and Caroline Mallory call for lead-free parts and additional testing. New on #NSB.

newsecuritybeat.orgThe World Bank Has Invested $3 Billion in Drinking Water. We Don’t Know if the Water Has Lead.This article was originally published by the Center for Global Development. This spring in Washington, DC, World Bank president Ajay Banga announced a major new initiative, “Water Forward,” with [...]
Lee Crawfurd
@leecrawfurd.bsky.social

What's the point of academic conferences? Answering this question recently, my mind went straight to a 2020 paper by de Leon & McQuillin. One big conference was cancelled due to a Hurricane. Papers were cited less & there were less diverse collaborations. Conferences help scientific progress!