Family planning programmes for India

America’s new United Nations ambassador, Kelly Craft, has an opportunity to help refocus global development efforts, using US clout to ensure every dollar spent does more to help people and the planet.

Craft is taking her position at a pivotal time, four years after the ratification of the

Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, the development agenda up to the year 2030. With little more than one decade left, implementation desperately needs shaking up.

Cities are, in many ways, the future of India. The number of metropolitan cities with a population higher than one million jumped from 35 in 2001 to 50 in 2011, and is expected to reach 87 by 2031. Today, 40 crore people call an Indian metropolis home. That will double by 2050. 

This swift growth places huge pressure on infrastructure. A March 2011 report by a high-powered expert committee chaired by Isher Judge Ahluwalia (goo.gl/r5ZLM3) found that the duration of water supply in Indian.

This year, the US federal government will spend more than $61 billion in humanitarian aid for the rest of the world.
Philanthropists and charitable donors will contribute another $30 billion.
Combined, this total is more than any other country, and it helps transform lives in poor countries.
But Americans — and everyone else — can do better. Not by spending more, but by spending more smartly.