The death of Arizona Senator John McCain has led to a host of tributes far beyond what we would normally expect in the wake of a senator’s passing. It’s due, in part, to the compelling arc of his life story and his eminently quotable style. But it’s also due to the fact that McCain spoke …
“Whatever goes up must come down”— a rule as inescapable when it comes to financial markets as it is to balls tossed in the air. As for “up,” we are now in the ninth year of what is already the second longest economic expansion in U.S. history, making it all-too-easy to act as if the…
After two years of wrangling, Maine just became the first state in the country to pass and uphold ranked choice voting, which lets voters rank the candidates in order of preference rather than casting a vote for just one. This change to Maine’s electoral system could create more civil campaigns that better represent the preferences…
Governors form a subset of senators with the unique experience of serving as chief executives of their states. Adapting to a legislative body requires a different way of solving problems and getting things done for their constituents. How do they stack up as legislators compared to senators with other backgrounds? The answer seems to be …
MENLO PARK, Calif.— Statement of Environment Program Director Jonathan Pershing, former Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State, on behalf of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in response to the proposed rollback of federal clean car standards: “Yesterday the EPA announced its intention to roll back fuel efficiency standards and …
There were no all-male panels at the Open Government Partnership Summit in Tbilisi, Georgia last month. There were three panels on gender and a full-day on feminist open government. These are baby steps toward the aspiration of Feminist Open Government that the government of Canada, which now co-chairs the Open Government Partnership, is promoting. But they …
Can a creative teen-centered design process help increase young women’s access to contraception? We thought it might when we funded a new partnership between IDEO.org and Marie Stopes International in Zambia and Kenya in 2013. An independent evaluation that we commissioned from Itad provides new insights about the human-centered design approach to adolescent reproductive health.…
The nine countries that comprise Francophone West Africa have some of the highest maternal fertility rates, lowest contraceptive rates, and highest number of maternal deaths of any region in the world. Yet they receive less investment from international donors—particularly for family planning—than other regions in sub-Saharan Africa. The Hewlett Foundation gave an initial grant to …
James Wallner is a senior fellow at R Street Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy research organization that promotes free markets and limited, effective government. R Street Institute’s work is supported in part by grants from the Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative that seeks to strengthen U.S. democracy and in particular, Congress. Daniel Stid, director of …
Can innovative work be achieved by a program officer in a philanthropic organization? I remember asking this question eight years ago when I joined the Hewlett Foundation. Since then, I’ve learned that program staff at philanthropies get to focus on some of the world’s biggest problems and have the advantage of using their institution’s many …