More than 100 academics, students and development professionals gathered at Yale University to debate the legacy and possible future of large-scale development aid at ASAP’s One-Year Anniversary meeting.

Yale Professor Emeritus Gus Ranis, a top administrator at US Aid under the Johnson Administration, gave insight from his decades of experience in the field and classroom, and he stressed the continuing importance of promoting local ownership of development projects. Hugh Evans, a youth leader of the 2005 Make Poverty History Campaign, shared his experiences getting young people involved through his multi-country Global Poverty Project, and leveraging their involvement to secure large-scale commitments for overseas aid.

Phillip Alston, a Professor of Law at New York University who has filled several high-level human rights roles for the United Nations, offered an insider’s view of the UN Millennium Development Goals effort, and of recent talks to determine what should replace the MDGs when they expire in 2015. World Bank Lead Economist Branko Milanovic shared his most recent findings on global inequality and its importance to numerous issues around global poverty, and ASAP Board Chair Thomas Pogge of Yale encouraged those present to put their energy and academic expertise to use within the ASAP network.

Earlier in the day, ASAP Board members gave updates from efforts underway in India, the United States, the UK and elsewhere. Those include the launch of a pilot ASAP Students group at the University of Birmingham, the development of the All Rights India project in Delhi, aimed at better publicizing the entitlements actually held by India’s poor persons, and the development of an ASAP internship program at Yale.