Fair point re: "nearly twice" vs. "over 50%." Edited original point to reflect this update.
To the second point, the differences in data sources seem moot to the overall argument. If we stick just to OWID's visual from 1990 to 2019 (pre-COVID), this is is still a 117 million person (43%) increase of the number people living in extreme poverty since 1990, which is certainly an undercount given the well-documented setbacks post 2019.
Responding below, much of which are direct quotes from the original post.
Eradicating extreme poverty is not a high bar, it's actually the lowest and one very much worth clearing.
Hello, thanks for the response.
As people escape extreme poverty, that total decreases year-over-year -- explained in detail here.
Sure. We expanded the excerpt from the blog for clarity: "[GiveWell's moral weight approach] results in a spreadsheet. This framework combines the views of a relatively small number of stakeholders and then applies those outcomes to millions of people. GiveDirectly believes that the weights that should count the most are those of the specific people we’re trying to help. Each individual will have their own specific needs, preferences, and aspirations. We have yet to see a place we worked in (village, county, country) where everyone made the same investment...
Research finds people use these funds to improve their health, education, income, and self-reliance, ultimately reducing adult and child mortality. And these results can be sustained years into the future. [Footnote: Source on reducing adult & child mortality. Two examples of long-term cash impact: Uganda (12 years), Mexico (20 years).]
GiveDirectly's baseline measures don't date back that far, but we do expect research on 5- and 9-year follow-up measures sometime in 2024.
Cash transfers alone won't eradicate extreme poverty gl...
It was an active choice to not make this post a structured point-by-point debate with GiveWell's thinking as theirs is not the only guiding philosophy of how EAs think about issues of global health and development. With much of the $200B/year in Official Development Assistance going to interventions of question effectiveness and over a trillion dollars sitting in private foundations, the EA movement can and should open the aperture of how it thinks about what it recommends beyond the marginal donation.
We're optimistic the movement could influence exi...
...With much of the $200B/year in Official Development Assistance going to interventions of question effectiveness and over a trillion dollars sitting in private foundations, the EA movement can and should open the aperture of how it thinks about what it recommends beyond the marginal donation.
We're optimistic the movement could influence existing pots of money orders of magnitude larger than what it does today, thus doing even more good in the world. This could perhaps have been more clearly argued in the post, open to your thoughts / feedback!&nb
Can you explain this, I don't fully understand? Are you saying you prefer a subjective wellbeing approach, or that you don't think that we should be comparing outcomes of different interventions or something different?
"GiveDirectly believes that the weights that should count the most are those of the specific people we’re trying to help." This is to say, we don't subscribe to GiveWell's moral weights approach."
Thanks, very interesting insights re: healthcare access (you'd enjoy this pod with our research director who is a former medical doctor). The ~$15 is at market value for a phone, so the incentive isn't especially appealing. That said, sometimes other members of a household will have a phone but the assigned recipient does not so elects to buy one.
Here's the link in question: https://www.fsdafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/YEG-Brochure-29.10.21.pdf
It has not! We just posted the sign up link here: GiveDirect.ly/zakat-webinar (it's this coming Saturday April 1)
Great question. How we approach this:
We do have a page in Arabic for non-English readers. However, an important part of building trust with zakat givers is transparency and directness (donor=>GiveDirectly=>Yemeni recipient). Rather than market/collect zakat through another organization as a pass-through, we opted to stick with the simplicity that has appealed to other donors. UNHCR is a secular organization with a successful zakat campaign marketed under their name, albeit a much more famous name than GiveDirectly.
Another way we plan to bridge the gap: working with Muslim groups and influencers to share the campaign.
Two reasons:
- Our biggest program (large transfers) allows families to select a single head of household to receive the funds. Women often handle household spending so are slightly over-represented as the recipient in this program.
- We run a few specialty programs that are explicitly targeting women (e.g. this nutrition program or this cancer program)
good idea! just did https://www.givedirectly.org/evidence-on-how-cash-transfers-empower-women-in-poverty/