14% of all coral reefs died between 2009 and 2018. At 1.5°C temperature rise, 99% of coral reefs are expected to be dead by 2050. 44% (48 million km2) of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture. 33% of all soil is already degraded and 90% is estimated to be degraded by 2050. Vertebrate populations have declined by 73 % between 1970 and 2020 and insect populations have seen a 75% decline in biomass. The United Kingdom says ecological collapse is the biggest threat for food security. All these things and many other climate related things might affect billions of people.

I think that the mix of inequality, polarization and populism is the problem that makes stable and broad collaboration and solutions much harder. Earlier party A and B might have been seeing each other as good. But with polarization it is more like: "if party A propose this, I must be against it". The United States was less unequal and polarisized during that time period, which might be an explanation for better collaboration.
I can explain more about this later. :)

Thank you for a post that talks about a neglected opportunity in the EA community. That is why I am helping SAVE. They try to bridge the gap between knowledge and power by matching experts with politicians and policymakers. They are doing actor mapping, holding workshops, making policy briefs, attending conferences and support organizations, experts, policymakers and politicians making the best decisions about crucial topics in the field of global catastrophic risks and environmental problems. They don’t have AI yet because they are a small organization, but with more funding / people it would be possible in that area as well.

I agree with you, and yes, I kind of missed the systems change part that GiveDirectly is doing. GiveDirectly works with the government in Malawi and Rwanda. They got 100 million in funding from Canva, which they use to implement cash transfers in an entire region in Malawi. Testing it in one district with 185 000 citizens + collaboration with the government is a good step towards systems change, since they can work in entire districts instead of villages. I also know that Equal Right is active in Malawi as well, and their end goal is global universal basic income. I think that GiveDirectly is collaborating with Cool Earth, Equal Right and other basic income organisations (they were invited to collaborate on a text we wrote). Even if this might not be “real systems change”, there are other variables as well. For example, GiveDirectly is used for benchmarking for comparing the impact of different charities and different types of aid, which means that they are inclined to show more impact than cash transfers. GiveDirectly also shifts power from a top-down perspective to a bottom-up perspective. So, I think it is much bigger than it seems.

Yes, Fortify Health is doing a really good job! Family Empowerment Media is also expanding to other regions and countries, which is very nice to see!

Thank you, Nick! I am happy to hear that! I forgot GiveDirectly, that might be one of the more obvious organisations. They are thinking about trying the things in the picture and the link, which might be a step to systems change. We also have Fortify Health who enable access to micronutrient-rich wheat flour and works with both companies, NGO:s and governments. That is great, Nick! I have very much respect for your incredible work! I hope that you create systems change soon, because it is very important and seems like a project that can spread quickly and have massive impact.
 

Hi Madeleine!

Thank you for your post and for bringing up this topic! I am interested in systems change and I can probably give you some hints about what is being done there. I think there are many people in EA who are interested in systems change. I was a co-author to a forum post about systems change. There are EA groups that are interested in systems change as well. I do not “work” on systems change, but I volunteer in that field, so I am up for it! Lead Exposure Elimination Project is probably the best example. But we also have some EA organisations focusing on policies in fields like alcohol, tobacco, soda, sodium and also Global Policy Research Group. I am not sure if everything I list here is what you are looking for, but I will make a summary about each organisation. 

I would say that One Day Health is a promising organisation since they are creating primary health care in a cost-effective way to fill in health delivery gaps. But I don’t know about “systems change” in that case. But I think it is quite a small step to systems change in that case.

Essential Emergency and Critical Care has a similar approach but focuses on critically ill patients. They have a Government led national programme, and they are cost-effective.

I know that State of Life made an impact report about Tearfund who is a Christian charity that mobilises churches for community transformation. I think they are quite cost-effective even if they are not EA.

Teaching at the Right Level Africa is one of the world's most cost-effective programs for increasing children's ability in mathematics, language, and literacy and it is promoted by The Life You Can Save. The program is used in over 18 countries, of which 17 are in Africa, reaching 7 million children, and one is India, reaching 76 million children. There are many other programmes at The Life You Can Save that might be into systems change.

We have multilayered programmes like Breakthrough Trust, which is a top charity according to The Life You Can Save. Breakthrough Trust combats violence against women and girls in India and creates changes in attitudes. The program works on several levels:

• Collaboration with the government, which has included gender equality in the school curriculum and trained school staff and created mass media campaigns.
• Training programs for volunteers and activists who change attitudes and norms in the local community and individual families / individuals.
• Youth engagement by training young people in gender equality so that they can be youth leaders in schools and the local community.
• Media engagement, where there are workshops and training for journalists on highlighting violence and sexual harassment in the media.
• Influence groups that have strategic collaboration with various groups that drive gender equality issues to strengthen these groups.
• Campaigns where young people have created events and campaigns where they highlight violence against women and online campaigns.
• Because the program works at multiple levels and with different stakeholders, Breakthrough Trust has created a 76% reduction in intimate partner violence as well as positive changes in attitudes among boys and men regarding sexual harassment.

Strategic Alliance for a Viable Earth is an organization that matches experts with people in power so they make better decisions in various global problem areas. They have the same idea as you, about right people at the right moment, but they focus mostly on tipping points at the moment.

Cool Earth was a top charity before but not now. They support  local and indigenous peoples to protect rainforests and combat the climate crisis. They use basic income for nature and climate - which means giving basic income to communities that protect rainforests and help them in different ways to empower these communities and save the rainforests.

Equal Right has the same approach as Cool Earth but also promotes a global basic income, global carbon tax, cap and share policy and global wealth tax. They are testing their ideas at the national level in countries with small populations. Their CEO knows what EA is but thinks systems change is better.

There are also organisations like the Social Change Lab that is EA-aligned and does research about social change and Initiative for Safeguarding Democracy that tries to find the best ways to protect democracy. There are organisations working on task-sharing in the field of global mental health. Strongminds, Friendship Bench and Vida Plena are some examples of this. Even if they are focused on direct delivery, task-sharing and their aim to make it part of national programmes might be helpful.

Other organisations that might be interesting but are not connected to EA (as far as I know) but focus on systems change are Odyssean Institute, Club of Rome, Earth4All and Global Commons Alliance.

I hope my comment is helpful! You are warmly welcome to DM me if you have further questions!

Thank you for a very important forum post! Have you read the article "Income inequality and the erosion of democracy in the twenty-first century"? I just wanted to put it here in case you have missed it.

Thank you Gabe! I am happy that it was helpful!

Thank you for sharing! I think this is a very important topic, and I am glad that you wrote about it. I share your thoughts about having a child that might not reach adulthood, since my son is two years old and I hold lectures about global problems / catastrophes, so this is something I think about every day. But it doesn't bother me very much because I use to think something like this:
* Even if the risk that my son die because of global catastrophic risks are unacceptably high, it is still a good chance that things will turn out okay. It is a higher probability that my son will reach old age than the opposite. My son was in NICU during his first time in life and had worse odds back then. But now he is a happy, healthy and wonderful kid.
* What I do will probably not turn the tides. I am doing what I can, and it will probably not be enough. But many other people are doing what they can and I think many people in this community are capable of doing really great things together. It is beautiful that every day, so many people are trying to make the world a better place, and many of them succeed in amazing ways.
* The knowledge about future risks has positive sides as well. I am probably more aware as a parent and more grateful for every moment with my son because of this knowledge, than I would have been without it.

* I worried much and had a lot of anxiety when I was younger. After many years I stopped worrying and stopped having anxiety. I guess over 95 % of my problems disappeared because of the realisation that worrying is a problem that you can do something about, and that risks are risks, they might not happen. Either you can do something about things= No need to worry. Or you can't do anything about things= No need to worry.