Development & EA - April 2024
PEPFAR funded, under-five child mortality decrease and Norwegian aid policy
Top Posts
Open Philanthropy - Our Progress in 2023 and Plans for 2024
Ben Williamson & Sarah Eustis-Guthrie - Maternal Health Initiative is Shutting Down
Eirik Mofoss - Norwegian aid policy cannot be defended
Ambitious Impact - Combined Application - combined application - charity entrepreneurship, research and for-profit programs - 14th April
US Congress agrees to fund global anti-HIV program PEPFAR
GiveWell - What we fund, #1: We fund many opportunities outside our top charities
Sophie Gulliver and Tom Drake - The $1 Trillion Paradox: Why Reforming Research Publishing Should Be a Global Priority
The World Happiness Report was released
UNICEF have released the latest data on under-five child mortality - The annual number of under-five deaths has fallen to 4.9 million in 2022. The report reveals that more children are surviving today than ever before, with the global under-5 mortality rate declining by 51 per cent since 2000
Events
26th-28th April EAGxNordics
2nd-4th May - India Sustainable Growth Conference - London - organised by IGC
18th-19th May - EA for Christians Conference in D.C.
31st May - 2nd June - EAG: London
Development Finance
The Asian Development Bank committed $9.8 billion to climate finance in 2023, a 46% increase on 2022
Egypt secures $8 billion IMF deal
The New Development Bank, set up by the BRICS group of emerging economies, aims to make $5 billion in loans this year
The Inter-American Development Bank approved three changes to increase their impact and scale, including a new strategy and a $3.5 billion capital increase
New $452m World Bank program to strengthen connectivity for 1.8 million people in rural areas of India’s Assam state
Australian Development Investments is Australia’s AU$250 million impact investment fund
World Bank - 4.6 Million People to Benefit from Stronger District and Community Health Services in Mozambique ($100m program)
IFC is investing $10.5m in a new fund focused on supporting early-stage African technology companies
Mark Kennedy & Jeffrey Kucik - 7 ways the US DFC can be more impactful
Economic Growth
Brookings - India eliminates extreme poverty
India Q3 GDP growth at 8.4%, exceeding expectations
International Growth Centre announces plan to establish an Evidence Lab with the Government of Zambia
Ideas Untapped - Tobi Lawson looking at economic growth (with a Nigerian focus)
The Promise and Challenges of Charter Cities - with Kurtis Lockhart
Lant Pritchett on migration and education
Ken Opalo - Policymaking for economic transformation in African states: what ought to be done
Yaw
A Compendium of the Economic & Geopolitical History of over 1/3 of the African Continent
The Chip Industry's Role in East Asian Catch-Up Growth
What can Sub-Saharan Africa learn from Mauritius’s successful development?
How developing nations can create competitive export industries
India’s $10 billion incentive plan to attract semiconductor manufacturers
India and the European Free Trade Association states – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, signed a Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement
RCTs & Evidence
Poverty at Higher Frequency (poverty rates are sensitive to the timing of household consumption)
Sexual violence prevention programs change ideas, not behaviors
CGD - Asking the Right Questions about Evidence Use in Development Policy
Matias Nestore - Navigating complexity: the moment that defined how I conduct impact evaluations globally
J-PAL - New resource: Incorporating remote sensing data into randomised evaluations
Development RCTs Are Good Actually
Foreign Aid
Devex pro
How is China's foreign aid changing?
How USAID plans to spend $25.6B in the coming months
Devex - The UK has undermined its legal commitment to use aid to fight poverty, a new study by the OECD has found
USAID launches ‘Africa Trade Desk' to boost African food exports - aiming for $300 million in exports to the US
UK aid spending on refugee hotel bills is £3.2 billion
Ranil Dissanayake - How Labour (UK) Should Do International Development: Five Things to Prioritise
The digital development strategy sets out the UK government's plan to work with developing countries for a sustainable digital future
Health Innovation
Cutting-edge CAR-T cancer therapy is now made in India - at one-tenth the cost
Edwin Ambani Ameso & Gift Mwonzora - Drones are not a panacea for Africa’s healthcare problems, but offer great opportunities
Ozempic lowered the risk of kidney disease progression, major cardiac events and death by 24% in diabetic patients with chronic kidney disease
Agriculture & Malnutrition
GiveWell on Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition
Max Roser - Why is improving agricultural productivity crucial to ending global hunger and protecting the world’s wildlife?
Dengue
Peru declares health emergency as dengue outbreak 'imminent'
Brazil to release millions of anti-dengue mosquitoes as death toll from outbreak mounts
Vox - The tropical disease that’s suddenly everywhere
Vaccines & Pandemics
WHO and Gavi, are making a strong push to expand access to HPV vaccines
Devex Pro - How CEPI and its partners are using AI to prepare for 'Disease X'
The Serum Institute of India wants to consolidate its reputation as the vaccine manufacturer for the world’s poorest
Tim Hwang - Progress Deferred: Lessons From mRNA Vaccine Development
Effective Giving
Charity Navigator rethinking the focus on overheads
Effectief Geven has been launched in Belgium
Effective Long-term Sadaqah (Islamic Charity)
Kyle Smith - The Lack of EA in US Private Foundations
How to donate efficiently to LMIC organisations (use Wise)
Graham Nelson - Sitting down with the Hankook-ilbo this week to discuss AMF Korea and our hopes to enlist the generosity of the Korean people in the fight against malaria
Wired interview with Elie Hassenfeld on GiveWell
Kevin Starr - Trust-based philanthropy shouldn’t mean blind faith
TLYCS have updated their charity evaluation framework and cause funds
Global Philanthropy Tracker: Measuring cross-border giving
Democracy & Conflict
The number of people displaced by conflict since 15 April inside and outside of Sudan has reached 8.1 million
Statista - Worldwide Decline of Freedom Outweighs Improvements
AI & Development
AI identified 23 promising materials from 32 million candidates to help create a new type of battery
Zion Lights - A positive revolution from AI is already unfolding in the global East and South
Juan M. Lavista Ferres with his book AI for Good - A guide to applying AI to real-world problems
Dylan Matthews - How AI could explode the economy
Denmark is entering into a collaboration with NVIDIA to establish a national centre for AI innovation [led by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark]
Public Health
Japan plans to establish an international organisation aiming to strengthen healthcare in developing countries
Devex - What we know about WHO's new €1.5 billion primary health investment platform
World Bank, Gates, UN pledge close to $600m to end cervical cancer
UN: 2.2 billion people have no access to clean water
Clear Solutions - Nigeria pilot report: Reducing child mortality from diarrhoea with ORS & zinc
The Lancet - 1 billion people in the world have a body mass index over 30
Think Global Health - Global Fertility Rate Continues To Fall: How Governments Could Prepare
Air quality report finds only 7 countries meet WHO PM2.5 air pollution guideline
Environment
Giving Green's 2023 impact report - influenced ~$11.2m, up from $3m in 2022
US electrical grid planners have doubled their forecast for how much more power will be needed in the next five years
Our World in Data - More people care about climate change than you think
The CO2 Emissions in 2023 report finds that clean energy growth has limited the rise in global emissions, with 2023 registering an increase of 1.1%
Vaclav Smil - Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050: Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome
Innovation & Institutions
Jano Costard - Can we implement learnings from Fast Grants in public institutions that face different rules? We tried with the Challenge program at the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, SPRIND, and succeeded
Hannah Ritchie - Weather forecasts have become much more accurate; we now need to make them available to everyone
Statecraft - How to Recruit Iraqi Weapons Scientists [building civilian science]
Visa and Mastercard are increasing their presence in Africa
Stuart Buck - When funding agencies ask for high-impact research, that can be the very thing that prevents high-impact research
Maxwell Tabarrok - American Acceleration vs Development
Statecraft - How the Government Loses a Road - Nation-building in Afghanistan
Foundations
The Novo Nordisk Foundation, is the world’s largest foundation with an endowment of nearly $120 billion (compared to the Gates Foundation with ~$70b). They focus on biomedicine, cardiometabolic diseases, epidemic preparedness, agriculture, climate and the life science ecosystem
The Gates Foundation awarded almost $5 billion in health contracts in 2023. Who were the top grantees and what was prioritised?
Devex Pro - The top 10 foundations funding development
Jobs
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office - Non-Executive Director (20 days per year) - 8th April
ODI - Fellowship Scheme - 30th April
The Global Prosperity Institute - Fellowship Programme - 1 or 2 year positions helping grow dynamic small businesses in Tanzania - 30th April
Becker Friedman Institute for Economics - Research Professional – Anne Karing and Rachel Glennerster - 1st July (Chicago)
GiveWell
Dexis - Economist, USAID Private Sector Engagement Modernization Contract (Washington DC)
President
Researcher
Comms Director
Grants
A spreadsheet breakdown of Open Philanthropy grants to date
Open Philanthropy have made several grants recently worth $47.9m
Global Health & Wellbeing
$20m - International Rescue Committee – Treatment of Malnutrition (2021)
$1.7m - GiveWell
$1.6m - PATH — Malaria Vaccine Trial
$670k - Rethink Priorities
$500k - Energy for Growth Hub
$350k - P150
$110k - University of Helsinki — Travel Funding for Air Pollution Research
$100k - IISER Mohali — North India Pollution Research
Human Health and Wellbeing
$4m - Kyoto University - Reproductive Biology Research
$3m - International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology - Malaria Resistance Research
$1.9m - The University of Queensland in America — StrepA Vaccine Research
$800k - Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary — Alzheimer’s Resilience Research
Global Health R&D
$3.5m - International Vaccine Institute — Hepatitis E Vaccine Trial
$2.3m - The University of Glasgow — Malaria Resistance Research
$600k - Clinton Health Access Initiative — Tuberculosis Drug Price Reduction
$300k - University of Oxford — Monoclonal Antibody Development for Malaria
$200k - Clinton Health Access Initiative — Scoping Grant for Sickle Cell Disease Market Shaping
$60k - Molecular Approaches to Malaria Conference
Global Aid Policy
$1m - Center for Global Development
$725k - Diakonia — Aid Advocacy
$510k - Korean Advocates for Global Health — Aid Policy Advocacy
$300k - Development Learning Lab — Knowledge Reviews, Policy Reports, and Knowledge Services
$54k - Cordaid — Dutch Aid Advocacy
EA (Global Health and Wellbeing)
$830k - Doneer Effectief
$300k - One for the World
$35k - Rethink Priorities — Strategy Workshop
Innovation Policy
$900k - Fund for Global Talent Mobility — High-Skilled Immigration Grants
$250k - Speculative Technologies — Research Program Training
Other Causes
Notes on crime reduction in El Salvador. The homicide rate dropped from 139 per 100,000, the highest in the world in 1995, to 2.4 per 100,000 in 2023 (similar to Canada)
Could city-to-city relationships be the key to urban health?
CGD - What Does the World Bank Do (Well) in the Education Sector?
The FAO Food Price Index declined for a seventh straight month
Saarthak Gupta - Mumbai’s land use regulations are designed to keep population density low. Instead, they force Mumbaikars into slums
Other Links
James Newport - Civil Service Career Strategy: Rise or Specialise
Hannah Ritchie - The chocolate price spike: what’s happening to global cocoa production?
Richard Y Chappell - EA "Worldviews" Need Rethinking
Andy Masley - Resources on US policy careers
Vox - How the world has radically cut child deaths, in one chart
Ken Opalo - Gulf Cash & Influence in African States
Good News
A second strain of flu could be eradicated
The Atlantic - The cystic-fibrosis breakthrough - In the 2000s patients could expect to survive to 35. Today, with new treatments, they can expect to survive to 82.5
NBER - Inequality Within Countries is Falling
Maharashtra sees 11% drop in child mortality in 4 years
The maternal mortality ratio in Nepal has declined from 536 per 100,000 live births in 1996 to 151 by 2021