Development & EA - January 2024
LMIC Growth, PEPFAR, malaria vaccines and effective giving suggestions
I’m planning to host an event on the 31st of May, the Friday before EA Global London, for development professionals who have an interest in EA.
It will be a mixture of short talks and 1-1 conversations with people from government, think tanks, foundations, academia, finance, startups and charities. If you would be interested in attending please fill out this form.
Also if you’re a development professional in London and want to join a WhatsApp group used for arranging meetups - let me know at david@effectivealtruism.uk.
Top Posts
Karthik Tadepalli - What do we really know about growth in LMICs? - Sectoral Transformation
EU carbon tax could dwarf aid to Africa - the measure is predicted to cause losses of $25 billion per year - three times the size of EU aid to the continent
PEPFAR, one of the most life-saving global health programs, is at risk
1Day Sooner - Malaria Vaccine Research Help Needed - Looking for research volunteers
Lauren Gilbert - Rarely is the Question Asked: Is Our Children Learning? [The Learning Crisis in LMIC Education]
IDInsight with The Dignity Report 2023
Development Finance
Lawmakers set a six-month deadline for the U.K. government to “cap” BII investments in middle-income countries and “better distribute” its funds
Brazil secures $10 billion from banks for South American integration projects
The African Development Bank has approved $696 million in financing for a rail project to link Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo
World Bank
Plans to put $5 billion toward African electricity projects by 2030
Tanzania loans worth $1.14 billion
$350 million financing for RISE-II operation in Pakistan
$266 million program aimed at improving internet access in The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Mauritania, and to promote a single digital market in West Africa
World Bank warns record debt levels could put developing countries in crisis
The Asian Development Bank has approved a $155 million loan to boost women's access to finance in Pakistan
UK development finance arm makes bid to be world's 'most transparent'
How Somalia reduced their external debt to under $700 million from around $5.3 billion in 2018
After China, Europe, and the US, the UAE has become the fourth-largest investor in Africa over the past ten years - $59.4 billion between 2012 and 2022
Economic Growth
Zambia and Ghana are the 27th and 28th countries the World Bank has reclassified as middle-income since the year 2000 - There are now 35 countries remaining assessed as low income
Astral Codex Ten - Does Capitalism Beat Charity?
Lant Pritchett 'The political acceptability of time-limited labor mobility: Five levers opening the Overton window'
Indonesia and Japan agree on removing more trade barriers
The Global Prosperity Institute - The Allure of the Export Ban
Amory Gethin - Traditional approaches to measuring poverty overlook an enormous component of people’s economic well-being: public goods
Ethiopia 'secures’ access to sea after deal with Somaliland
The EU and Kenya signed an Economic Partnership Agreement to boost bilateral trade in goods and increase investment flows
Foreign Aid
DevEx Pro - Inside Denmark’s plan to double capital for development finance from the aid budget
EU to shift billions from development work to 'migration management’
DevEx Pro - Research shows that bilateral donors tend to reduce health aid at the same time as multilateral agencies, leaving countries to cover the gap
The SDG Impact Fund grew from $238 million in 2020 to $10 billion in 2021 - it is a fund devoted to supporting the UNs Sustainable Development Goals
Lead
LEEP - Malawi follow-up study results
Indian companies are bringing one of the world’s most toxic industries to Africa (lead battery recycling)
Lucia Coulter on the 80,000 Hours podcast discussing how LEEP prevent lead poisoning for $1.66 per child
Communicable diseases
In 2022, there were estimated 249 million malaria cases, exceeding the pre-pandemic level of 233 million in 2019
COP28 focus on health draws $777 million to fight tropical disease
Vox - Tuberculosis kills more people than malaria or HIV. Why haven’t we found a vaccine?
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative - review of 2023 and plans for 2024
Lauren Gilbert - A Case Study on Insecticide-Treated Bednets
AMA with the founder and CEO of the Against Malaria Foundation, Rob Mather
Priority review vouchers for tropical diseases: Impact, distribution, effectiveness, and potential improvements
Noma is the first disease to be added to the WHO’s list of neglected tropical diseases since 2017
Vaccines & Pandemics
WHO prequalifies a second malaria vaccine
Vaccine delivery: Timelines and drivers of delay in low- and middle-income countries
Erwan Sallard - Cause area report: vaccines
Zacharia Kafuko - New lifesaving malaria vaccines need to be available now
BioNTech unveils its first mRNA manufacturing facility in Africa
Is COVAX still relevant as a vaccine sharing initiative?
Saloni Dattani - What were the death tolls from pandemics in history?
What is the pandemic treaty and what would it do?
Effective Giving
Suggestions for Individual Donors from Open Philanthropy Staff
Where are the GWWC team donating in 2023?
GiveWell staff members’ personal donations for giving season 2023
Why Effective Giving Incubation?
Winners in the Forum’s Donation Election
Effektiv Spenden's Impact Evaluation 2019-2023 (exec. summary)
Against Malaria Foundation Korea was successfully designated tax-deductible in December, becoming the first charity recommended by GiveWell to be eligible for tax efficient donations in South Korea
Jobs
Independent Commission for Aid Impact - Chief Commissioner - 15th Jan
Charity Entrepreneurship Research Training Program - 28th January
Open Phil - Global Health and Wellbeing Cause Prioritisation Team - 28th Jan
Research Fellow
Strategy Fellow
President
Researcher
Programme Manager
Bridges to Prosperity - Foundations Manager
Environment
The United States joins multinational declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 to support global climate and energy security goals
Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to hit record high in 2023
Campaigners warn of $343 billion climate finance 'black hole' - two thirds of commitments were never reported as disbursed or had little connection to climate
New Google geothermal electricity project could be a milestone for clean energy
Democracy & Conflict
Mark Leon Goldberg - Sudan is the Worst Crisis in the world that receives the least amount of attention
TIME with an overview of national elections happening this year (representing 64 countries and 49% of the world’s people)
Lydia Poole - Every day counts: evaluating the benefits of early action during a crisis
Dr. Ivelaw Griffith on the the Guyana-Venezuela territory dispute
The International Institute for Strategic Studies - annual review of the political, military and humanitarian dimensions of active conflicts
Migration & Displacement
Suzanne Raine on Pakistan’s expulsion of Afghan refugees
Ting Zhang - Often shut out of the financial system, refugees and other migrants face economic integration challenges
Wellbeing
Bloom Wellbeing Fund is a new donor advised fund aiming to enable high-impact charitable giving with a focus on wellbeing - A project supported by HLI
Michael Plant with a paper challenging the nature and plausibility of the life satisfaction theory of wellbeing
Mental Health Funding Circle held its fall grants round and members granted a total of $785,000
Research
Poverty is back to pre-COVID levels globally, but not for low-income countries
The Global Flourishing Study is a five-year longitudinal data collection and research collaboration. The initiative includes data collection for approximately 200,000 participants from 22 countries
Eva - An update and personal reflections about AidGrade
A consortium of institutions is going to be working on an open repository of impact evaluation results that could be used for meta-analysis and policy
Public Health
Open Philanthropy’s new focus area: Global Public Health Policy
The UN has adopted a new resolution to address the lack of basic services in clinics, hospitals and health outposts
Jack Lovell - Higher taxes on cigarettes are good for the treasury and the nations' health
CE-incubated tobacco & NCD policy Charity: updates, funding gap, and future plans for Concentric Policies
Sanjeev Gupta and Hannah Brown - Challenges to Achieving a Grand Convergence in Health Indicators by 2035
GiveWell
GiveWell - How We Plan to Approach Uncertainty in Our Cost-Effectiveness Models
Karthik Tadepalli with a short form on how people are comparing ex-ante cost-effectiveness with GiveWell's calculated ex-post cost-effectiveness
Innovation
Google DeepMind - Millions of new materials discovered with deep learning
Derek Thompson - The Nine Breakthroughs of the Year
Nathan Warren - Industrial policy is making a comeback
The Center for Open Science and NASA are set to host a virtual conference in March 2024 - Shaping the Future of Open Research
Nature - More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record
Jason Crawford - Accelerating science through evolvable institutions
Grants
Open Philanthropy have made a grant recently for $740k to the International Vaccine Institute - Hepatitis E and Leptospirosis Study
MacKenzie Scott granted $2.15 billion to 366 organisations including
$20m - Fistula Foundation
$10m - Malaria Consortium
Other Causes
Bernardo Baron & Juan Benzo - Why EA should (probably) fund ceramic water filters
Dylan Matthews - The first results from the world’s biggest basic income experiment
Hannah Ritchie - Are global harvests keeping pace in a warming world? (so far yes)
Globally, 494 million people had other musculoskeletal disorders in 2020, an increase of 123% in total cases from 221 million in 1990 - other indicates they exclude rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, low back pain, neck pain, and gout
Tax for Growth is an IGC initiative that supports tax administrators and policymakers in generating effective approaches to make taxation work for development
WHO - Despite notable progress, road safety remains urgent global issue
Helene K & Priyansha B - Intervention Report: Dispensing Urine Pregnancy Tests to Promote Early Antenatal Care Attendance
Our World in Data - State Capacity
Helene K - Intervention Report: Oral Rabies Vaccination of Dogs
Other Links
Ken Opalo - Africa in 2024 and Africa’s 2023 Year in Review
Lincoln Quirk - My startup advice
Saloni Dattani - Seven things you didn't know about life expectancy
Jeff TK- Trading off Lives
Podcast with Shruti Rajagopalan - Spotting talent & making sense of rising India
Bill Gates with an endorsement of GiveWell
Effective Altruism
Effective Ventures updates: FTX settlement and the future of EV (No evidence that anyone at EV was aware of the criminal fraud and several organisations supported by EV are becoming independent legal entities)
Zach Robinson will be CEA’s next CEO
Vasco Grilo - My quick thoughts on donating to EA Funds' Global Health and Development Fund and what it should do
Joey - Altruism sharpens altruism
Leah Pierson with a thread on X - “some ways I think global health EA has improved”
Shakeel Hashim - EA Wins 2023
Hayley Martin & Ashura Batungwanayo - EA events in Africa Interest Form
Kaleem with a quick take on EA & Zakat
Events
8th January - Book Talk: Scaling Up Development Impact by CGD
16-18th February - EAGx LATAM 2024 - Mexico City
7-8th March - Urbanisation and Poverty Reduction Conference - Washington DC
May/June 2024 - EA Global: London
Good News
Vox - 10 actually good things that happened in 2023
Tanzania to complete rural electrification by June 2024
Future Crunch - 66 Good News Stories for 2023
India has taken six years to reach its financial inclusion target of 80% - 41 years earlier than originally anticipated
Vietnam - Multidimensional poverty rate drops to 2.9%