Development & EA - May 2024
EAG London, immunisation stats and OP growth report
EA Global London is happening in a few weeks and applications are closing soon. Around 1400 people are expected for the largest EA event in Europe this year.
Apply Here - Apply by 19th May
Also, if you’re planning on coming to London, I’m organising an event the Friday of EAG for global development professionals who work outside of the charity/effective giving sectors (development finance, for profit for good, innovation, civil service, academia, etc).
If you work in one of these areas and have an interest in the EA development landscape let me know here.
Top Posts
Global immunisation efforts have saved at least 154 million lives over the past 50 years
Open Philanthropy - Development through Economic Growth
I have a write up on the current landscape of global development & EA
A biannual survey of African economies finds that economic activity is set to rebound in Sub-Saharan Africa, supported by increased private consumption and declining inflation. The report projects that growth will accelerate from a low of 2.6% in 2023 to 3.4 % in 2024
India's income tax receipts up 17.7% in 2023/24, near $235b
Ken Opalo - Energy poverty is very bad for humans and the environment
Gavi approved a new African Vaccines Manufacturing Accelerator at the end of last year, which will make up to $1 billion available over 10 years
Tarrina Health, set up by Corrina Vali, are looking for seed funding
Events
18th-19th May - EA for Christians Conference in D.C.
31st May - 2nd June - EAG: London
9th July - Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics - DC/Virtual
16-17th September - Scientific Summit on Tobacco Harm Reduction: Novel Products, Research & Policy - Virtual
Jobs
USAID - Program Officer (Senior Evidence Officer) - 8th May
Mulago - Principal - 8th May - San Francisco
Open Philanthropy - Global Aid Policy - 12th May
Our World in Data - Writer - 12th May
Lead Exposure Elimination Project - 3rd June
Director of Research and Strategy
Program Manager for India
Becker Friedman Institute for Economics - Research Professional – Anne Karing and Rachel Glennerster - 1st July (Chicago)
Probably Good - CEO/Executive Director
Evidence Action - Head of Philanthropy - DC
Family Empowerment Media
GiveWell
President
Researcher
Comms Director
Development Finance
Nigeria secures $2.2b loan from World Bank at 1% interest rate
World Bank financing agreement with Ethiopia for $1.7b billion to enhance power and water supply
World Bank to unlock $1.2b financing for Kenya
Adenia Partners Ltd. raised a record-breaking $470m for its largest Africa-focused fund
The UK has announced a £100m contribution to the World Bank (IBRD)
Pan-African VC Verod-Kepple closes its first fund at $60m
Developing countries are projected to become net financial contributors to the rest of the world economy. Net finance flows fell 48% in 2022
Building State Capacity: What Is the Impact of Development Projects - evaluating a multilateral development bank project in Tanzania [the project’s value-added to change in state capacity is estimated to be zero across all the dozens of relevant variables]
How callable capital can be used to grow MDB lending capacity
Three Big Questions for the World Bank’s new electrification plan for Africa
Economic Growth
Justin Sandefur and Arvind Subramanian - Long-Distance Industrial Policy for Africa
Yaw - My Predictions for Growth in 2030
Is there an economic payoff from sponsoring students to study abroad?
Why can’t SMEs just consult their way out of low productivity?
Podcast - A Framework for the Elite’s Role in Development with Stefan Dercon
The Simon Abundance Index 2024 [quantifies and measures the relationship between resources and population]
Visualization of the Relationship between Global Population Growth and Personal Resource Abundance of the 50 Basic Commodities (1980–2023)
AI, Data & Development
Strengthening Global Climate Resilience: Announcing Atlas AI’s Partnership with GiveDirectly
Aiddata - How we can use geospatial data and methods to better evaluate critical agricultural programs
Gene-editing crops to grow purple or red could aid AI-powered robotic weeding, boosting crop yields while reducing herbicide use
HBR - How People Are Really Using GenAI
Beyond Bitcoin's hype, a real use case in Africa
Shruti Rajagopalan - A New Engine(AI) for Human Learning and Growth
AI spots smaller cancers missed by doctors - it successfully flagged all of those with symptoms, as well as an extra 11 the doctors did not identify
Gates Foundation - The first principles guiding our work with AI
Foreign Aid
Devex Pro - Nearly $450 billion was spent on the SDGs - where did it go?
France to invest €400m in Rwanda in effort to renew ties
Devex Pro - Sweden's government plan an aid freeze, a new focus on trade and immigration, and a shift away from funding the lowest-income countries
Devex Pro - FCDO has spent a total of £3.4b via awarded contracts in FY 2023-24. £553m was spent on development contracts in this period. £1.4 billion went to refurbishment of the British High Commission building in Kenya
UK spends 0.58% of GNI on aid, although half was spent in the UK
Only five OECD countries hit development aid target of 0.7% of GNI
Agriculture & Malnutrition
2024 Global Report on Food Crises
Ken Opalo - On the ongoing cocoa boom and what it tells us about the current state (and future) of African agriculture
Malawi shifts perspective on land reforms [limit land acquisition to 1,000 hectares and not allow foreigners to own land] in a bid to retain investors
Iska Knuuttila - Improved farming practices' effect on income in rural Nepal
Ting Zhang - Insights from Kenya and Uganda: Reimagining the Coffee Industry to Create a Fairer and Circular Value-Chain
India
Data for India has been launched
The Economist - How strong is India’s economy?
Innovation Centre Denmark in Bangalore supports research collaboration and provides startup support
India-China-US Relations in an Era of Strategic Competition
The Seen and the Unseen podcast with Lant Pritchett
Shruti Rajagopalan- An economic puzzle of the Modi years : the hype is not followed by investment
After ending polio, India takes steps to eliminate measles
Vaccines & Pandemics
Updates from UNIDIR, Effective Giving, Council on Strategic Risks, CLTR, CEPI and Blueprint Biosecurity
Rachel Glennerster - The Pandemic Financing Developing Countries Need
Nigeria becomes first country to roll out new meningitis vaccine
Weekly minutes for Alert’s foresight team - the risk of an H5N1 pandemic emerging over the coming decade is increasing
Should you infect yourself with Zika?
The Asia Centre for Health Security has been established in Singapore
Wellcome - What’s to blame for the rise in dengue? (Video)
Vox - Every year, tuberculosis kills over a million people. Can a new vaccine turn the tide?
Biosecurity Fundamentals - Pandemics Course - Apply by 5th May
Effective Giving
doebem: Cause Prioritisation Research in Brazil
GWWC - Donors from Australia can now make tax deductible donations
The Life You Can Save 2023 report
Malaria
Five innovations that could help to eliminate malaria
How Rwanda’s entomology lab plays a critical role in the country's malaria control efforts
The number of doses of the latest malaria vaccine reported in the press for distribution appears far lower than supposed production capacity
New drug aims to tackle parasite resistance to antimalarials
Public Health
The World Bank Group announced a plan to support countries in delivering quality, affordable health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030
Iraq is the first country to make the polio transition process in full. Involving repurposing polio assets to strengthen the broader public health functions
Drug prices soar after pharma giants GSK and Sanofi exit Nigeria
Inside the push to make intellectual property work for African pharma
WHO’s David Clarke explains how investing in governance capabilities contributes to improving health systems performance and long-term overall health system resilience
Leah Pierson - Accounting for future populations in health research
Elmer Aluge - Embrace a profit-driven approach to health care funding
Sarah Eustis-Guthrie - The case against funding postpartum family planning
New data show that deaths from hepatitis rose from 1.1 million in 2019 to 1.3 million in 2022
How an unheralded civil servant triumphed against big tobacco [ban on smoking in workplaces]
33.4% increase in median income after providing near vision correction to workers in Bangladesh (RCT)
Court suspends battery recycling plant in the Republic of Congo, citing lead poisoning
Advocacy for salt intake reduction - AIM top idea 2024
Bill Gates - How to cut child mortality in half…again
Analysis showing that tobacco and alcohol excise taxes generate an average of 0.6% and 0.3% of GDP in tax revenue, respectively
Environment
Charity Navigator now has a recommended charities list for Climate Change Mitigation in partnership with Giving Green
Todd Moss - Why are we moving energy poverty goalposts in the wrong direction?
Global coal consumption will defy expectations
Eric Mathison - Why Divestment Doesn't Work
Hannah Ritchie - How effective are policies in reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture?
Rethink Priorities
Carbon capture landscape and challenges
Clean energy price trajectories
Climate philanthropy landscape
Innovation & Metascience
Open Philanthropy and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in the UK have £5m for metascience research grants
Development Innovation Ventures is USAID’s open innovation program - provides grant funding based on a tiered-evidence approach that attempts to maximise impact per dollar spent
The Innovation in Government Initiative helps LMICs implement evidence-based policies, and provides assistance for effective policy scale-up initiatives to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty
Jacob Trefethen - Conferences are great for scientific entrepreneurs
AIM’s new guide to launching a high-impact non-profit policy organisation
Examples of Highly Counterfactual Discoveries?
Nature - Scientists rise up against statistical significance
Wendi Yan - Discovering an Antimalarial Drug in Mao’s China
Michael A. Fischbach - Scientists and engineers often spend days choosing a problem and years solving it. This imbalance limits impact. Here, we offer a framework for problem choice
Who loses when scientific research is locked behind paywalls?
Mandatory data and code sharing for research published by The BMJ
Foundations
Kevin Starr - trust-based philanthropy shouldn’t mean blind faith
Dovetail Impact Foundation - Acceleration Portfolio, they invest in African nonprofit organisations that have annual budgets under $400k working in one of four sectors: health, livelihoods, justice, and education - May 6th deadline
Open Philanthropy - Cool Things Our Global Health & Wellbeing Grantees Have Done in 2023
Supporting the placement of 1,400 air quality sensors in every block in rural Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
In Malawi, the proportion of consumer paint that contains lead fell from 67% to 24% between 2021 and 2023 (LEEP)
Cures Within Reach has selected four clinical trials to take place in LMICs to support proof of concept trials investigating the repurposing of existing generic drugs to address new clinical indications
SAVAC is preparing the world for a strep A vaccine by building a network of sentinel sites and bringing together governments and international bodies
Dr. Howell and her team discovered an inexpensive treatment for silicon catheters to prevent microbes from developing biofilms. This new technology could dramatically reduce the number of AMR infections
Dr. Basbaum released a paper outlining how to successfully achieve the desired imaging modality (simultaneously image the spinal cord and brain), which has the potential to dramatically advance pain research
The Institute for Progress will consult with the NSF, proposing ways to improve the scientific funding process and mechanisms to fund high-risk, high-reward research proposals
In addition to leading over 200 completed and ongoing replications, The Institute for Replication has hosted over a dozen “Replication Games”
PoliPoli co-submitted a policy proposal to Japan’s Prime Minister to advocate for increased aid to cost-effective global health programs
Open Philanthropy - Day in the Life
Sam Anschell - Writing about my job on the Global Aid Policy program
Alex Bowles - Senior Program Associate - Science and Global Health R&D
Grants
Open Philanthropy have made several grants recently worth $68.4m
Global Health & Wellbeing
$8m - Alliance for International Medical Action - Malnutrition Treatment in Chad
$7.5m - International Rescue Committee
$1.7m - Pure Earth - Lead Exposure Measurement and Intervention
$600k - Clinton Health Access Initiative — Tuberculosis Drug Price Reduction
Scientific Research
$5m - Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute - Emodepside Phase III Trial
$3m - International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology - Malaria Resistance Research
$2.7m - Washington University in St. Louis - Gut Microbiome Repair Research
$2.5m - Stanford University — Hepatitis B Research
$2.3m - The University of Glasgow - Malaria Resistance Research
$2.3m - Malaria Research and Training Center – TB31F Clinical Trial
$1.9m - The University of Queensland in America - StrepA Vaccine Research
$1.6m - Harvard University - CRISPR-Based Diagnostics for Febrile Diseases
$900k - Harvard University — Fluorescent Imaging for In Vivo Monitoring
Global Aid Policy
$1m - Albright Stonebridge Group — Korean Global Aid Advocacy
$1m - Center for Global Development
$700k - Diakonia — Aid Advocacy
Innovation Policy
$1.1m University of Pennsylvania — High-Skilled Immigration Budget Modeling
Other Links & Causes
New research suggests Africa is being used as a ’testing ground’ for nation state cyber warfare
NBER - Evidence on the effects of protests on public opinion and political attitudes
Saloni Dattani - Four charts to understand causes of death across the lifespan
Vox - Democracy won in Senegal. Here’s why it matters
Probably Good - Core Advice for Having a Positive Impact With Your Career
Hannah Ritchie - How many people died from disasters in 2023?
Yaw - The Economic & Geopolitical History of Niger
Getting people to donate their organs
Florian Jehn - Trade collapse: Cascading risks in our global supply chains
Christina Krawec - Would your project benefit from OSINT, satellite imagery analysis, or international security-related research support?
Effective Altruism
William MacAskill - Personal reflections on FTX
Abdurrahman Alshanqeeti - Introducing EA in Arabic
Muloongo Stella Mwanahamuntu - I have started an EA community in Zambia
EAGxLATAM 2024: Retrospective
Good News
OWID - Cancer mortality has declined in many countries
Cambodia - The mortality rate from tuberculosis had dropped by 45 percent from 42 cases per 100,000 people in 2000 to 23 in 2022
Between 1990 and 2021, Cambodia’s income per capita increased fourfold and life expectancy rose by more than 14 years
Nepal's poverty rate fell from 25% to 3.6% between 2011 and 2023
In 15 years, Rwanda has increased its electricity access to 75% from 6% in 2009
Max Roser - Thanks to improvements in global health, more than 130 million children have been saved since 1990
