Development & EA - October 2024
Lead, Growth and Fungi
You may have noticed there was no newsletter for September, a combination of covid, two trips to Albania and going down to one day a week at EA UK. I’m currently exploring my next career steps, so if you’ve heard of interesting projects or roles let me know.
I’m also considering spending more time on meta EA & global development infrastructure, so if you have thoughts about a neglected gap there let me know. I’m especially interested in areas related to economic growth, AI & development, and startups/big business in LMICs1.
Top Posts
Open Philanthropy - Announcing the Lead Exposure Action Fund (with $104m already committed)
Launch event for LEAF Open Philanthropy - Launching a search for a Program Officer to lead our new Economic Growth in LMICs program with ~$10 million per year to grant
This chart is right. Most interventions don't do much. (Cameroon experience)
GWWC - Updates on the effective giving ecosystem
The ecosystem is expanding moderately in terms of money moved (excl. OP and GiveWell from ~$50m in 2020 to ~$160m in 2023; including them from ~$430m to ~$1.05 billion)
~80% is going towards global health and wellbeing
Lincoln Quirk - Startup advice targeting low and middle income countries
Fungal diseases: Health burden, neglectedness, and potential interventions
Annual death burden could be 1.5m - 4.6m (80% CI)
Karthik Tadepalli - Want Growth? Kill Small Businesses
Events
19-20th October - EAGxIndia - Bengaluru
1st-3rd November - EAG Boston
15-17th November - EAGxVirtual 2024
22nd-24th November - EAGxAustralasia
14-15th December - EAGxSingapore
Jobs & Roles
Launching the Health Progress Hub - 10 week program for students/early-career professional interested in health policy
Job opportunities at Development Innovation Lab
Open Philanthropy - Seeking pre-proposals from individuals to write living literature reviews. We are particularly interested in reviews on neglected topics relevant to policymaking
Development Finance
Investments from the World Bank's private investment arm hit a record $56 billion in the 2024 financial year
Andrew Herscowitz - how to navigate the U.S. development ecosystem, master the interagency process and bring electricity to 200 million people
The Asian Development Bank Institute says its research going forward will focus on climate impacts, pivoting from development
The Private Sector and Development: Cataloguing A Quarter Century of Mobilisation Unscaled
Yaw - The IMF - How the fund actually works
The central bank of Ethiopia floated the birr currency in late July which enabled them to secure loans from the IMF and the World Bank
In July 2022, the median inflation rate worldwide was 9.4%. Now it’s down to 2.9%
Devex Pro
What's in the World Bank's $226 billion project pipeline?
Inside EBRD's pipeline in 2023 - 311 projects worth €14.9 billion
Startups & Business
Transform Health Fund surpasses $100m to improve access to healthcare in Africa
Yousif Yahya, founder of a startup incubator in Sudan, on issues with blanket sanctions
Yaw - Insights on ‘The World For Sale’ - commodity trading overview
Overview of CheckUps - a Kenyan hybrid healthtech and fintech platform
How Winich Farms leverages a nationwide network to empower Nigeria's smallholder farmers
African crypto startup Yellow Card raises $33 million, they serve as a payment rail in 20 countries
The AI & Robotics Technology Park in India, is providing incubation, acceleration and mentorship for deep-tech startups
How InstaDeep became Africa’s biggest AI startup success, acquired for $682 million by BioNTech
Interviews
Zood - a digital lending platform driving financial inclusion by providing flexible payment methods in Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Lebanon
Santimpay: Venmo for Ethiopia
Paps: B2B logistics in Senegal
Cashea: ‘Buy-now-pay-later’ app in Venezuela. Launched two years ago, 28% of adults have downloaded the app and 1% of GDP flows through Cashea
GrowSari: Digitising corner stores in the Philippines
Economic Growth
Karthik Tadepalli - Growth theory for EA – reading list and summary
Alice Evans Podcast
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde - How does Low Fertility Affect Economic Growth
Oliver Kim - How did East Asia Get Rich?
Daron Acemoglu - Rebooting Culture & Economics
Tobi Lawson in conversation with Dmitry Grozoubinski on the politics behind global trade, using Nigeria's food inflation to consider the trade offs being made
Indonesia expects to sign $3.5 billion worth of deals at their second Africa forum
Ken Opalo - Can better urbanisation policies unlock faster economic growth and development in Nigeria?
Ghana's economy grows 6.9% in Q2 2024, fastest in five years
Yaw - Special Economic Zones: A Primer
Exploring big ideas in development economics: an interview with Ranil Dissanayake
Jostein Hauge - How protectionism can help developing countries unlock their economic potential
ODI - Sri Lanka: from debt default to transformative growth
Review of Growth: A History and a Reckoning by Daniel Susskind
David Roodman - “I4Replication posted my critique of a study finding that broadband boosted jobs & growth in Africa. Results seem mostly fragile”
Size Matters: How China's Market Leverage Fuels Technology Extraction
Jeff Mason live x-ing at the Growth Summit - Arvind Subramanian - "It's absurd that we even have to discuss why growth is important. This is a problem of outsiders—we [on the ground in countries] have been obsessed with growth for 40 years."
Arvind Subramanian at the Growth Summit
AI, Data & Development
Kenyan farmers deploying AI to increase productivity
How the farmers without smartphones are using AI
Indonesian fishermen are using a government AI tool to find their daily catch
Meta - How Our Llama Grant Recipients Are Tackling Global Issues
Statt Inc. uses AI to distill the vast amount of global public policy information available online
Podcast looking at a maternal health chatbot supporting pregnant woman delivering in public health facilities across South Africa
Sudan Clinic chatbot, an AI-assisted telemedicine service that offers free virtual health care to Sudanese refugees
Equiano Institute evaluated GPT-4o’s performance on tasks in five African languages: Amharic, Hausa, Northern Sotho, Swahili, and Yoruba
The Myna Mahila Foundation developed an AI chatbot providing health and family planning information in local languages and dialects and trained 227 workers in prompt engineering
AI for Changemakers are offering an AI bootcamp and tech company collaboration for NGOs
DataKind + Sanima: Using data science to expand safe sanitation solutions in Lima
Frontier Tech Hub
16 new ideas using frontier tech to solve global challenges
Using LLMs as a tool for international development professionals
EmpatIA pilot report - our findings in enhancing healthcare for remote areas in Peru
Andrew Critch - My theory of change for working in AI healthtech
From an AI safety point of view
Google and Salcit Technologies are rolling out a bioacoustics health-care model to detect disease from human sounds, using AI to improve the accuracy of TB diagnosis
10BedICU uses OpenAI’s API to improve India’s critical care infrastructure
CARE Scribe automatically transcribes doctor-patient interactions and converts these conversations directly into structured EMR entries
Capturing readings from older hospital monitors with high-resolution cameras and uploading the data in real time, enabling continuous patient monitoring
Discharge Summary is particularly impactful when serving patients with lengthy medical records, sometimes saving doctors and nurses over an hour of paperwork per patient
How three frontier technologies are transforming humanitarian aid supply chains
How geospatial technology is transforming HIV treatment in Zimbabwe
Rose Mutiso - Data centers can create demand for Africa’s clean energy and boost local cloud services
Alice Evans - Crafting AI-Complementary Skills and Bulletproof Assessments (at universities)
LLMs to improve decision making in development - what do future users want?
The Safe Delivery App is one solution addressing the shortage of midwives by providing instant guidance on handling birth complications. One survey found that 84% of respondents found the smartbot provided them with the necessary answers always or most the time
SSIR - AI-Powered Nonprofits Are Making Health Care More Effective
Intelehealth is piloting how AI can help health workers manage a larger population efficiently - used by over 100,000 health workers throughout India
Jacaranda Health uses AI to improve the quality of care for new mothers and newborns across Sub-Saharan Africa, with over 1.3 million questions already asked
Reboot Rx fast-tracks the discovery of affordable generic drugs that can treat specific types of cancer
Foreign Aid
Justin Labeille & Jeannie Annan - The Case for Cost Evidence in the humanitarian sector
"We have a moral imperative to use every dollar entrusted to us as wisely and impactfully as possible," USAID's Deputy Administrator, Isobel Coleman while launching a position paper on the power of unconditional cash transfers to address poverty last week as part of the agency’s commitment to using cost-effectiveness analysis to drive funding decisions
USAID - Cost-Effectiveness Position Paper
Devex Pro - The largest UK development charities and where they get their income. £6.1 billion in the latest fiscal year, an 8% increase on the previous year
Open Philanthropy - How Platinum Helps Draw Attention to Japan’s Role in Global Health Funding - the third largest single-country donor
Ken Opalo on African elites, what donor organisations get wrong and why RCTs fail to do good
Charles Kenny - What Should(n’t) Global Development Advocates Advocate For?
Explore Cost Analysis at the IRC
US to give Bangladesh $202 million more in aid
UN releases $100 million for humanitarian emergencies in 10 countries
Langsikt - Norwegian development organisations are joining forces to set up a committee to make recommendations for Norway's global health efforts
World Bank and French Development Agency give Uganda aid of $600 million
Global development finance – outlook and prospects
Charities
Project Impala recently got funding from Founders Pledge - They have a vital signs monitoring system designed specifically for neonates and children at hospitals within LMIC
NOVAH (No Violence at Home) have sent out their first newsletter
Learning Alliance with their first newsletter (early grades literacy program)
Podcast with Umar Abubakar and Justin Graham, co-founders of The Taimaka Project
Charity Entrepreneurship - Our Recommended Charity Ideas for February 2025
Digital Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Lead Research
CBT to Prevent Crime
Infrastructure
Nigeria Announces Plans to Begin $750m Rural Electrification Project
Kenya - Safaricom offers improved internet speed in response to Starlink’s growing popularity
Lessons from Zambia: Improving sanitation through planning, awareness-building and collaboration
Uganda signs $3 billion rail building deal with Turkey's Yapi Merkezi
India
Shruti Rajagopalan
Why Indian Firms Don’t Scale
India’s economic pivot from rules-based reform to deals-based tinkering
India raises free health cover for citizens aged above 70 years
Average household spending on food falls below half
The proportion of poorest fifth of households that own a vehicle went from 6% in 2012 to 40% in 2023
Emergent Ventures India, eighth cohort
Pandemics & Biosecurity
2024 is the worst year for dengue cases on record. As of July 23, over 10 million cases of dengue have been reported from 176 countries
Devex - While domestic manufacturing will help countries in Africa prepare for future health crises, this needs to be complemented with a whole enabling ecosystem
Alexander Berger - “Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is the lack of speed/urgency in global health. COVID and the earlier eradication of smallpox showed that the world can act fast when it cares. But we are not doing so right now for the biggest killers of kids in the world.”
With over 16% of global hepatitis patients living in Pakistan, the government has decided to launch a Hepatitis C eradication programme
GAVI - Focusing on 'High Impact' countries brings a local lens to national immunisation programmes
Day Zero Antivirals for Future Pandemics
Natalie Crispin - GiveWell Research Strategy: Vaccines
Ethiopia vaccinates over 10 mln people against cholera
Guyana takes final steps to eliminate lymphatic filariasis
Mpox
Africa CDC declares mpox a public health emergency
Witold Więcek and Javier Guzman - Could Fractional Dosing Be the Key to Addressing the Mpox Vaccine Shortage?
WHO launched a six-month plan to help stop outbreaks of mpox transmission
Mpox Vaccines Stuck in Limbo: WHO is at Fault
Malaria
Mozambique introduces malaria vaccines into routine immunisation
Bangladesh is aiming for zero malaria deaths by 2027
Dr. Abdisalan Noor: How billions of data points can help beat malaria
Africa to get first manufacturing hub for next-generation malaria nets
Mount malaria: The pathogen’s last stronghold in the Philippines
Effective Giving
AIM - Presenting five new effective giving initiatives
New York City, Italy, France/Switzerland, Belgium and India
GiveWell as Moneyball
Announcing Equal Hands — an experiment in democratising effective giving
Jacob Trefethen - Effective nonprofits
Max Roser - Many of us can save a child’s life, if we rely on the best data
Agriculture
The Frontier Tech Hub is looking for a team that can undertake research on challenges faced by agricultural workers, to identify promising tech solutions and initiate the design of an early stage agri-tech innovation fund backed by FCDO
Sudan - $46 million from the African Development Bank to improve food security
Organic farming activism threatens millions - and the environment
How will climate change affect crop yields in the future?
Severe food insecurity drops 85% in Brazil in 2023, affecting almost 15 million people less than the previous year. Down to 1.2% from 8% in 2022
Health
R&D for neglected diseases returns $405 for every dollar spent
Hear This Idea podcast with Jacob Trefethen on Global Health R&D
Lauren Gilbert
Air Conditioning Is A Survival Technology
Reading glasses might be one of the best buys in global health (with pushback in the comments)
What Can Health Economics Learn from the Environmental Economics Approach to Discounting?
Our World In Data
Cancers are one of the leading causes of death globally. Are we making progress against them?
Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition
WHO reports 71% rise in cholera deaths last year
How big are telehealth markets? A BetterHelp case study
Critique our position – Sickle cell anaemia in Cameroon
Kenya - Doubling of the health workforce in the last decade, 8000+ new health workers produced annually
Indonesia raises smoking age limit to 21 and will curb cigarette advertising
Air Pollution Deaths in Children Under 5 Down 53% Since 2000
Environment
The IMF’s Climate Change Debate
China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19
Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades
Hannah Ritchie - How much energy does desalinisation use? Is it “absurdly cheap”?
Conflict, Migration & Displacement
Lauren Gilbert - Why Brain Drain Isn't Something We Should Worry About (with responses in the comments)
Launching the Africa Urban Lab - research on the challenges and solutions to rapid urbanisation
Ken Opalo - The geopolitics of the war in Sudan
Foundations
Open Philanthropy is supporting ACF, CARE, CRS, Mercy Corps,and Save the Children to conduct 100 cost analyses and generate a critical mass of comparable cost data in outcome areas such as basic education, income generation, and agricultural productivity
Ask Me Anything with James Snowden from Open Philanthropy
Corruption
Kyle Schutter is hosting a hackathon for government accountability in Kenya
UN - Bribery becoming less accepted in Nigeria - fewer citizens reported suffering negative consequences after refusing a bribe request in 2023 compared with 2019 (38% versus 49%)
Innovation & Metascience
Metascience 101 is a set of interviews on the debates and ideas driving the metascience movement, with Alexander Berger, Patrick Collinson, Heidi Williams, Paul Niehaus, Kelsey Piper, Tyler Cowen, Jacob Trefethen, Emily Oehlsen and more
The UK launched a metascience unit. Will other countries follow suit?
Accelerator For Innovation & Research Funding Experimentation (AFIRE) is a new collaboration between RoRI and the Innovation Growth Lab
Rationalising risk aversion in science: Why incentives to work hard clash with incentives to take risks
Some Are Useful, a living literature review on how ideas from machine learning and artificial intelligence are influencing scientific and technological progress
Stuart Buck - We Should Do More Direct Replications in Science
Announcing Cosmos Ventures - Fast grants to build prototypes at the intersection of technology and human flourishing
Scott Alexander - Why Does Ozempic Cure All Diseases?
Kelsey Piper - The staggering death toll of scientific lies
Grants
Action for Women’s Health is a $250 million global open call launched by Pivotal that will fund organisations around the world that are improving women’s mental and physical health
WAM Foundation Fall 2024 Funding Round, with tracks for road safety, nutrition, mental health and reducing suffering
Founders Pledge have granted $1.6m in their Global Health & Development fund
The Agency Fund is open to applications until 31st October - Projects that can demonstrate socioeconomic impact and planning to serve 1 million + users
Other Links & Causes
FireSat is a constellation of satellites designed to detect and track wildfires as small as 5x5 meters within 20 minutes, enabling fire response before they become destructive
Neela Saldanha with reading resources for people moving into development
Stanford Impact Labs invests in more solutions-focused social science research
Baby Bonds Evaluation, Community-based Kangaroo Mother Care, Healthcare AI and Improving Medication Adherence
Saloni Dattani - How do global statistics on suicide differ between sources?
Alcohol companies are targeting new markets and dodging regulation worldwide while excess drinking causes millions of deaths each year
Tamay Besiroglu on Explosive Growth from AI
Kelsey Piper - In defense of the washing machine
Journal of Development Economics - How to improve education outcomes most efficiently? A review of the evidence using a unified metric
Posts from the Animal Welfare vs Global Health Debate Week on the EA Forum
Inequality within countries is falling
Good News
Since 2020 the poverty rate has fallen in Uzbekistan from 17% to 11%
Elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in India and Pakistan
Elimination of lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem in Timor-Leste and Brazil
2.45 million Filipinos have been lifted out of poverty since 2021
Jordan eliminates leprosy
Guinea celebrates the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus
Ethiopia has achieved a sixfold reduction in the death rate for TB since 1980
I have already considered AI startups in Albania to help with economic growth