January 2026
Hits-based giving, Coefficient Giving and USA giving
I’ve compiled a list of hits-based giving opportunities for donors open to higher-risk global development bets.
There’s extensive research for GiveWell-style cost-effective interventions but far less for those wanting to take bigger swings. The post covers economic growth, health, meta and a few other topics. Although it is an unvetted initial list, you’ll have to do your own investigations to see if any options fit into your giving plans.
Top Posts
Coefficient Giving
Allocating $175m to GiveWell’s recommendations for 2026
Marco Rubio - Restoring America’s global health leadership
The US is overhauling its global health strategy by bypassing NGOs in favour of government partnerships, recently signing $8b+ in bilateral agreements with nine African nations
Alexander Kustov - Immigration is not one thing that has effects
Deliberate policy changes, not varied abstractions, drive outcomes we care about
Ken Opalo - 2025: Year in Review
Joey Savoie - My career plan: Launching Elevate Philanthropy!
Ambitious Impact - Announcing four new charities
First Embrace - ‘Kangaroo Mother Care’ wards in Nigerian hospitals
Better Season Project - Asset-collateralised loans to Kenyan smallholder farmers
Opal Health - Learning and action groups in rural Uganda to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality
Better Futures Guide - Will create a GiveWell-style evaluator for livelihood programmes
Seema Jayachandran - The case for counterfactual thinking in nonprofit fundraising
GiveWell - Progress on issues we identified during top charities red teaming
$37m extra grants made and ~$20m avoided due to identified issues
Single-source reliance had led to 20-25% overestimation of net cost-effectiveness, misallocation across Nigerian states and missed opportunities in Chad
They want to spend less time fiddling with models and more time on ground-level checks, data collection, expert conversations
IHME - GBD 2023 revised sub-Saharan Africa mortality estimates sharply upward (87% higher for ages 5-14, 60%+ higher for women 15-29) after abandoning 60-year-old model life table methods that borrowed mortality patterns from high-income countries
NSF announces a $1 billion initiative to launch a new generation of transformative independent research organisations to advance breakthrough science
Caleb Watney on why this could be a big deal
$10-$50 million/year awards per team (rather then per project)
5+ year commitments
Measuring impact through advancement up the Tech Readiness Level scale rather than papers published
Supporting research orgs outside traditional university structures
Jobs
In Development - Seeking 2-4k word narrative essays ($2k payment) on how progress happens in LMICs
GiveWell
Prevail Fund - Researcher, New Initiatives
XTX Markets - Philanthropy Manager
Coefficient Giving - Senior Editor
Taimaka - Executive Director
Head of People
Chief of Staff
Senior Campaigns Consultant
Giving What We Can - Research Director
CHAI
Program Manager, Internal AI
Manager, Maximum Impact Incubator
Renaissance Philanthropy
Director, Cardiovascular Nutrition Fund
Full Stack Software Engineer, Engineering Hub
Machine Learning Engineer, Engineering Hub
CGD - Assistant Director for Institutional Advancement
Evidence Action - AI for Good, Program Lead
Probably Good Job Board
Aid
Sweden and Germany slash aid budgets to focus on Ukraine and defence spending
£800m from Sweden and £920m from Germany
Norway to increase support for African Development Fund
Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur - Update on lives lost from USAID cuts
Cuts may cause 500k-1.6m additional deaths annually, with limited compensating response from other donors
United Nations cuts its 2026 emergency aid budget in half
America first global health strategy
Expanding faith-based healthcare in Nigeria
The US has signed a five-year, $2.1b health partnership with Nigeria that conditions aid on $3b domestic co-investment and prioritises funding for Christian faith-based clinics
Strengthening health ties with Uganda and Lesotho
USs and Kenya sign five-year, $2.5b health cooperation framework
LessWrong - I tried reproducing that Lancet study about USAID cuts so you don’t have to
Most Irish foreign aid never leaves the country
DevEx - Rethinking development funding means making it matter to the median voter
Launch of the UK government’s new approach to Africa
Shifting from a ‘donor-recipient’ model to an ‘investor-partner’ strategy
Growth
Nature - Economic inequality does not equate to poor well-being or mental health
A meta-analysis of 168 studies covering ~11 million people
Latin America reached its lowest ever poverty rate in 2024
Oliver Kim - According to satellite data, North Korean GDP per capita grew at around 3% per year from 1999 to 2013, contradicting the Bank of Korea’s estimates of decline
Brian Albrecht - GDP still wins - The only number that really matters
Brazil: The heart of the ‘zombie’ economy in emerging markets
Brazil has roughly 2.3x the emerging market average of zombie companies (firms whose debt interest exceeds profits), at ~17% vs ~8%
How Kerala eliminated extreme poverty
Noah Smith - I think India can do it
India is poised to become a developed nation within decades as sustained ~8% growth, driven by a booming manufacturing sector and financial reforms
Dev Patel, Justin Sandefur & Arvind Subramanian - We were wrong about convergence
Several years ago, we celebrated a new era of unconditional convergence of global incomes. Since then, the trend has reversed
Health
IHME - Nearly one in five child deaths linked to child growth failure
Saloni Dattani - Medical breakthroughs in 2025
WHO World Malaria Report estimates 610k deaths in 2024, up slightly from 597k in 2023
Gates Foundation - 2025 Goalkeepers report
Nigeria closes factories linked to US auto industry amid lead poisoning inquiry
Kenya pushes back as US eyes more African health deals
Headache disorders affect 3 billion people worldwide - nearly one in every three people, ranking sixth for health loss
Global Health Insights - Universal Health Coverage: The Emperor has no clothes
UHC coverage has been essentially flat since 2015, yet successive UN reports frame this stagnation positively
Measles deaths down 88% since 2000
2024 was among the worst years for measles outbreaks since the early 2000s
Governance & Policy
Isha Malhotra - India’s labor law overhaul: snapshot of key changes
Dan Lewis - The worst policies in the developed world
Bhutan pledges up to 10,000 Bitcoin (~$1b) to build new ‘mindfulness’ city
Cryptocurrency trading now legal in Ghana
World Bank
Tracking welfare in real time: How can data keep policy one step ahead?
Innovation in development: Lessons from World Bank experience
An analysis of 7,576 Independent Evaluation Group project evaluations from 1998 to 2025 reveals that innovative development projects consistently outperform standard interventions, prompting the World Bank to institutionalise experimentation through a dedicated Department for Innovation launched in 2024
Trade
DevEx - Can the US-Africa trade program AGOA be resurrected?
Africa in Brief - According to signals from major carriers, a partial reopening of the Red Sea route as early as 2026 could drive shipping costs sharply lower, easing global supply chains
China’s critical minerals strategy in Africa
China has gained a dominant position in Africa’s critical minerals sector through long-term investments in mining and refining capacity, making it challenging for African countries to advance up the value chain
Development Finance
African Development Fund secured record $11b for 2025-28, 23% above previous replenishment
Kenya & US DFC to proceed with $1b debt-for-food swap
DevEx
US DFC reauthorisation bill would expand spending cap from $60b to $205b, extend authority to 2031, allow high-income country investments
As the World Bank’s outcome-oriented approach takes hold, aligning incentives will ensure this shift is a durable one
World Bank backs nuclear revival while gas stays a political fault line
OPEC Fund approved $600m across 15 projects in LMICs
IMF - Ghana’s fifth ECF review
Inflation down to single digits for first time since 2021
Public debt trajectory improved from 79% to projected 57% of GDP
Primary surplus of 1.5% on track
CGD - DFC, critical minerals and peace in DRC?
The US is pivoting from aid to trade by using the DFC to challenge Chinese mining dominance in the DRC
Emerging Tech & Development
Equiano - Frontier 2025 - a curated review of breakthroughs and deployments across Africa’s AI landscape
GoogleDeepMind - 1,001 real-world AI use cases
James Ransom - Will AI eat India?
The characteristics that made India attractive for human-performed cognitive tasks (routine, rules-based, digitally mediated work) also define the task categories most amenable to AI substitution
Windfall Trust
AI’s 2025 labour market impacts
AI slowing white-collar job growth and reducing entry-level hiring in exposed roles, but no clear aggregate employment or wage effects yet, with adoption still under 10% of US firms
If AI stays “jagged”, it could be good news for workers
How AI can detect faults in broken WASH infrastructure
GoogleDeepMind
Engineering more resilient crops for a warming climate
AlphaFold: Five years of impact
What does AI mean for data analysts in government (and beyond)?
AI agents could transform Indian manufacturing
Semafor - UAE blockchain project eyes Africa growth through M-Pesa deal
Agricultural drones are taking off globally, saving farmers time and money
As India pushes drone deliveries, gig workers fear added insecurity
WeRide and Uber launch Middle East’s first fully driverless robotaxi commercial operations in Abu Dhabi
Chris Paxton - Where the Horses Went - An optimistic case for robotics and what that means for the rest of us
Rose Mutiso - Why one of the year’s biggest AI-for-development stories isn’t actually about AI
India’s AI monsoon forecasting success (quarter of 38m farmers changed planting decisions based on accurate 4-week predictions) worked because AI amplified decades of existing infrastructure, institutional relationships and delivery systems rather than creating impact from scratch
Nature - A database of 2.75 billion buildings could help scientists to monitor urban planning, climate change, disaster risks and corruption.
Evidence & Data
CGD - What’s the latest research on human development in economics? A roundup from NEUDC 2025
Saloni’s guide to data visualisation
When (not) to target social programs: the simple arithmetic of the effectiveness of scale-up
Applying the framework to Mozambique’s national social pension program, they find that zero targeting effort may be optimal in over 60% of administrative areas, and reallocating existing resources could raise welfare by 13%
Contra Yascha Mounk on ‘The World Happiness Report is a Sham’
Oliver Hanney - Ten key insights from development economics in 2025
John H. Cochrane - Causation does not imply variation
Justin Sandefur on issues with surveys
Startups & Business
$1.57b share sale hands Vodafone majority control of Safaricom
How Jumia lost its way
Building trust and transparency via text message: how digital receipts change smallholder markets
PayPal plans Africa global digital wallet launch in 2026
Realistic Optimist
The Filipino ecosystem, explained by a Filipino VC
Temtem: digitising Algeria’s retail sector
Infrastructure
The state of inclusive instant payment systems in Africa - 2025 report
$500m Africa-focused infrastructure fund launched
Is competition the missing piece in South Africa’s port reform puzzle?
Microsoft invests $17.5b in India to drive AI diffusion at population scale
DFC and a consortium sign $553m loan for Angola railway revamp
Agriculture & Food
World Bank - How digital monitoring expands access to mechanisation in agriculture
Tanzania has confirmed an agricultural investment valued at $640m for large-scale cassava production
Stella Katelyne - The rise of the data-driven fisherfolk in Kenya
Inside the mushroom economy in Nigeria
Nigeria loses ~$9.5b each year to post-harvest losses
African agtechs raised $170m in 2025
For more African agriculture news check out Ag Safari by Hannatu Asheolge
Energy & Climate
Africa’s industrial growth needs abundant power
India to open nuclear power industry to private sector
Ken Opalo - Firms or Families? Another instalment in the Mission 300 electrification debate
Semafor - Nuclear energy poised to rise sharply in Africa’s power mix
Hannah Ritchie - What happened on energy and climate in China this year?
Education
VoxDev with a literature review of education technology
Oliver Kim - In an experiment with 684 developing-country education policymakers, “dutiful citizens are worth nearly 50 percent more to officials than children learning how to read.”
World Bank - Is the learning crisis partly a motivation crisis?
Aliko Dangote’s foundation pledged ~$688m to fund STEM education, girls’ schooling and teacher training
Migration
BCG - Global talent mobility is slowing and shifting
~28% of intra-African travel is now visa-free, up from 20% in 2016
Lauren Gilbert - Immigration and Innovation
Laurenz Guenther - Why immigration research is probably biased
Alexander Kustov- Do people like refugees more than economic immigrants?
Conflict, Corruption & Crime
Dan Lewis - Nine major conflicts we have ignored for Ukraine and Gaza
Syria after Assad: A year in numbers
1m+ refugees returned since regime fell
World Bank forecasts 1% GDP growth in 2025
ACLED - What’s driving conflict today? A review of global trends
Semafor - Timing of Guinea-Bissau coup raises key questions
Peter Evans - The scale of aid resources put into ‘Democracy and Governance’, and the effect of the abrupt end of such aid
Landmine casualties hit four-year high as treaty setbacks deepen
A critical assessment of ECOWAS’ role in safeguarding democracy in West Africa
Uganda stops granting refugee status for Eritreans, Somalis and Ethiopians
Ten African security trends from 2025
Innovation & Metascience
Karthik Tadepalli- Ideas aren’t getting harder to find
Allocative efficiency has declined. More productive firms aren’t gaining market share over less productive ones
PaperTrails - A GoodReads for papers, posts and research
Frontier of the Year 2025 - A list of 200+ events and scientific results
How did the world change this year? Which results are speculative? Which are biggest, if true?
Andrew Gerard - Relaunching Macroscience
The Good Science Project
Why metascience needs micro and macro
A good science manifesto
Innovations in scientific institutions
Alex Tabarrok - Innovations in health care
Noah Smith - China has invented a whole new way to do innovation
Extreme vertical integration
Charities & Foundations
Kevin Starr - There is no such thing as impact investing
Seema Jayachandran - Offering higher salaries than social-sector peers
Joey - Getting feedback as a foundation
How to get honest feedback when no one is incentivised to give it
The EA Forum has a series of posts from people on why they donate
Revisiting Well, Well, Well…do wells clear the bar?
An updated evaluation of Wells4Wellness, an organisation that drills and maintains wells in Niger
Templeton World Charity Foundation is soliciting short-pitch research ideas covering fundamental science and human flourishing
Explicitly seeking high-risk contrarian ideas early-career researchers might struggle to find funding for elsewhere
Yulia Chekhovska - How I attempted to measure the impact of my Japan non-profit’s youth suicide prevention program
Alexander Berger on seeing CG as the 12th biggest funder for global health R&D (and 3rd biggest foundation?)
Good News
Taiwan has achieved its hepatitis C elimination targets ahead of schedule
Prasanna Viswanathan - India’s poorest households just lived through a decade of historic upgrade
Rural vehicle ownership jumped 6%→47%
Urban poorest owning bikes/cars grew 20%→60%
Fridges, not long ago considered a luxury, now reach 46% rural and 58% urban among the poorest
Mobile phones are now universal with 94%+ even among the bottom 40%.
Brazil eliminates mother-to-child transmission of HIV
Human Progress - 1,084 reasons the world isn’t falling apart
Fix The News - All the news the headlines missed in 2025
For more good news check out Fix The News & Human Progress










2026!
This is a fantastic compilation. Thank you VERY much!