Let me first re-emphasise that this blog is very much in a “yes and…” spirit. As I say in the blog, I believe EA is a positive influence on philanthropy and global development and has more potential to continue to shake things up for the better.
Thank you for this detailed response and the clarification that some of your analysis and grant making is indeed context-specific; great to see, particularly as someone who cut their teeth on CEA of malaria interventions. My impression is still that context-differentiated analysis perhaps the exception rather than the rule within the EA space—i.e. including organisations beyond GiveWell and topics beyond global health. It doesn’t yet come out strongly in the back-and-forth in forums like this one nor in presentations at EA Global conferences and it’s usually not emphasised in recommendations of EA donors—perhaps including GiveWell if we look at the evidence in the Top Charities page (as you note). Solving this challenge is not straightforward of course and remains an issue for other donors in the development space.
I don’t mean to suggest there are off-the-shelf lessons from HTA—on this or the other differences I highlight—that could be adopted directly by EA organisations. Equally, the field of HTA has been developing approaches for cost-effectiveness-based decision-making for several decades and may be fertile ground to explore for the development of EA prioritisation.
Greetings GiveWell Colleagues,
Let me first re-emphasise that this blog is very much in a “yes and…” spirit. As I say in the blog, I believe EA is a positive influence on philanthropy and global development and has more potential to continue to shake things up for the better.
Thank you for this detailed response and the clarification that some of your analysis and grant making is indeed context-specific; great to see, particularly as someone who cut their teeth on CEA of malaria interventions. My impression is still that context-differentiated analysis perhaps the exception rather than the rule within the EA space—i.e. including organisations beyond GiveWell and topics beyond global health. It doesn’t yet come out strongly in the back-and-forth in forums like this one nor in presentations at EA Global conferences and it’s usually not emphasised in recommendations of EA donors—perhaps including GiveWell if we look at the evidence in the Top Charities page (as you note). Solving this challenge is not straightforward of course and remains an issue for other donors in the development space.
I don’t mean to suggest there are off-the-shelf lessons from HTA—on this or the other differences I highlight—that could be adopted directly by EA organisations. Equally, the field of HTA has been developing approaches for cost-effectiveness-based decision-making for several decades and may be fertile ground to explore for the development of EA prioritisation.
Happy to keep in touch as useful.