Before we assume there is a situation that needs to be improved, it is important to make clear that there is a problem. The existence of an article from someone in an extremely poor place saying that EA has not helped his community is not compelling evidence that there is a problem with how EA is using its resources.
The total cash flow through from AMF, the deworming programs and Give Directly through their whole history is probably in the area of 1-2 billion dollars. Or something like 2-4 dollars per extremely poor person.
Obviously this hasn’t made a big direct impact on the day to day life of a random poor person in a random poor country . It isn’t enough money.
So the question that we actually want to answer is: Given the actual quantity of resources we have available to put towards extremely poor countries, would that tiny amount of resources do more good per dollar if we adopted the proposals put forward here? Alternatively, would these proposals allow us to mobilize more rich Western person money, until there is enough being donated to actually fill the holes?
I charitably read “random” as “randomly drawn” i.e. if you look at any poor community, the odds that they have been helped by EA is small because EA’s money flow is very small. This is also likely because of the quote from Anthony’s article.
if you randomly asked one of the people who themselves live in abject poverty, there is no chance that they will mention one of EA’s supported “effective” charities, as having impacted their lives more than the work of traditional global antipoverty agencies. No. That’s out of question.
“What can we do to help improve this situation?”
Before we assume there is a situation that needs to be improved, it is important to make clear that there is a problem. The existence of an article from someone in an extremely poor place saying that EA has not helped his community is not compelling evidence that there is a problem with how EA is using its resources.
The total cash flow through from AMF, the deworming programs and Give Directly through their whole history is probably in the area of 1-2 billion dollars. Or something like 2-4 dollars per extremely poor person.
Obviously this hasn’t made a big direct impact on the day to day life of a random poor person in a random poor country . It isn’t enough money.
So the question that we actually want to answer is: Given the actual quantity of resources we have available to put towards extremely poor countries, would that tiny amount of resources do more good per dollar if we adopted the proposals put forward here? Alternatively, would these proposals allow us to mobilize more rich Western person money, until there is enough being donated to actually fill the holes?
deleted because Karthik clarified what the OP meant.
I charitably read “random” as “randomly drawn” i.e. if you look at any poor community, the odds that they have been helped by EA is small because EA’s money flow is very small. This is also likely because of the quote from Anthony’s article.
I believe Tim was responding to this part.
Thanks, I deleted my comment. I appreciate your clarification.