This is, of course, still outside the $3000-$5000 range (although not far off), so it would be good to hear from GiveWell whether they expect future donations opportunities to drop back into that range.
Note also that this cost per life figure does not include the development effects of preventing malaria, which are potentially quite material (these are included in the “multiples of cash transfers” calculations).
Thanks Lucas. You are right that there is a version 3 of this spreadsheet and my post is based on version 2. I originally took a copy of the spreadsheet in late August and v3 appeared in September.
The only difference I can see between the two is the allocation of funding across countries (row 7), with the rest of the values agreeing once this is adjusted. Still, this is a vital difference for my essay, and agree v3 gets the average cost-per-life-saved pretty close to the stated range.
GiveWell don’t justify this change in their changelog and it seems a little finger-in-the-air to me. Some quick research shows AMF’s $108m of recently committed funding almost exclusively went to DRC. That said, it’s not clear where the next $80m will go as AMF do not publicly identify countries involved until an Agreement is signed.
Loreno, thanks again for your efforts here. I agree with what you said, and have tweaked the post to say “2021 v2” for clarity.
After looking at this a bit more closely, it appears that the % of funding to each country (rows 7,19) is actually purely arbitary GiveWell’s most recent cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). Hence, the 19% figure I quoted above is not meaningful. Apologies for my misleading comment.
I suspect that this new approach of using arbitrary percentages reflects the complex question of “room for more funding” outlined in GiveWell’s recent blog post. Nonetheless, my understanding is that the funding GiveWell actually allocated to AMF in 2020 was well within the $5000 cost per life saved range.
Note also that DRC’s program remains 12.7x cash in the most recent CEA (once development effects are included).
Hi JPHoughton,
“Virtually all donations today to the Against Malaria Foundation will go towards long lasting insecticidal nets for the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
As far as I can tell from GiveWell’s current cost-effectiveness analysis, only 19% of donations will go to DRC? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B1fODKVbnGP4fejsZCVNvBm5zvI1jC7DhkaJpFk6zfo/edit#gid=1364064522 (row 19)
Taking a weighted average of each country’s cost-effectiveness by the % of donations, I get a cost-effectiveness of $5,636. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GdCKfSNJkp8aGDxjKlnuRook_LgkKJOJvQvzzZ5KqTw/edit#gid=1364064522&range=B223 (cell B223)
This is, of course, still outside the $3000-$5000 range (although not far off), so it would be good to hear from GiveWell whether they expect future donations opportunities to drop back into that range.
Note also that this cost per life figure does not include the development effects of preventing malaria, which are potentially quite material (these are included in the “multiples of cash transfers” calculations).
Cheers,
Lucas
I get “Access Denied” trying to access your spreadsheets.
In any case the most recent released model is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11HsJLpq0Suf3SK_PmzzWpK1tr_BTd364j0l3xVvSCQw/edit#gid=1364064522 .
The “Percentage of funding to be allocated to each country with marginal donations”, described as “percentage of funding we expect the charity would allocate to each country if it were to receive additional funding.” seems to be 100% to DRC.
I assume that’s what JPHoughton is referring to, I think it might be helpful to clarify it in the main post
Sorry, access provided now! I believe there is a newer version (version 3) of GiveWell’s spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B1fODKVbnGP4fejsZCVNvBm5zvI1jC7DhkaJpFk6zfo/edit#gid=1364064522
Thanks Lucas. You are right that there is a version 3 of this spreadsheet and my post is based on version 2. I originally took a copy of the spreadsheet in late August and v3 appeared in September.
The only difference I can see between the two is the allocation of funding across countries (row 7), with the rest of the values agreeing once this is adjusted. Still, this is a vital difference for my essay, and agree v3 gets the average cost-per-life-saved pretty close to the stated range.
GiveWell don’t justify this change in their changelog and it seems a little finger-in-the-air to me. Some quick research shows AMF’s $108m of recently committed funding almost exclusively went to DRC. That said, it’s not clear where the next $80m will go as AMF do not publicly identify countries involved until an Agreement is signed.
Loreno, thanks again for your efforts here. I agree with what you said, and have tweaked the post to say “2021 v2” for clarity.
Hi JPHoughton,
After looking at this a bit more closely, it appears that the % of funding to each country (rows 7,19) is actually purely arbitary GiveWell’s most recent cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). Hence, the 19% figure I quoted above is not meaningful. Apologies for my misleading comment.
I suspect that this new approach of using arbitrary percentages reflects the complex question of “room for more funding” outlined in GiveWell’s recent blog post. Nonetheless, my understanding is that the funding GiveWell actually allocated to AMF in 2020 was well within the $5000 cost per life saved range.
Note also that DRC’s program remains 12.7x cash in the most recent CEA (once development effects are included).
Cheers,
Lucas