I think that you dismiss the critiques of Moyo and Easterly to quickly. They are critiques of top down aid, which EA is a champion of. Easterly in particular is critical of organizations which plan without understanding or asking the needs of the communities. Yes, this means that more research is needed, but of a drastically different kind. The problem with allowing organizations to assess themselves, is that they will not look for faults that they know exist. AMF, for example, stops testing communities for malaria after the lifespan of the donated nets run out, since this would demonstrate how ineffective their programs are. The problem is that currently EA is convinced they are doing sufficient research to identify top charities when the charities that they promote (like AMF) are not merely ineffective, they are actively doing more harm than good. You want a critique of the methods of EA for assessing effective charities, here it is
I think that you dismiss the critiques of Moyo and Easterly to quickly. They are critiques of top down aid, which EA is a champion of. Easterly in particular is critical of organizations which plan without understanding or asking the needs of the communities. Yes, this means that more research is needed, but of a drastically different kind. The problem with allowing organizations to assess themselves, is that they will not look for faults that they know exist. AMF, for example, stops testing communities for malaria after the lifespan of the donated nets run out, since this would demonstrate how ineffective their programs are. The problem is that currently EA is convinced they are doing sufficient research to identify top charities when the charities that they promote (like AMF) are not merely ineffective, they are actively doing more harm than good. You want a critique of the methods of EA for assessing effective charities, here it is