I don’t think it makes sense to think of these these statements by big NGOs about “lives saved” in the same way as a GiveWell analysis. These numbers are often grossly overestimated often 10x or more. They don’t do proper, rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis before making these statements. The CEO’s of these huge orgs also can’t be expected to understand cost-effectiveness analysis properly. Their job is to be public figureheads and to manage behemoth orgs, not to understand numbers deeply.
Also they say “Your ability to save 1.1 million lives is compromised” which is not exactly saying that extra money would translates to those lives saved. I’m also not clear exactly what they are trying to say, but it may be deliberately vague
My intuition would be that there is a low chance that Gavi’s marginal cost per life saved with extra funding is cheap enough to clear GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness bar. The first billion of their yearly budget ight be cost-effective, but for marginal extra dollars there are diminishing returns with vaccines, just like there are usually diminishing returns, including with initiatives like mosquito nets and corporate campaigns.
SPECIFIC Gavi programs or initiatives GAVI could be super cost-effective though and that might be worth looking into. An analogy might besprawling big NGOs like CHAI or PATH, which (IMO) do a huge amount of work which isn’t cost-effective at all. But GiveWell funds some of their specific programs which might be more cost-effective.
I don’t think it makes sense to think of these these statements by big NGOs about “lives saved” in the same way as a GiveWell analysis. These numbers are often grossly overestimated often 10x or more. They don’t do proper, rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis before making these statements. The CEO’s of these huge orgs also can’t be expected to understand cost-effectiveness analysis properly. Their job is to be public figureheads and to manage behemoth orgs, not to understand numbers deeply.
Also they say “Your ability to save 1.1 million lives is compromised” which is not exactly saying that extra money would translates to those lives saved. I’m also not clear exactly what they are trying to say, but it may be deliberately vague
My intuition would be that there is a low chance that Gavi’s marginal cost per life saved with extra funding is cheap enough to clear GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness bar. The first billion of their yearly budget ight be cost-effective, but for marginal extra dollars there are diminishing returns with vaccines, just like there are usually diminishing returns, including with initiatives like mosquito nets and corporate campaigns.
SPECIFIC Gavi programs or initiatives GAVI could be super cost-effective though and that might be worth looking into. An analogy might besprawling big NGOs like CHAI or PATH, which (IMO) do a huge amount of work which isn’t cost-effective at all. But GiveWell funds some of their specific programs which might be more cost-effective.