You’re absolutely right that improved leadership and governance has much greater impact than the typical EA / GiveWell causes, e.g. bed nets.
However, the problem is we don’t know how to improve leadership and governance, with “we” being all of development academics and practitioners. Indeed, the World Bank and countless NGOs have been working for decades, spending billions of dollars on improving governance with little impact. Because of this poor track record, I’m suspicious that spending yet another 1 million on Haiti’s governance wouldn’t have any impact.
As someone who studies economic development and works in international development for 2 years, I’m quite jaded. The pie seems large, but it’s entirely in the sky. In contrast, the EA / Give Well approach only makes small promises, but it surely delivers. That’s the appeal.
So I’d be a little careful about those statements. Countries with a history of corruption are improving all the time, and in fact the divergence of the Dominican Republic and Haiti (two countries that literally share an island) are a stark example of that. Governance does tend to improve incrementally, but in many many places it has improved substantially over time. Here in Mexico governance is significantly less corrupt than it was when the PRI party had unchallenged dominance.
I am not an expert on how much of that is because of outside interventions versus other things, but due to the outsized returns to improved governance I think it isn’t something to dismiss as hopeless. Perhaps improved governance is an intractable problem for a movement like EA. I would just be careful about reaching that conclusion too quickly. And indeed portions of EA seem to engage directly with improving governance (such as better voting systems).
The Haiti example was a thought experiment to contrast that approach with current EA approaches.
You’re absolutely right that improved leadership and governance has much greater impact than the typical EA / GiveWell causes, e.g. bed nets.
However, the problem is we don’t know how to improve leadership and governance, with “we” being all of development academics and practitioners. Indeed, the World Bank and countless NGOs have been working for decades, spending billions of dollars on improving governance with little impact. Because of this poor track record, I’m suspicious that spending yet another 1 million on Haiti’s governance wouldn’t have any impact.
As someone who studies economic development and works in international development for 2 years, I’m quite jaded. The pie seems large, but it’s entirely in the sky. In contrast, the EA / Give Well approach only makes small promises, but it surely delivers. That’s the appeal.
So I’d be a little careful about those statements. Countries with a history of corruption are improving all the time, and in fact the divergence of the Dominican Republic and Haiti (two countries that literally share an island) are a stark example of that. Governance does tend to improve incrementally, but in many many places it has improved substantially over time. Here in Mexico governance is significantly less corrupt than it was when the PRI party had unchallenged dominance.
I am not an expert on how much of that is because of outside interventions versus other things, but due to the outsized returns to improved governance I think it isn’t something to dismiss as hopeless. Perhaps improved governance is an intractable problem for a movement like EA. I would just be careful about reaching that conclusion too quickly. And indeed portions of EA seem to engage directly with improving governance (such as better voting systems).
The Haiti example was a thought experiment to contrast that approach with current EA approaches.