Some of those charities are developed-world charities and would likely be seen as ineffective by most EAs. However, he might not give to those charities if he was running an EA Fund (similar to how many GiveWell staff are donating to charities not recommended by GiveWell), or maybe multiple people could run the fund together.
One thing I like about Blattman’s work is that he has done a lot of research on armed conflict and violence and how to prevent it (with high-quality RCTs). This area seems to be very neglected in EA:
EAs seem to focus on health most of the time (e.g. Charity Entrepreneurship almost exclusively evaluated health programs). There are lots of good reasons for focusing on health, and maybe the goal of EA is not to find all the best charities/programs but only some of them such that there’s enough RFMF for the EA community as a whole. However, I’m skeptical and still think non-health approaches are very neglected in EA because:
1) There has been hardly any analysis of other program areas (e.g. so far I haven’t seen any kind of back-of-the-envelope analysis focusing on peace and security, nor any kind of “fact post” on the EA forum, nor anything similar),
2) there might be a lot of additional funding available for such alternative approaches (by donors who tend to be more skeptical of GiveWell’s health focus, or by donors whose funds are restricted in some way),
3) it would demonstrate to the outside world that EAs are really doing their homework instead of being easily satisfied with some easy-to-measure approaches, and this might accelerate EA movement growth and strengthen its impact and credibility in society at large (which could also increase total funding for top charities).
For these reasons, I would very much like someone like Chris Blattman to be involved with the EA Funds in some way (maybe not as a fund manager). Or some external review of GiveWell’s work by someone like Blattman.
There has been hardly any analysis of other program areas (e.g. so far I haven’t seen any kind of back-of-the-envelope analysis focusing on peace and security, nor any kind of “fact post” on the EA forum, nor anything similar),
Some of those charities are developed-world charities and would likely be seen as ineffective by most EAs. However, he might not give to those charities if he was running an EA Fund (similar to how many GiveWell staff are donating to charities not recommended by GiveWell), or maybe multiple people could run the fund together.
One thing I like about Blattman’s work is that he has done a lot of research on armed conflict and violence and how to prevent it (with high-quality RCTs). This area seems to be very neglected in EA:
http://www.poverty-action.org/study/peace-education-rural-liberia
http://www.poverty-action.org/study/ex-combatant-reintegration-liberia
EAs seem to focus on health most of the time (e.g. Charity Entrepreneurship almost exclusively evaluated health programs). There are lots of good reasons for focusing on health, and maybe the goal of EA is not to find all the best charities/programs but only some of them such that there’s enough RFMF for the EA community as a whole. However, I’m skeptical and still think non-health approaches are very neglected in EA because:
1) There has been hardly any analysis of other program areas (e.g. so far I haven’t seen any kind of back-of-the-envelope analysis focusing on peace and security, nor any kind of “fact post” on the EA forum, nor anything similar),
2) there might be a lot of additional funding available for such alternative approaches (by donors who tend to be more skeptical of GiveWell’s health focus, or by donors whose funds are restricted in some way),
3) it would demonstrate to the outside world that EAs are really doing their homework instead of being easily satisfied with some easy-to-measure approaches, and this might accelerate EA movement growth and strengthen its impact and credibility in society at large (which could also increase total funding for top charities).
For these reasons, I would very much like someone like Chris Blattman to be involved with the EA Funds in some way (maybe not as a fund manager). Or some external review of GiveWell’s work by someone like Blattman.
EDIT: Actually Open Phil wrote a bit about aid in fragile contexts: http://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/cause-reports/fragile-states
80K does briefly compare deaths from health-related causes to deaths from war, but I agree it would be nice to see a more detailed, nuanced analysis that took into account Blattman and others’ arguments.
I left a similar comment in GiveWell’s June 2017 open thread – let’s see what they say:
http://blog.givewell.org/2017/06/15/june-2017-open-thread/#comment-943609