Can you tell us a little bit about how this project and partnership came together? What was OpenPhil’s role? What is it like working with such a large number of organizations, including governments? Do you see potential for more collaborations like this?
Open Phil’s main role was organizing a group of donors to commit most of the funding which was announced alongside the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. The Lead Exposure Action Fund comprises $104m of the $150m that was announced, and Open Phil staff will manage the allocation of those funds. The work to launch a collaborative fund was quite far along when we formalized a partnership with USAID, so it’s an interesting coming together of two strands.
We’ve also been working very closely with USAID and UNICEF to help design the PLF (and we’re still working together to flesh it out), and have pledged to co-fund a portion of the PLF’s operating costs.
Overall, it’s been a really positive (and fun!) experience working with USAID. Smoother than I would’ve guessed. I think there’s a few things that have helped with that.
First, lead exposure is just really compelling on impact grounds; Samantha Power and Atul Gawande are convinced about it for the same reasons we are. Two generalizable takeaways for me were that the ITN framework is convincing outside narrow EA circles, and people at the very highest levels of government resonate with cause prioritization. That makes sense: they’re the people who have to make decisions at that level. Both those make me optimistic about the potential for more collaboration.
Second, we’ve been working with some really cool people who share our values. Samantha Power’s senior adviser, Garrett Lam, is the person who first brought lead exposure to Samantha Power’s attention, and I believe that was partly due to various touchpoints with this community (but wouldn’t want to speak too much for him).
Can you tell us a little bit about how this project and partnership came together? What was OpenPhil’s role? What is it like working with such a large number of organizations, including governments? Do you see potential for more collaborations like this?
Open Phil’s main role was organizing a group of donors to commit most of the funding which was announced alongside the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. The Lead Exposure Action Fund comprises $104m of the $150m that was announced, and Open Phil staff will manage the allocation of those funds. The work to launch a collaborative fund was quite far along when we formalized a partnership with USAID, so it’s an interesting coming together of two strands.
We’ve also been working very closely with USAID and UNICEF to help design the PLF (and we’re still working together to flesh it out), and have pledged to co-fund a portion of the PLF’s operating costs.
Overall, it’s been a really positive (and fun!) experience working with USAID. Smoother than I would’ve guessed. I think there’s a few things that have helped with that.
First, lead exposure is just really compelling on impact grounds; Samantha Power and Atul Gawande are convinced about it for the same reasons we are. Two generalizable takeaways for me were that the ITN framework is convincing outside narrow EA circles, and people at the very highest levels of government resonate with cause prioritization. That makes sense: they’re the people who have to make decisions at that level. Both those make me optimistic about the potential for more collaboration.
Second, we’ve been working with some really cool people who share our values. Samantha Power’s senior adviser, Garrett Lam, is the person who first brought lead exposure to Samantha Power’s attention, and I believe that was partly due to various touchpoints with this community (but wouldn’t want to speak too much for him).