I want to agree with your points on delegating as much decision making directly to the affected populations, but my sense is that this is something GiveWell already thinks very seriously about, and has deeply considered.
For example, I personally felt very persuaded by some of Alex Berger’s comments explaining that the advantage of buying bed-nets over direct transfers are that many of the beneficiaries are children, who wouldn’t be eligible for GiveDirectly, and that ~50% of the benefits are from the positive externalities of killing mosquitoes, so people making individual choices would tend to underinvest.
I’m guessing you wouldn’t find that argument compelling, or at least not sufficiently compelling, so I’d love to understand what I’m missing here, or why/how our views might differ.
I want to agree with your points on delegating as much decision making directly to the affected populations, but my sense is that this is something GiveWell already thinks very seriously about, and has deeply considered.
For example, I personally felt very persuaded by some of Alex Berger’s comments explaining that the advantage of buying bed-nets over direct transfers are that many of the beneficiaries are children, who wouldn’t be eligible for GiveDirectly, and that ~50% of the benefits are from the positive externalities of killing mosquitoes, so people making individual choices would tend to underinvest.
I’m guessing you wouldn’t find that argument compelling, or at least not sufficiently compelling, so I’d love to understand what I’m missing here, or why/how our views might differ.