Plausibly the increased emphasis on procedural approaches to priority setting is misguided, but there has been a decent amount of philosophical and empirical work on this. At a minimum, it seems like funders should engage with this literature before determining whether any of these approaches are worth considering.
you’re right that EA is definitely moving away from the norms around priority setting in other fields, not just in global health but also in other global development field. I’ve noticed from my circulars I get from the Skoll foundation, that they seem to be moving away from brutal cost-effectiveness and towards inclusive and collaborative decision making.
Personally I prefer the EA norms at the moment, until I am convinced that being more democratic and collaborative is going to help the poorest people more. Here in Uganda, what might be touted as listening to “Public interest” in NGO circles often heavily favours the rich and government institutions, at the expense of the poorest people who realistically are not going to get a strong voice in any collaborative processes. This is sad but hard to rectify. For example in any NGO project I have seen from the outside or inside, if you try and democratise the project and ask “stakeholders” what money should be spent on, what ends up happening is far more “stakeholder meetings”, “trainings” and “conferences” which are basically euphemisms for “allowances for rich NGO workers and government officials”. In Uganda at least, it’s very hard for democratised aid to move far away from more rich and influential people feeding themselves through brutal self interest.
As a side note, a potental irony about the WHO is that in my limited experience they are remarkable inefficient and in practice may not be so concerned about cost-effectiveness, even though they talk that talk.
Anyway your point is am important point to remember, like you say that EA is moving further away from the norms of the mainstream development field.
My impression is also that the track record of so-called “fair processes” is really spotty for the reasons you note here—it’s hard to actually make them inclusive, they’re incredibly costly and burdensome, they often serve as a cover for NGOs/multilaterals doing what they wanted to do anyways, etc.
I just think there is a more charitable case to be made for democratizing funding decisions than is made in this post, and also a much broader range of implementation strategies that could be considered. (I’m personally a fan of surveying potential beneficiaries on their priorities, as others have suggested.) I worry about EA becoming an echo chamber, so think it’s worth figuring out why multiple large fields (and, I think, most academics who work on these issues) have reached different conclusions than EA about this.
I am also skeptical of democratizing EA funding decisions because I share your concerns about effective implementation, but want to note that EA norms around this are somewhat out of step with norms around priority setting in other fields, particularly global health. In recent years, global health funders have taken steps to democratize funding decisions. For instance, the World Health Organization increasingly emphasizes the importance of fair decision-making processes; here’s a representative title: “Priority Setting for Universal Health Coverage: We Need Evidence-Informed Deliberative Processes, Not Just More Evidence on Cost-Effectiveness.”
Plausibly the increased emphasis on procedural approaches to priority setting is misguided, but there has been a decent amount of philosophical and empirical work on this. At a minimum, it seems like funders should engage with this literature before determining whether any of these approaches are worth considering.
Thanks Lilly, great points.
you’re right that EA is definitely moving away from the norms around priority setting in other fields, not just in global health but also in other global development field. I’ve noticed from my circulars I get from the Skoll foundation, that they seem to be moving away from brutal cost-effectiveness and towards inclusive and collaborative decision making.
Personally I prefer the EA norms at the moment, until I am convinced that being more democratic and collaborative is going to help the poorest people more. Here in Uganda, what might be touted as listening to “Public interest” in NGO circles often heavily favours the rich and government institutions, at the expense of the poorest people who realistically are not going to get a strong voice in any collaborative processes. This is sad but hard to rectify. For example in any NGO project I have seen from the outside or inside, if you try and democratise the project and ask “stakeholders” what money should be spent on, what ends up happening is far more “stakeholder meetings”, “trainings” and “conferences” which are basically euphemisms for “allowances for rich NGO workers and government officials”. In Uganda at least, it’s very hard for democratised aid to move far away from more rich and influential people feeding themselves through brutal self interest.
As a side note, a potental irony about the WHO is that in my limited experience they are remarkable inefficient and in practice may not be so concerned about cost-effectiveness, even though they talk that talk.
Anyway your point is am important point to remember, like you say that EA is moving further away from the norms of the mainstream development field.
Thanks for highlighting this!
My impression is also that the track record of so-called “fair processes” is really spotty for the reasons you note here—it’s hard to actually make them inclusive, they’re incredibly costly and burdensome, they often serve as a cover for NGOs/multilaterals doing what they wanted to do anyways, etc.
I just think there is a more charitable case to be made for democratizing funding decisions than is made in this post, and also a much broader range of implementation strategies that could be considered. (I’m personally a fan of surveying potential beneficiaries on their priorities, as others have suggested.) I worry about EA becoming an echo chamber, so think it’s worth figuring out why multiple large fields (and, I think, most academics who work on these issues) have reached different conclusions than EA about this.
Thanks for raising this. I haven’t been particularly persuaded by work in that vein but it’s certainly worth engaging with.