I’ve spent a good part of the past month reviewing The Carter Center in depth. We found out about The Carter Center though referrals from an advisor and donor, and through the Gates Award for Global Health. We chose to investigate The Carter Center further for four reasons: Strong track record of success. The Carter…
The GiveWell Blog
Month: February 2009
Financial Times on microfinance (and the need for better info about it)
PDF here (via Innovators for Poverty Action, whose research is featured). After discussing the Karlan/Zinman study showing benefits for loans (which we summarize here), it continues: Karlan is the first to warn against extrapolating too much from a single experiment. “This is the last thing in the world that I would use to develop policy,”…
Microfinance/education program didn’t work as expected
A reader was good enough to send in a Lancet article (free registration required for full text) about a well-designed study of a combination microfinance/education program in South Africa. Study design, strengths and weaknesses A program consisting of both loans and group meetings was rolled out to 8 villages in rural South Africa, but the…
Antiretroviral treatment (ART): Things to look out for
Antiretroviral treatment (ART) is one of the more well-publicized ways to help people in the developing world. The (RED) campaign puts it front and center, and the Gates Foundation places heavy emphasis on it as well. It seems at first glance like a fairly straightforward, if expensive, intervention: directly treat HIV-positive people with proven drugs…
Malaria treatment
The Disease Control Priorities Report says: The recommended treatments for malaria in areas with resistance to single drugs are combination treatments, preferably artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) (WHO 2001a, 2001b, 2003a, 2005). But, knowing that your charity of choice runs this program is not sufficient to know that they’re improving lives. Bill Brieger at Malaria Matters…