The GiveWell Blog

The most important problem may not be the best charitable cause

I recently ran across a charity called Project AK-47 that declares: Over 100,000 kids are carrying machine guns in the armies of Southeast Asia. Instead of walking to school, they march to war. Instead of playing, they train to kill. If we don’t intervene, most of these children will be soldiers for at least 7…

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Measurement is not as common as it should be. Why?

The idea that there should be more measurement appears to be one of the points of widest agreement in the literature on aid. But we believe that agreement in principle is unlikely to mean much until donors (both large and small) act on it. It isn’t enough to request better information; we need to reserve…

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Aid’s track record

While Elie’s been investigating the Carter Center, I’ve been scanning literature (mostly academic) on general questions about aid: what has worked in the past? What’s promising for the future? etc. Rather than trying to come to an independent conclusion on each debate, I’ve been trying to establish which beliefs are supported by evidence that is…

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