The GiveWell Blog

Podcast Episode 2: Addressing Urgent Needs in Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention

Recent cuts to US government foreign assistance have destabilized global health programs, impacting some of the most cost-effective interventions we’ve found. To address this situation, GiveWell is balancing a targeted, near-term response to urgent needs with a broad, long-term perspective of needs that may emerge. You can read about both on our recently launched webpage that shares some of the ways we’re responding and the grants we’re making.

Today, we’re releasing the second podcast episode in a series of conversations with our research team that shares timely snapshots of this rapidly evolving situation.

Our first episode shared a broad overview of the impacts of US government aid cuts and GiveWell’s initial response. This time, GiveWell Program Officer Natalie Crispin joins CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld to zoom in on a specific case, focusing on grants we’ve made to support urgent funding gaps for seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC).

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First Podcast Episode: GiveWell’s Response to USAID Funding Cuts

Recent US government funding cuts represent a significant shift in the global health funding landscape. The US has historically provided roughly 20% to 25% ($12 billion to $15 billion) of total global health assistance, and the administration has discussed potentially reducing that funding by 35% to 90% (though long-term effects remain uncertain and exact numbers remain difficult to ascertain). As a result, we’re seeing substantial disruption to global health programs.

Our research team has pivoted to address this situation, which is now a major focus. It is creating urgent, short-term gaps and impacting some of the most cost-effective interventions we’ve found for saving and improving lives—such as malaria nets, malaria chemoprevention, and community-based management of acute malnutrition.

We’ve created a webpage to provide an overview of how we’re responding, and we’ve started to record a series of conversations with our research team that shares timely snapshots of this rapidly evolving situation.

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February 2025 Updates

Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!

If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.

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January 2025 Updates

Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!

If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.

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November 2024 Updates

Every month we send an email newsletter to our supporters sharing recent updates from our work. We publish selected portions of the newsletter on our blog to make this news more accessible to people who visit our website. For key updates from the latest installment, please see below!

If you’d like to receive the complete newsletter in your inbox each month, you can subscribe here.

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An Update to GiveWell’s Grant Deployment Timelines

GiveWell aims to save and improve lives as cost-effectively as possible. That mission has an urgency, and we put a lot of effort into finding and funding high-impact giving opportunities quickly. But we also want to maximize our impact over time, and have found that high-impact interventions can take years of investment to discover, vet, launch, and scale.

As a result, we’ve begun to deploy funds across a longer time period in order to (a) avoid a scenario where we want to make cost-effective grants but can’t due to lack of funds, (b) aid long-term planning for our research team, and (c) communicate consistent expectations to grantees and potential grantees about our cost-effectiveness threshold.

Specifically, we previously aimed to allocate all funds within the same year they were raised, targeting a year-end balance of zero. Now, we plan to enter each year with sufficient funds to fully cover our grantmaking activities for that year without accounting for new donations.This approach creates greater financial stability, which we think will allow us to plan better and to achieve greater impact over time.

If you donate to our Top Charities Fund (TCF), nothing has changed. We still expect to commit TCF donations in the quarter after they are received. These changes will only apply to our unrestricted and All Grants Fund (AGF).

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