DFID Call with Givewell and Good Ventures, 9 July 2012.Pdf (73.39

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

DFID Call with Givewell and Good Ventures, 9 July 2012.Pdf (73.39 Phone call between Good Ventures, GiveWell and the Department for International Development (DFID), 9 July 2012. Participants: Good Ventures: Cari Tuna, President GiveWell: Elie Hassenfeld, Co-Executive Director; Eliza Scheffler, Research Analyst DFID: Nick York (Chief Professional Officer for Evaluation), Sarah Bloom (Team Leader, Health and Education, Private Sector Department), Nicki Goh (Private Sector Adviser, Innovation), Jonathan Wong (Head of Innovation Hub), John Gibb (Team Leader, Health Services Team), Julia Watson (Sr Health Economist), and Gillian Mann (Health Adviser). GiveWell and Good Ventures were particularly interested in DFID because there is overlap between some programs that DFID funds and areas that GiveWell and Good Ventures find promising (e.g. SCI, Gates Foundation/DFID malaria resistance project in Myanmar). The UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) leads the UK’s fight against global poverty. In 2010/11, the DFID aid programme was £7.7 billion. DFID’s main offices are in London and East Kilbride (Scotland), and it has country offices in Africa and Asia that have professional staff on the ground. Funding decisions take into account both geographical and policy priorities. Discussion of DFID areas of interest • DFID directs its support to 28 focus countries. It has a focus on generating results and getting value for money for all development programs. DFID supports a wide range of health programmes (see www.dfid.gov.uk). • DFID mentioned the following areas for greater potential future investment: o Neglected tropical diseases o Global partnerships, particularly in TB and malaria o Family planning o Water, sanitation and hygiene o Non-communicable diseases o Information and communication technologies and health o Non-state health services (through the HANSHEP group- www.hanshep.org) o Filling gaps in knowledge and evidence (e.g. through funding evaluations, Cochrane Collaboration) .
Recommended publications
  • BMGF Malaria 2-10-14 (Public)
    A conversation with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation malaria team on December 9, 2013 Participants • Alan Magill — Director, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • David Brandling-Bennett — Senior Advisor, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Bruno Moonen - Deputy Director, Malaria program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Alexandra Farnum — Program Officer, Global Program Advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Meg Halverson — Consultant, Global Program Advocacy, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Adrienne DiCasparro — Associate Program Officer, Giving Partnerships, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation • Cari Tuna — Co-Founder, Good Ventures • Holden Karnofsky — Co-Founder, GiveWell Note: This set of conversation notes was compiled by GiveWell and gives an overview of the major points made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation malaria team. Summary GiveWell and Good Ventures spoke with members of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) malaria team about gaps in global malaria funding, BMGF’s strategy and projected timeline for malaria eradication, and other BMGF malaria activities. Gaps in global malaria funding GiveWell and Good Ventures asked the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) malaria team whether there is a need for funding of better data on bed net durability and bed net usage. There is not as much knowledge and data about bed net usage and bed net durability as there should be. A potential source of variability in bed net durability is that, currently, there are no globally established criteria for measuring the durability of bed nets, so it is possible that net durability standards differ between producers. The Results for Development Institute (R4D) is doing very good work on studying bed net durability.
    [Show full text]
  • Charitable Infidelity: When Donors Lose Control of Donor-Advised Funds Page 32
    CHARITABLE INFIDELITY: WHEN DONORS LOSE CONTROL OF DONOR-ADVISED FUNDS PAGE 32 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: 3 Congress learns about the long history of Russian election meddling 7 How the name “hate crime” designation breeds even more hate 15 Do you know how millions in refugee resettlement funds are being spent? www.CapitalResearch.org The communist movement known as Antifa (short for Anti-Fascist Action) has sparked violence across the nation. In the wake of their battling white supremacist in Charlottesville, Antifa has begun to gain mainstream popularity. But unbeknownst to much of the public, the vast majority of Antifa violence isn’t targeted at genuine fascists, but mainstream conservatives and civilians. With help from those who have encountered Antifa, Trevor Loudon guides us through the history and ideas behind the Antifa movement, starting with Leon Trotsky and going all the way through the events in Berkeley, CA and Charlottesville, VA. WATCH AT: DangerousDocumentaries.com/film/America-Under-Siege-Antifa/ ISSUE 8, 2018 CONTENTS 3 ORGANIZATION TRENDS 7 Weaponizing “Hate” COMMENTARY By Renee Nal CRC’s Research into History of Russian Meddling Takes the House Floor SPECIAL REPORT By Christine Ravold Is the U.S. Refugee Resettlement 15 System Broken? By James Simpson Capital Research is a monthly publication of the Capital Research Center (CRC), a nonpartisan education and research organization, classified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) public charity. CRC is an independent, tax-exempt DECEPTION & MISDIRECTION TM institution governed by an independent The Politically Incorrect Guide board of trustees. We rely on private 25 to “21st Century Socialism” financial support from the general public—individuals, foundations, AKA communism and corporations—for our income.
    [Show full text]
  • Non-Paywalled
    Wringing the Most Good Out of a FACEBOOK FORTUNE SAN FRANCISCO itting behind a laptop affixed with a decal of a child reaching for an GIVING apple, an illustration from Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, Cari Tuna quips about endowing a Tuna Room in the Bass Library at Yale Univer- sity, her alma mater. But it’s unlikely any of the fortune that she and her husband, Face- By MEGAN O’NEIL Sbook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, command — estimated by Forbes at more than $9 billion — will ever be used to name a building. Five years after they signed the Giving Pledge, the youngest on the list of billionaires promising to donate half of their wealth, the couple is embarking on what will start at double-digit millions of dollars in giving to an eclectic range of causes, from overhauling the criminal-justice system to minimizing the potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. To figure out where to give, they created the Open Philanthropy Project, which uses academic research, among other things, to identify high-poten- tial, overlooked funding opportunities. Ms. Tuna, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, hopes the approach will influence other wealthy donors in Silicon The youngest Valley and beyond who, like her, seek the biggest possible returns for their philanthropic dollars. Already, a co-founder of Instagram and his spouse have made a $750,000 signers of the commitment to support the project. What’s more, Ms. Tuna and those working alongside her at the Open Philanthropy Project are documenting every step online — sometimes in Giving Pledge are eyebrow-raising detail — for the world to follow along.
    [Show full text]
  • CJR Job Description.Doc.Docx
    PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED We're keeping this PDF online so that links we've previously posted to it do not break, but we are no longer accepting applications for the role described below. Program Officer, Criminal Justice Reform The Open Philanthropy Project is looking for a founding Program Officer to lead our criminal justice reform work. We hope to contribute to a future in which the U.S. massively reduces incarceration while maintaining or improving public safety. We’re open to doing so by supporting strong advocacy and research institutions for the long run, capitalizing on political windows of opportunity, or pursuing other high-risk high-reward approaches, such as exploring how to change prosecutors’ incentives. The Program Officer will be responsible for developing our strategy and making grants, starting in the range of $5 million per year, with significant room to grow. About the Open Philanthropy Project The Open Philanthropy Project is a collaboration between Good Ventures and GiveWell in which we identify outstanding giving opportunities, make grants, follow the results, and publish our findings. Good Ventures is a philanthropic foundation whose mission is to help humanity thrive. Good Ventures was created by Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook and Asana) and Cari Tuna, who have pledged to give the majority of their wealth to charity. GiveWell is a nonprofit that finds outstanding giving opportunities and publishes the full details of its analysis to help donors decide where to give. Criminal Justice Reform Program The United States incarcerates a larger proportion of its residents than almost any other country in the world and still has the highest level of criminal homicide in the developed world.
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges
    The Future of AI: Opportunities and Challenges Puerto Rico, January 2-5, 2015 ! Ajay Agrawal is the Peter Munk Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, Founder of the Creative Destruction Lab, and Co-founder of The Next 36. His research is focused on the economics of science and innovation. He serves on the editorial boards of Management Science, the Journal of Urban Economics, and The Strategic Management Journal. & Anthony Aguirre has worked on a wide variety of topics in theoretical cosmology, ranging from intergalactic dust to galaxy formation to gravity physics to the large-scale structure of inflationary universes and the arrow of time. He also has strong interest in science outreach, and has appeared in numerous science documentaries. He is a co-founder of the Foundational Questions Institute and the Future of Life Institute. & Geoff Anders is the founder of Leverage Research, a research institute that studies psychology, cognitive enhancement, scientific methodology, and the impact of technology on society. He is also a member of the Effective Altruism movement, a movement dedicated to improving the world in the most effective ways. Like many of the members of the Effective Altruism movement, Geoff is deeply interested in the potential impact of new technologies, especially artificial intelligence. & Blaise Agüera y Arcas works on machine learning at Google. Previously a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft, he has worked on augmented reality, mapping, wearable computing and natural user interfaces. He was the co-creator of Photosynth, software that assembles photos into 3D environments.
    [Show full text]
  • Beneficial AI 2017
    Beneficial AI 2017 Participants & Attendees 1 Anthony Aguirre is a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has worked on a wide variety of topics in theoretical cosmology and fundamental physics, including inflation, black holes, quantum theory, and information theory. He also has strong interest in science outreach, and has appeared in numerous science documentaries. He is a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, the Foundational Questions Institute, and Metaculus (http://www.metaculus.com/). Sam Altman is president of Y Combinator and was the cofounder of Loopt, a location-based social networking app. He also co-founded OpenAI with Elon Musk. Sam has invested in over 1,000 companies. Dario Amodei is the co-author of the recent paper Concrete Problems in AI Safety, which outlines a pragmatic and empirical approach to making AI systems safe. Dario is currently a research scientist at OpenAI, and prior to that worked at Google and Baidu. Dario also helped to lead the project that developed Deep Speech 2, which was named one of 10 “Breakthrough Technologies of 2016” by MIT Technology Review. Dario holds a PhD in physics from Princeton University, where he was awarded the Hertz Foundation doctoral thesis prize. Amara Angelica is Research Director for Ray Kurzweil, responsible for books, charts, and special projects. Amara’s background is in aerospace engineering, in electronic warfare, electronic intelligence, human factors, and computer systems analysis areas. A co-founder and initial Academic Model/Curriculum Lead for Singularity University, she was formerly on the board of directors of the National Space Society, is a member of the Space Development Steering Committee, and is a professional member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
    [Show full text]
  • Giving While Living Chuck Feeney, Founding Chairman of the Atlantic Philanthropies
    Atlantic Insights Giving While Living Chuck Feeney, founding chairman of The Atlantic Philanthropies. Foreword 3 Introduction 7 Chuck Feeney’s Good Fortune 10 The Roots of Feeney’s Philanthropy 12 Feeney the Entrepreneur 13 Too Much Wealth 14 The Journey Begins 15 Ireland Beckons 16 The Perfect Project 18 Testing 18 Feeney’s Philanthropic Process 21 Big Bet + Leverage = Changed Landscape 23 Philanthropy Lessons 27 Making Money and Giving It Away: 29 Straddling the Divide Giving While Living Leads to Limited Life 31 The Founder and the Foundation 33 The “New Atlantic” in Ireland 35 The Final Phase 36 Conclusion 37 A Revolution in Philanthropy 38 The Atlantic Philanthropies Atlantic Insights Giving While Living BY HEIDI WALESON Chuck Feeney, Helping people — that’s been founder, The Atlantic Philanthropies, Atlantic’s work and Christopher G. Oechsli, president and CEO. 3 Atlantic Insights: Giving While Living Foreword BY CHRISTOPHER G. OECHSLI PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE ATLANTIC PHILANTHROPIES he common quest of all who seek to achieve lasting improvements in our communities and in our world — whether we are individual Tdonors, foundations, nonprofits or government agencies — is to make the highest and best use of our resources. It requires us to ask questions like: What are our best opportunities to make a difference? What impact can we have and how do we know what impact our grants are having? What are grantee organizations accomplishing? What’s working… what’s not? Or, as Chuck Feeney, founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies, never hesitated to ask, starting with the foundation’s first grants in 1982: What will we have to show for it? As we near the end of our organization’s life, and have fully committed our endowment and will close our doors for good by 2020, we’re not asking those questions to guide our work.
    [Show full text]
  • F.3. the NEW POLITICS of ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [Preliminary Notes]
    F.3. THE NEW POLITICS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [preliminary notes] MAIN MEMO pp 3-14 I. Introduction II. The Infrastructure: 13 key AI organizations III. Timeline: 2005-present IV. Key Leadership V. Open Letters VI. Media Coverage VII. Interests and Strategies VIII. Books and Other Media IX. Public Opinion X. Funders and Funding of AI Advocacy XI. The AI Advocacy Movement and the Techno-Eugenics Movement XII. The Socio-Cultural-Psychological Dimension XIII. Push-Back on the Feasibility of AI+ Superintelligence XIV. Provisional Concluding Comments ATTACHMENTS pp 15-78 ADDENDA pp 79-85 APPENDICES [not included in this pdf] ENDNOTES pp 86-88 REFERENCES pp 89-92 Richard Hayes July 2018 DRAFT: NOT FOR CIRCULATION OR CITATION F.3-1 ATTACHMENTS A. Definitions, usage, brief history and comments. B. Capsule information on the 13 key AI organizations. C. Concerns raised by key sets of the 13 AI organizations. D. Current development of AI by the mainstream tech industry E. Op-Ed: Transcending Complacency on Superintelligent Machines - 19 Apr 2014. F. Agenda for the invitational “Beneficial AI” conference - San Juan, Puerto Rico, Jan 2-5, 2015. G. An Open Letter on Maximizing the Societal Benefits of AI – 11 Jan 2015. H. Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (PAI) – roster of partners. I. Influential mainstream policy-oriented initiatives on AI: Stanford (2016); White House (2016); AI NOW (2017). J. Agenda for the “Beneficial AI 2017” conference, Asilomar, CA, Jan 2-8, 2017. K. Participants at the 2015 and 2017 AI strategy conferences in Puerto Rico and Asilomar. L. Notes on participants at the Asilomar “Beneficial AI 2017” meeting.
    [Show full text]
  • Active Programs October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020
    CDC Foundation Active Programs October 1, 2019 - September 30, 2020 This document provides a list of CDC Foundation programs that were active between October 1, 2019, and September 30, 2020. Each program listing includes program name, description, funding partner(s), dates for the programs and amounts of the funding provided during the fiscal year. Where applicable, funding partners from previous years are listed. Note that the dates used for active projects match CDC's fiscal year and not the CDC Foundation's fiscal year, which runs July 1 through June 30. CDC Fiscal Year 2020 Funding Partner Start Date End Date Program Name Program Description Committed Award Cash Cumulative Funding (All Years) (* Indicates a funding partner in CDC fiscal year) To expand the 500 Cities Project to provide high- 6/1/2020 5/31/2022 500 Cities and Beyond quality, small-area health data to other $1,153,709.00 geographies in the United States. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation* $1,153,709.00 To promote chronic disease prevention and health promotion for the 500 largest American cities. This second phase of this project will 6/1/2018 5/30/2020 500 Cities Project - Phase 2 $883,150.00 provide updated 2016 and 2017 census tract- level data and will provide enhancements to the interactive City Health Indicator website. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation To assist countries with developing costed, funded plans that address the gaps identified by the World Health Organization-led Joint External Evaluation (JEE) process, with the goal of Accelerating Development of Global Costed 7/1/2017 9/30/2021 helping countries reach compliance with the $3,042,068.00 Plans International Health Regulations.
    [Show full text]
  • Thenonprofittimestm
    •January 1 2014 NPT_Layout 1 12/17/13 1:56 PM Page 1 HE ON ROFIT IMES TM TThe Leading Business PublicationN For Nonprofit ManagementP • www.thenonprofittimes.com •T $6.00 U.S. January 1, 2014 Giving Tuesday More orgs, more money, more questions about donors BY MARK HRYWNA AND PATRICK SULLIVAN mGive Foundation. s #GivingTuesday advancing the It’s too soon to say whether donors are needle on charitable giving or just shifting the timing of their giving instead of moving it around during charities’ making them later on in the month, in- busiest time of year? That’s the ques- creasing their giving overall or shifting I their gifts online from other channels, tion that remains to be answered after #GivingTuesday last month. But, non- such as checks or in-person, according to profit leaders are still pleased Dr. Una Osili, director of re- with the huge jump in dona- search at the Indiana Univer- tions and funds raised dur- “Smart organizations sity Lilly Family School of ing the second iteration don’t procrastinate.” Philanthropy in Indianapo- Ron Shaich is the founder of what is intended to lis, Ind. She said giving and executive chairman, --Steve MacLaughlin Panera Bread and president, become a national day could be greater this Panera Bread Foundation. of giving. year because the overall At least $32.335 mil- economy seems to be im- lion was donated on Dec. proving, and key indica- 3, based on a survey by The tors of charitable giving, ‘Pay-What-You-Can’ Concept NonProfit Times of five donation pro- such as household income and the un- cessing platforms: Blackbaud, DonorPer- employment rate, seem much more posi- Challenged By Thin Margins fect, Pay Pal, Network for Good and Razoo.
    [Show full text]
  • Effective Altruism: an Elucidation and a Defence1
    Effective altruism: an elucidation and a defence1 John Halstead,2 Stefan Schubert,3 Joseph Millum,4 Mark Engelbert,5 Hayden Wilkinson,6 and ​ ​ ​ James Snowden7 The section on counterfactuals (the first part of section 5) has been substantially revised (14 April 2017). The advice that the Open Philanthropy Project gives to Good Ventures changed in 2016. Our paper originally set out the advice given in 2015. Abstract In this paper, we discuss Iason Gabriel’s recent piece on criticisms of effective altruism. Many of the criticisms rest on the notion that effective altruism can roughly be equated with utilitarianism applied to global poverty and health interventions which are supported by randomised control trials and disability-adjusted life year estimates. We reject this characterisation and argue that effective altruism is much broader from the point of view of ethics, cause areas, and methodology. We then enter into a detailed discussion of the specific criticisms Gabriel discusses. Our argumentation mirrors Gabriel’s, dealing with the objections that the effective altruist community neglects considerations of justice, uses a flawed methodology, and is less effective than its proponents suggest. Several of the 1 We are especially to grateful to Per-Erik Milam for his contribution to an earlier draft of this paper. For very helpful contributions and comments, we would like to thank Brian McElwee, Theron Pummer, Hauke Hillebrandt, Richard Yetter Chappell, William MacAskill, Pablo Stafforini, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Michael Page, and Nick Beckstead. We would also like to thank Rebecca Raible of GiveWell for her helpful responses to our queries, and Catherine Hollander and Holden Karnofsky of the Open Philanthropy Project for their extensive advice.
    [Show full text]
  • Operational Innovations in Cash Grants to Households in Malawi
    Whitepaper series - Operational Innovations in Cash Grants to Households in Malawi Program Report Date: November 2020 This whitepaper was prepared for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Malawi. The contents are the responsibility of GiveDirectly and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 3 Acronyms 4 1. Executive Summary 5 2. Introduction 6 2.1. Approach: USAID - GiveDirectly Partnership 6 2.2. Introduction to GiveDirectly 8 3. Program Design 8 3.1. Operational Approach 8 3.2. Operational Innovations 11 4. Program Results 18 4.1. Use of Funds 19 4.2. Operational quality findings 21 4.3. Recipients’ Stories 22 5. Impacts of Household Grants and Recommendations for What Next 24 5.1. Gender 24 5.2. Youth Empowerment and Employment 26 5.3. Nutrition 27 5.4. Humanitarian Response 29 6. Conclusions 31 Annex 1 32 Annex 2 36 2 Acknowledgements Authors: Shaunak Ganguly, Omalha Kanjo, Mara Solomon, and Rachel Waddell at GiveDirectly This white paper was prepared for USAID/Malawi. The contents are the responsibility of GiveDirectly and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. 3 Acronyms CDCS Country Development Cooperation Strategy GD GiveDirectly GoM Government of Malawi HEC Human Elephant Conflict IPA Innovations for Poverty Action IVR Interactive Voice Response KYC Know Your Client PIN Personal Identification Number PPE Personal Protective Equipment RCT Randomized Controlled Trial SCTP Social Cash Transfer Program UCT Unconditional Cash Transfers UNC University of North Carolina 4 1. Executive Summary As part of an ambitious, multi-country partnership and with generous support from USAID and Good Ventures, GiveDirectly (GD) successfully launched its first household grants program in Malawi in early 2019.
    [Show full text]