Planet Money Saving lives with fewer dollars
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Nov 27, 2025 
Madeleine Tronso, a grants manager for ALIMA, shares her insights on the urgent health challenges in Cameroon following the loss of USAID funding. Taryn Maddox from GiveWell discusses their rigorous decision-making process for funding, emphasizing measurable impact. Joel Kambale-Kamete, on the ground in Cameroon, describes the operational hurdles and facility closures faced by health workers. The conversation highlights the delicate balance between rapid response and accountability in humanitarian aid.
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Frontline Workers And Simple Tools
- ALIMA's Cameroon team treats hundreds of thousands, using simple tools like color-coded measuring tape to detect malnutrition early.
- When USAID funding was cut, ALIMA faced pulling staff and potentially discharging malnourished children without local capacity to absorb them.
Avoid Abrupt Health-Service Shutdowns
- Prioritize sustaining essential health services in conflict zones because local systems cannot absorb displaced patients.
- Avoid abrupt program closures when scaling back funding because patients will lose access to care.
Quantifying Lives Saved
- GiveWell evaluates grants by comparing interventions on lives-saved-per-dollar using rigorous research and numerical equivalencies.
- This approach grew from development economics' embrace of randomized trials and effective-altruism thinking.