“We don’t have evidence that the best charities are over 1000x more cost effective than the average” by Will_Davison

I very frequently hear the statement "the best charities are over 1000x more cost effective than the average". This is often alongside the accompanying graph.

Where does this figure come from? Most sources link it to Toby Ord's 2013 paper "The Moral Imperative toward Cost-Effectiveness in Global Health".

The data in this paper comes from the 2006 paper "Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries".

How should this information affect our claims as EAs?

1. We should not extrapolate this claim to charities unless we have direct evidence (please comment with the best evidence you have seen). We should also not extrapolate this to fields outside of health development- in particular fields that involve creating change in complex systems, for which change-making is less measurable and less linear.

2. We should be transparent about what we mean by 'effective'. Just because some charities use less measurable methods [...]

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First published:
May 5th, 2025

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KKrSTafBqCcz9YXF9/we-don-t-have-evidence-that-the-best-charities-are-over

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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