The Nonlinear Library EA - Center for Effective Aid Policy has shut down by MathiasKB
Jul 2, 2024
14:28
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Center for Effective Aid Policy has shut down, published by MathiasKB on July 2, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
May 2024 marked the last month of the Center for Effective Aid Policy. This post serves as the public post-mortem. I have strived for it to be interesting to the average forum reader, who may not know much about the cause area.
For professionals in development, we have a few internal private write ups which we may be more interesting, such as an overview of development asks we tried[1], their strengths and weaknesses, and our experience advocating for them.
Our mission
Our mission was to improve the cost-effectiveness of development assistance through policy advocacy. Governments spend billions on projects to help the world's poorest, few of them cost-effective.
For example, one could propose the use of cash-benchmarking to the ministry or push through a political motion to increase the proportion of spending going to the Least Developed Countries.
If one could make even a small part of this very large budget more cost-effective, it would be massively impactful. In October 2022 we were incubated through AIM's Charity Entrepreneurship programme and came out with $160,000 to get started.
How far did we get?
The first months
Barely a month after receiving funding, we noticed Sweden's new government was likely to cut the aid budget. The cut would hinge on one party breaking its campaign promise not to cut, perhaps we could campaign for the party to hold their promise.
Over two hectic weeks we put together a write-in campaign for dissatisfied voters. Our execution was not good enough (too little, too late), and we were not able to get voters to write in. Sweden cut its aid spending, and we moved on.
Figuring out where to focus from there was difficult. We tried many things across different geographies, but nothing we did seemed to get much of a response from civil servants and decision makers. Writing credible reports was difficult. We were still learning the development world's many acronyms, and were struggling to find partners whose trustworthiness we could lean on.
Things pick up
Week by week our network and knowledge expanded. With it came opportunities to get our points across. Through monumental luck we got to present on cost-effective development aid for His Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom. In Denmark we moderated our first public debate between MPs on improving the cost-effectiveness of development.
We eventually fell into a groove of spending the majority of our time writing briefs, taking meetings, and networking.
Between events and meetings, we spent extensive time researching and preparing. Before our first meeting with one Dutch MP, we for example did message testing on 400 voters, broke the answers down by political affiliation, and were able to show with data what voters thought of our ideas. (cash-benchmarking was popular, cash-transfers less so!)
In our record month we had meetings in three countries' parliaments (though it certainly was an outlier!). Our record event had almost 300 attendees and a keynote speech from the Dutch foreign ministry's chief of science.
A little over a year in we got our first intermediary success. The election programmes of two Dutch political parties now stated their intention to increase the proportion of ODA going to the Least Developed Countries.
The decision to shut down
Our execution eventually became good enough that we got to sit in front of the busy people at the very top, whom we needed to persuade. Speaking to these people we became pessimistic of our odds. Decision makers just weren't buying what we were selling. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Many were skeptical that the RCT-driven approach we recommended would lead to the best outcomes. Those who were on boa...
May 2024 marked the last month of the Center for Effective Aid Policy. This post serves as the public post-mortem. I have strived for it to be interesting to the average forum reader, who may not know much about the cause area.
For professionals in development, we have a few internal private write ups which we may be more interesting, such as an overview of development asks we tried[1], their strengths and weaknesses, and our experience advocating for them.
Our mission
Our mission was to improve the cost-effectiveness of development assistance through policy advocacy. Governments spend billions on projects to help the world's poorest, few of them cost-effective.
For example, one could propose the use of cash-benchmarking to the ministry or push through a political motion to increase the proportion of spending going to the Least Developed Countries.
If one could make even a small part of this very large budget more cost-effective, it would be massively impactful. In October 2022 we were incubated through AIM's Charity Entrepreneurship programme and came out with $160,000 to get started.
How far did we get?
The first months
Barely a month after receiving funding, we noticed Sweden's new government was likely to cut the aid budget. The cut would hinge on one party breaking its campaign promise not to cut, perhaps we could campaign for the party to hold their promise.
Over two hectic weeks we put together a write-in campaign for dissatisfied voters. Our execution was not good enough (too little, too late), and we were not able to get voters to write in. Sweden cut its aid spending, and we moved on.
Figuring out where to focus from there was difficult. We tried many things across different geographies, but nothing we did seemed to get much of a response from civil servants and decision makers. Writing credible reports was difficult. We were still learning the development world's many acronyms, and were struggling to find partners whose trustworthiness we could lean on.
Things pick up
Week by week our network and knowledge expanded. With it came opportunities to get our points across. Through monumental luck we got to present on cost-effective development aid for His Majesty's Treasury in the United Kingdom. In Denmark we moderated our first public debate between MPs on improving the cost-effectiveness of development.
We eventually fell into a groove of spending the majority of our time writing briefs, taking meetings, and networking.
Between events and meetings, we spent extensive time researching and preparing. Before our first meeting with one Dutch MP, we for example did message testing on 400 voters, broke the answers down by political affiliation, and were able to show with data what voters thought of our ideas. (cash-benchmarking was popular, cash-transfers less so!)
In our record month we had meetings in three countries' parliaments (though it certainly was an outlier!). Our record event had almost 300 attendees and a keynote speech from the Dutch foreign ministry's chief of science.
A little over a year in we got our first intermediary success. The election programmes of two Dutch political parties now stated their intention to increase the proportion of ODA going to the Least Developed Countries.
The decision to shut down
Our execution eventually became good enough that we got to sit in front of the busy people at the very top, whom we needed to persuade. Speaking to these people we became pessimistic of our odds. Decision makers just weren't buying what we were selling. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Many were skeptical that the RCT-driven approach we recommended would lead to the best outcomes. Those who were on boa...