Filed under Giving What We Can

We are very pleased to be able to announce that one hundred people have now joined Giving What We Can. Each of them has made a lasting pledge to give 10% of their income to wherever will do the most to help fight poverty in developing countries.

In total, this comes to pledges of about $30 million, in today’s terms. To get the feel of what this can do, consider the following options.

Thank you to all those who have joined so far — together we really can make a great difference to the world.

Giving What We Can has received some excellent, refreshed publicity just after it’s first birthday, with articles in most major newspapers and the BBC news website and a slot for Toby on The Daily Politics. The result of all this so far has been a great increase in members of the facebook group, a flurry of donations and words of support on SCI’s JustGiving site, and nearly 40 new members signing up! This is amazing news and will do so much to help relieve needless suffering and loss of life in the developing world.

Here is the Daily Politics broadcast, here is the really excellent BBC article, and here is SCI’s JustGiving page with some really heartening new donations and words of support.

Let’s hope this continues to spread!

The Good News!

The UK Department for International Development (DfID) is honouring its commitment to increase aid spending to 0.7% of GDP by 2013. And it will fund the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) with $25 million over the next five years. SCI is one of Giving What We Can’s top rated charities, with one year of preventative treatment for Schistosomiasis (’bilharzia’) costing just 50p. Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell highlights that this makes SCI’s work not only hugely cost-effective for healthcare, but also one of the most powerful ways to keep children in school:

Education is one of the best routes out of poverty, yet millions of children are unable to fully benefit from attending school because they are weakened by these diseases.

British aid will provide up to 75 million lifesaving treatments - ensuring that ill health doesn’t stop millions of the most vulnerable children getting a basic education and breaking the cycle of extreme poverty.

It’s a very positive sign that the British government are taking cost-effectiveness in development aid seriously. See here for the Guardian’s report on DfID’s pledge.

The Bad News.

DfID is, at the same time, doubling the amount of aid it channels to conflict-ridden states. This aid will now take up a third of all UK aid spending (previously, it was one quarter). Many working in the international development sector are angered by this militarisation of aid. Save the Children’s Patrick Watt asked:

“What is the real driver of aid allocation? Is it poverty, is it need and the ability to use money effectively or is it the agenda of the National Security Council? We do need to have a balanced approach to aid allocation that reflects the principles of the 2002 International Development Act which stipulates that all aid should be for poverty reduction.

“…[T]he countries that will lose out will be poor but stable countries like Ghana or Tanzania… You will end up in a slightly perverse situation, if we’re not careful, where countries with a lot of poor people that happen not to be on the geopolitical radar are losing out.”

Joan Ruddock MP also pressed David Cameron on the change, arguing that:

“I have always supported the case for greater conflict prevention. But conflict prevention needs to be understood and practised by the military themselves.”

David Cameron defended the switch against this charge, saying, “we’re mad if we don’t put money into mending broken states where so many of the problems of poverty come from.”

See here for the Guardian’s article into this ‘militarisation’ of aid.

Furthermore, the increase in aid will only begin in four years’ time. For millions of people, four years from now will be too late for them to receive life-saving medicine, get an education, receive adequate nutrition in early childhood… There are further fears, too:

the budget will stay fairly flat in the first three years of the review, and then jump by 28% in the fourth year. One expert said: “That is such an enormous jump, you have to question whether they seriously mean to do it.”

There are also fears about the impact of DfID cutting admin spending from £72m to £34m. The Guardian reports:

“There’s a danger of falling for the mythology of faceless bureaucrats in London, as if there are lots of people doing nothing very useful,” said a former senior diplomat.

“For example, a report comes in on human rights abuse and it sits in an in-tray because there’s not enough staff with quality time to sort out priorities and send the right stuff up to ministers in timely fashion, for decision and action. I’ve seen that sort of thing happen even on present staffing, so there are risks in cutting too hard.”

See here for the Guardian’s excellent article -which paints the new aid budget as moving Britain to a ’soft-power’ rather than ‘hard-power’ nation- from which those last quotes were taken.

Farmers in Western Kenya have relied on the forecasts of their indigenous ‘weathermen’ -the Nganyi rainmakers- for generations. The Nganyi work:

…[b]y observing subtle changes in nature… – air currents, bird songs, termite behaviour, the flowering and shedding of leaves, even the croaking of frogs and toads.

But climate change has caused rapid shifts in weather patterns, which the Nganyi have been unable to predict using such traditional methods. For a community that survives on subsistence farming, this has caused major problems. And unfortunately, locals do not trust, so ignore, the forecast of ‘Western’ meteorologists, who are seen as outsiders.

Thankfully though, a cooperative solution has been found!

Now, meteorologists collaborate with the indigenous weathermen each season to share their predictions and produce a consensus forecast. Once approved, the Nganyi relay it back to the villagers in the appropriate local languages, through traditional ceremonies and meetings.

…[T]he results so far have been good: the forecasts from both sources have been accurate… the rainmakers’ role has been restored and the local farmers are able to better protect their crops.

See the full report at Positive News, here.

Bill and Melinda Gates, along with Warren Buffet, are encouraging America’s super-rich to give 50% of their net worth over their lifetimes.

The Forbes 400 richest people in the US are the campaign’s first targets. Their combined net worth of $1.2 trillion, so that $600 billion would be raised by each giving 50%. This sum would be a hugely significant driver of development; to put the it into context, the GDP of Switzerland in 2008 was just under $500 billion, and that of Malawi was under $4.3 billion.

Warren Buffet (the world’s third richest person, and Gates comes in second) has been the first to make the “Giving Pledge”. He has pledged to give away 99% of his life’s net worth (see here for his pledge). The Gateses and Buffet hope that other billionaires will also be encouraged to give more than 50%. This figure was set as a ‘low bar’ to encourage greater participation. And a Forbes article reports that:

Already committed to at least a 50% pledge are the Broads, the Doerrs, the Lenfests, and the Morgridges… [M]oreover, the three principals [the Gateses and Buffet] will send e-mails and make calls to other billionaires judged likely prospects. A bit later, all of the pledgers may join in sending a letter to a large number of other billionaires, asking them to join the growing crowd. In the fall there may even be a Great Givers conference.

It is unclear how far the Gateses and Buffet will encourage philanthropy to be directed to the most cost-effective charities. Gates himself is passionate about cost-effective giving, and we hope his commitment here will help to shape the campaign.

See here for the full Forbes article.

The Irin website contains this video bank. Some of their short films provide an excellent, brief, insight into important issues in development, so do check them out if you’re interested.

TED online have recently posted this interesting video, in which Esther Duflo discusses the role of social experiments in fighting poverty.

And if such things interest you, the GWWC website also highlights some excellent essays, books and videos on the subject of development, just here.

Toby and Will will be giving a presentation on the most effective ways to combat poverty after tomorrow’s  “1.4 Billion Ways” presentation.

The presentation is run by Global Poverty Project and has been seen by thousands of people all across the world. It’s meant to be extremely powerful, and we hope Giving What We Can’s message will complement its call to action. If you’d like to see the presentation, it’s at 7:30pm on Tuesday May 4th (tomorrow) in Exeter’s Saskatchewan Room. You need to visit this link:

http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/events/attend/203

to let them know you’re coming, so they can keep track of numbers.

We hope you enjoy the talk! Best wishes,

GWWC

Toby Ord, founder of Giving What We Can, will be giving a King’s Lecture in Ethics on Tuesday March 16th, 5:15pm at King’s College London. It will be a conversation with aid expert Roger Riddell about Giving What We Can, and is free and open to all. Please come along!

See here for for the flyer.

Giving What We Can has now completed its second round of charity recommendations, adding Deworm the World and the Against Malaria Foundation to its list of recommended, cost-effective charities. Deworm the World is now ranked as the most effective charity, alongside SCI (these remain the only two charities that focus exclusively on NTDs). Against Malaria Foundation has joined GAIN in Tier 3.

Please see here for Giving What We Can’s updated recommendations and explanations of each charity’s ranking.