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Is anyone in EA coordinating a response to the PEPFAR pause? Seems like a very high priority thing for US-based EAs to do, and I'm keen to help if so and start something if not.
I wonder if the response will be seen as more credible if it's driven by Africans?
Insofar as there's a motivation behind cutting foreign aid, I suspect that skepticism of the NGO sector is playing a role. I can imagine Trump supporters thinking: This program supposedly helps millions of poor Africans, yet the primary voices advocating for it online are rich-world progressives. Seems fishy.
It is important for Americans and taxpayers to contact our members Congress (especially if your elected officials are Republican or Libertarian). USAID is funded by the American people - Congress needs to hear from us that we think this is a good use of our tax dollars. You can go here for more info on how to contact your members of congress about this.
Update: Seems like PEPFAR is back for at least 90 days.
Update 2: The waiver only applies to PEPFAR, not other crucial aid programs.
Unfortunately these waivers have not led to real change on the ground for implementing organizations - many are still unable to operate. More pressure on members of Congress is needed ensure lifesaving programs can continue. This New York Times article published on 2/1 covers more details (gift link).
"In Uganda, the National Malaria Control Program has suspended spraying insecticide into village homes and ceased shipments of bed nets for distribution to pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Jimmy Opigo, the program’s director.
Medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, cannot reach villages in Zambia because the trucking companies transporting them were paid through a suspended supply project of the United States Agency for International Development, U.S.A.I.D.
Dozens of clinical trials in South Asia, Africa and Latin America have been suspended. Thousands of people enrolled in the studies have drugs, vaccines and medical devices in their bodies but no longer have access to continuing treatment or to the researchers who were supervising their care."
Yes, we should all get involved, thank you for your work on PEPFAR!
On paper, the waiver should cover about half of PEPFAR programming. In practice, I’m not even sure that much will be able to restart because of the drastic reduction in the USAID workforce that this Stop-Work Order (and other efforts by The Department of State/F Bureau) have caused.
On a webinar on Saturday Dr. Atul Gawande (former Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID) he said that the emergency waiver is not enough because the agency has been decimated - turning it back on with a fraction of the staff and much of the expertise removed will not work. USAID and implementing partners have lost people and capacity and are losing it by the day.
PEPFAR is technically a State Department program - but most of the funds are transferred and programmed through other agencies. In the past week, ~70-80% of staff at the Global Health Bureau (GHB) and Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) have been fired or put on leave. One USAID official quoted in Devex on 2/3: “The waivers from Secretary of State Rubio for emergency food aid and other urgent assistance are a smokescreen and farce if there is no one to make the awards happen”
Curated and popular this week
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*Disclaimer* I am writing this post in a personal capacity; the opinions I express are my own and do not represent my employer.
I think that more people and orgs (especially nonprofits) should consider negotiating the cost of sizable expenses. In my experience, there is usually nothing to lose by respectfully asking to pay less, and doing so can sometimes save thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per hour. This is because negotiating doesn’t take very much time[1], savings can persist across multiple years, and counterparties can be surprisingly generous with discounts. Here are a few examples of expenses that may be negotiable:
For organizations
* Software or news subscriptions
* Of 35 corporate software and news providers I’ve negotiated with, 30 have been willing to provide discounts. These discounts range from 10% to 80%, with an average of around 40%.
* Leases
* A friend was able to negotiate a 22% reduction in the price per square foot on a corporate lease and secured a couple months of free rent. This led to >$480,000 in savings for their nonprofit. Other negotiable parameters include:
* Square footage counted towards rent costs
* Lease length
* A tenant improvement allowance
* Certain physical goods (e.g., smart TVs)
* Buying in bulk can be a great lever for negotiating smaller items like covid tests, and can reduce costs by 50% or more.
* Event/retreat venues (both venue price and smaller items like food and AV)
* Hotel blocks
* A quick email with the rates of comparable but more affordable hotel blocks can often save ~10%.
* Professional service contracts with large for-profit firms (e.g., IT contracts, office internet coverage)
* Insurance premiums (though I am less confident that this is negotiable)
For many products and services, a nonprofit can qualify for a discount simply by providing their IRS determination letter or getting verified on platforms like TechSoup.
In my experience, most vendors and companies
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Forethought[1] is a new AI macrostrategy research group cofounded by Max Dalton, Will MacAskill, Tom Davidson, and Amrit Sidhu-Brar.
We are trying to figure out how to navigate the (potentially rapid) transition to a world with superintelligent AI systems. We aim to tackle the most important questions we can find, unrestricted by the current Overton window.
More details on our website.
Why we exist
We think that AGI might come soon (say, modal timelines to mostly-automated AI R&D in the next 2-8 years), and might significantly accelerate technological progress, leading to many different challenges. We don’t yet have a good understanding of what this change might look like or how to navigate it. Society is not prepared.
Moreover, we want the world to not just avoid catastrophe: we want to reach a really great future. We think about what this might be like (incorporating moral uncertainty), and what we can do, now, to build towards a good future.
Like all projects, this started out with a plethora of Google docs. We ran a series of seminars to explore the ideas further, and that cascaded into an organization.
This area of work feels to us like the early days of EA: we’re exploring unusual, neglected ideas, and finding research progress surprisingly tractable. And while we start out with (literally) galaxy-brained schemes, they often ground out into fairly specific and concrete ideas about what should happen next. Of course, we’re bringing principles like scope sensitivity, impartiality, etc to our thinking, and we think that these issues urgently need more morally dedicated and thoughtful people working on them.
Research
Research agendas
We are currently pursuing the following perspectives:
* Preparing for the intelligence explosion: If AI drives explosive growth there will be an enormous number of challenges we have to face. In addition to misalignment risk and biorisk, this potentially includes: how to govern the development of new weapons of mass destr
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Hey everyone, I’ve been going through the EA Introductory Program, and I have to admit some of these ideas make sense, but others leave me with more questions than answers. I’m trying to wrap my head around certain core EA principles, and the more I think about them, the more I wonder: Am I misunderstanding, or are there blind spots in EA’s approach?
I’d really love to hear what others think. Maybe you can help me clarify some of my doubts. Or maybe you share the same reservations? Let’s talk.
Cause Prioritization. Does It Ignore Political and Social Reality?
EA focuses on doing the most good per dollar, which makes sense in theory. But does it hold up when you apply it to real world contexts especially in countries like Uganda?
Take malaria prevention. It’s a top EA cause because it’s highly cost effective $5,000 can save a life through bed nets (GiveWell, 2023). But what happens when government corruption or instability disrupts these programs? The Global Fund scandal in Uganda saw $1.6 million in malaria aid mismanaged (Global Fund Audit Report, 2016). If money isn’t reaching the people it’s meant to help, is it really the best use of resources?
And what about leadership changes? Policies shift unpredictably here. A national animal welfare initiative I supported lost momentum when political priorities changed. How does EA factor in these uncertainties when prioritizing causes? It feels like EA assumes a stable world where money always achieves the intended impact. But what if that’s not the world we live in?
Long termism. A Luxury When the Present Is in Crisis?
I get why long termists argue that future people matter. But should we really prioritize them over people suffering today?
Long termism tells us that existential risks like AI could wipe out trillions of future lives. But in Uganda, we’re losing lives now—1,500+ die from rabies annually (WHO, 2021), and 41% of children suffer from stunting due to malnutrition (UNICEF, 2022). These are preventable d
Unfortunately these waivers have not led to real change on the ground for implementing organizations - many are still unable to operate. More pressure on members of Congress is needed ensure lifesaving programs can continue. This New York Times article published on 2/1 covers more details (gift link).
"In Uganda, the National Malaria Control Program has suspended spraying insecticide into village homes and ceased shipments of bed nets for distribution to pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Jimmy Opigo, the program’s director.
Medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, cannot reach villages in Zambia because the trucking companies transporting them were paid through a suspended supply project of the United States Agency for International Development, U.S.A.I.D.
Dozens of clinical trials in South Asia, Africa and Latin America have been suspended. Thousands of people enrolled in the studies have drugs, vaccines and medical devices in their bodies but no longer have access to continuing treatment or to the researchers who were supervising their care."