Comments
What happened to the Global Priorities Institute? Given that they published an updated research agenda ~8mo ago, seems somewhat abrupt.
Curated and popular this week
This is the third in a sequence of posts taken from my recent report: Why Did Environmentalism Become Partisan?
Summary
Rising partisanship did not make environmentalism more popular or politically effective. Instead, it saw flat or falling overall public opinion, fewer major legislative achievements, and fluctuating executive actions.
Public Opinion...
I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what’s most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That’s great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing variou...
Bentham’s Bulldog recently argued that AI won’t definitely make factory farms obsolete. I agree, but I’d go further and argue that by default AI won’t make factory farms obsolete. However, I think it’s possible (though not guaranteed) that AI could make factory farms a lot more humane.
He throws out an 80% chance of cultivated meat being developed, and a 70% chance of it displacing factory far...
Recent opportunities to take action
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.
Maybe, though if the pause itself will cause lots of harm, might be too many frictions to do so. Would work better if the ask is "restore PEPFAR after the pause." The other audience to target is pro-life evangelicals, which might be slightly easier on short notice
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."
That's right! It seems like only PEPFAR has been waived, not other life-saving programs! I am working on PEPFAR right now but would urge other EAs to contribute to other aid-related causes
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”