Hi, thanks to a post that I recently wrote about geographic diversity in EA I have discussed this question with people from other local groups that have more experience in local prioritization and it has led to very interesting conversations (I hope we will have something similar for South America soon). So here are my thoughts:
Choosing the most promising causes is a promising and neglected cause by itself, since there can be large differences in value between causes and the area has received little attention outside EA. So far, there have been more efforts to prioritize specific interventions with more immediate goals by comparing their effectiveness but this narrow view can lead us to ignore other areas that could bring more welfare in the long term even if those are harder to assess and difficult to measure. The value of research in this field (as stated on the cause prioritization overview by 80,000 hours) will come from learning how to build the infrastructure for much better prioritization in the future. Exploring ways of prioritizing causes can be valuable even if the methodologies that are put to the test show to be inadequate, since spotting the difficulties that arise during the process and learning how certain tools are inaccurate would facilitate future efforts and shed light on the weaker spots
Existing organizations that develop cause prioritization research usually evaluate priorities from a global perspective; however, I wonder if cause neutrality is necessarily against local prioritization. Perhaps there is a scenario in which we can maintain cause neutrality by having a portfolio of regional causes instead of (or parallel to) a list of global ones. Also, it is not always clear that it would be more cost-effective to coordinate different actors across the globe concerned with the same causes than to coordinate agents with different preference orderings.
Some groups in lower and middle income countries have tried to come up with their own list of priority causes as a way to give advice to local donors about their comparative advantages and some of the identified cause areas are surprisingly different from other global priority causes in EA. The causes are not necessarily immediate nor specific, and some of them –even if narrow in their geographical scope– can have a relatively long-term scope. I wonder if these efforts could inform global prioritization as a whole if done more broadly across the world. Not only their perceptions on what should be prioritized have informational value, but also their assessment of their comparative advantages deserve more investigation.
Finding priorities depends on reliable comparisons with common metrics, but the search for common metrics requires more abstractions and assumptions about long run effects than narrower prioritization. I wonder if we could be narrower in our geographical scope as a way to counter our broad long-term approach; also it could allow us to develop frameworks to aggregate local priority cause research to spot promising areas. Perhaps this could provide a way to break the broader question into pieces and even if we discover that it leads us in a wrong direction, it could help build better methodologies for future explorations.
Research of the most cost-effective causes, interpreted as means to create additional impact can inform long-term priorities – in regions of any levels of development. E. g. in Lokoja in Northern Nigeria, that means may be very different from that in Bangkok or Washington, D. C. Maybe in Lokoja that is informing mothers on the available prenatal and early childhood healthcare incentives (that in the long term gives rise to institutions perpetuating increased wellbeing), in Bangkok supporting regional norms on migrant work, and in Washington, D. C. lobbying for trade policy favorable to LMICs.
Different locally-identified measures can be globally compared in their cost-effectiveness, complementarities potentially concluded, and individual EAs may decide, based on their expertise and the extent of the fulfillment of care of more inner moral circles, whether they wish to focus on a local or more distant measure, or even relocate.
For this global cost-effectiveness comparison and insights into complementarities, knowledge of the entire field of possible impact, as well as the global structure within which the intervention extends and cascades impact, is needed.
Research of the most cost-effective local causes, interpreted as means to help locals, may also inform long-term priorities – also in regions of any levels of development. First, comparison can show where a local should allocate their focus to help most effectively (e. g. a person in Washington, D. C. can conclude that supporting migrant laborers in Southeast Asia is more cost-effective than supporting local homeless persons). Second, complementarities can be also drawn - e. g. a DC-based person may be able to benefit from focusing on a positive measure (e. g. migrant labor laws in Southeast Asia) as opposed to negative-emotions based advertisement - and person in Bangkok can benefit from increased ability to institutionalize positive change. Third, the identification of cost-effective means to help locals enables persons to fulfill their need to care for more inner moral circles more cost-effectively, so that further funds are left for more outer moral circles.
Thanks for your comment, this is insightful. I like the distinction between as a means to create additional impact and as means to help locals. Also thanks for pointing out other ways in which this latter option informs long-term priorities, there are many I did not consider before such as the further funds that are left for outer moral circles when people care for inner moral circles more cost-effectively, although I wonder if that is always the case or if the time/effort invested finding cost-effective local causes to care for inner moral circles could b... (read more)