Thank you for making this happen Ben! Looking forward to pushing a workshop in Manchester.
I also really like the draft of asks. One note before I look more deeply, I really agree with Sam Hilton that pushing for cash benchmarking is a really good idea. I think that's something to highlight.
Looking forward to that workshop happening Shepard!
Glad to hear you agree with Sam, its something I will be looking more into over the next few days. The draft of asks is very much a draft, so thank you to Sam Hilton for all of his thoughts and I want others to feel free to comment directly on the document as well.
Strongly upvoting so others see it. This is similar in fashion to some work that Greg Sadler has done with Good Ancestors Policy in Australia (which has had a surprising amount of success). I also know Ben from some time when we were both in Canberra and am comfortable in vouching for his character.
Thanks for pulling this together Ben! Have been impressed with your organisation and drive to make it happen.
Great opportunity for those based in the UK to engage and learn about our governments aid policy.
One key concern: Ideas all seem good, but it’s unclear to me if any/all are Attention Hazards / Opportunity Costs. Even if they are good, is the resources investment counterfactually harmful?
Not sure TWE you considered this, or what breadth of expert views/consensus this doc got in order to account for this.
(Sorry for negativity on what is a cool idea :-) )
(You can read this post as a Google Doc, which may be easier to share with global health focused non-EAs)
Hi all, my name is Benjamin Anderson and I am currently leading work to coordinate the UK EA community to make individual submissions to a consultation on UK aid.
The main purpose of this post is to ask for input on the arguments that we will be making, both feedback/expansion on the arguments we already have, and suggestions for further points. The secondary purpose of this post is to advertise the online workshop that I will be running on October 14th to support people to make submissions to the consultation.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact is running a public consultation on the future of its work, so that it can ‘maximise its effectiveness and ensure the government is held to account’. ICAI is a public body that is responsible for examining the effectiveness and value for money of the UK’s aid spend.
The consultation ends on October 16th and asks four specific questions:
It is worth noting that the consultation “will not consider questions on the size and allocation of the UK’s aid budget.”
I am leading this work as I have been involved in similar efforts in the Australian EA community over the past two years, in coordinating the community to make submissions to public governmental consultations . This work has been very successful and has been led by Good Ancestors Policy and the Australian Alliance for Animals.
I gave workshops outlining those efforts and discussing if similar work could be done in the UK and Europe at EAGx Utrecht and EAGx Berlin this year. In between the conferences the ICAI consultation was published and after numerous discussions it was determined it could be quite impactful if pursued.
As such, with the help of a lot of people,[1] we are holding five workshops in the next two weeks; at the Ambitious Impact office, the Trajan House office, UCL EA, LSE EA and online. Further workshops are also likely to be held. We will likely support at least 100-150 attendees to make individual submissions, and as such the arguments that we decide to make could potentially be quite impactful.
At these workshops attendees will be given context of the consultation and the arguments that we are putting forward. Then attendees will be supported to make personal submissions to the consultation, utilising the provided arguments that they personally think are important.
This post is primarily to ask for input (both support and criticism) of the core arguments that will be put forward for the workshops and to ask if people have further suggestions. If you don’t have input to give yourself but know people who might, please share it with them.
Secondarily this post is also to advertise for the online workshop on October 14th (see below), where I’ll be working through the consultation and supporting people to make submissions.
Finally, you can also respond to the consultation yourself by accessing it here (you don’t have to be a UK citizen to respond). If you make a submission yourself using some of the current draft arguments, try not to quote them verbatim and please fill in this form.
The draft summary of the core arguments is Linked Here. It would be helpful for people to specify both support and suggested expansion of arguments they think are important, and blunt criticism of arguments they think are less valuable and/or could even be a net negative. As well as this, further suggested arguments would be greatly appreciated.
My background is in political advocacy, not in global health and development. The arguments listed here are thereffore not my own, but have been and will be sourced from various people and organisations with expertise in the area. For this initial draft I want to give a big thanks to Gabriel Hanrieder from Kooperation Global who massively contributed.
I think so, but I don't know for certain. But I do know that similar efforts have been impactful in Australia and it is therefore worth trying elsewhere.
(You might be interested in Max Carpendale's research into whether public consultation responses can influence decision-makers, and Kirsten's comment on her experiences aggregating responses.)
I can’t name everyone but I want to thank the following for their support on this consultation: Ameema Talat, Gemma Paterson, Thom Norman, David Nash, Gabriel Hanrieder, Patrick Stadler, Mathias Bonde and Arthur Baker.
Glad to see people engaging with this consultation. My experience when I've done work reviewing consultation responses in UK government:
-put more weight on novel, well-supported arguments (so I'd recommend including a short, clear piece of strong evidence for your arguments)
-put more weight on responses from credible people or organisations with legible qualifications or expertise (so I'd recommend emphasising any legible qualifications, experience or affiliations - or if you don't have that, just presenting yourself as a normal private citizen)
-put less weight on responses that are identical or very similar; I basically considered them as a group
However note that every organisation has its own way of doing things, so other organisations might put more weight on private individuals repeating the same arguments than I did.