Tag: Development Aid

Saturday, April 5th: Aid Grade! (from Harvard Effective Altruism)

Nir Eyal Leave a comment

A communication from Harvard Effective Altruism:

 

Hi altruists,

Saturday, April 5th is a big day for EA at Harvard: we have three different awesome events for you! Our guest for the day, flying up from DC for the occasion, will be Dr. Eva Vivalt, the founder of AidGrade. AidGrade helps figure out what works in international development by doing rigorous and engaging analyses of different interventions to find out their effects. They’re also looking for interns and full-time hires for this work, so please visit if you’re interested!

We’ll be having a talk on AidGrade’s research from 1-2pm, followed by a research-a-thon from 2-6 where we help AidGrade do some meta-analysis. The day will be topped off by a Boston-area effective altruism meetup at Clover–with another special guest, Jacob Trefethen of 80,000 Hours Cambridge UK, and many awesome local effective altruists.

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Harvard HIP (High Impact Philanthropy): Toby Ord speaking tonight

Nir Eyal Leave a comment

Are you interested in foreign aid, global development, medicine? Want to know how philanthropy and charitable giving can do the most good?

Aid Works (On Average) – By Toby Ord

Tuesday, March 26th; Emerson Hall 108; 8 PM

There is considerable controversy about whether foreign aid helps poor countries, with several prominent critics arguing that it doesn’t. Dr. Ord shows that these critics have only reached this conclusion because they have failed to count the biggest successes of aid, such as the eradication of smallpox, which have been in the sphere of global health rather than economic growth. These health successes have often been neglected in analysis of aid because they have only made up a small proportion of aid spending. When we look at the impact of this spending, though, we see that it the big wins have been so utterly vast that they more than justify all aid spending to date.

Dr. Toby Ord is a philosopher at the University of Oxford and a research associate at the Uehiro Center for Practical Ethics and the Future of Humanity Institute. He is also the founder and director of Giving What We Can, an international society dedicated to eliminating poverty in the developing world.

Join Dr. Ord tonight, March 26, at 8 PM for a talk and discussion of the effectiveness of foreign aid. Refreshments will be provided, and a reception will follow.

Planning to come? Please RSVP on Facebook to help us plan refreshments.