The problem - it's hard to tell whether aid works or not

The question of whether international aid works is similar to the question of whether margarine or butter is better for you.  The media says a different thing every day.

Sometimes people say that aid is useless and causes dependence or even harm. At other times, people say that aid has cut poverty in half and reduced child mortality.

It's difficult to know which of these positions is correct

The reason there's so much confusion is because some aid is effective and some isn't. As with most things in the world, aid not black and white. You can find evidence that some aid is bad and some is good, but you cannot find evidence that all of it is good or bad.

The real question is how do you tell which aid is effective and which isn't.

Science!

Science of course. Science is the most amazing tool ever invented by the human species. Without it, you would have probably died in early childhood.

It worked for medicine and it can work for doing good. 

Take microfinance for example. You could just look at anecdotal stories of people being helped by it. But how common is that result? Are the people who get accepted for loans better with money in general and would their situations have improved even without a loan? Or maybe when the microloans were given the economy as a whole improved due to external forces beyond your control.

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There's no way around it. If you want to see whether something really works, the best way is through science. Randomized controlled trials are an especially effective kind of experiment, as they show how effective an intervention is compared to if it had not been done.

In order to see whether microfinance is truly effective, you would have to randomly choose villages to get the program and survey the inhabitants about their income, health, and happiness before and after it.

If you want to know if microfinance is effective, check out this article.

But doesn't analysis take the compassion out charitable giving?

Courtesy of xkcd

Simply put, no. Not at all. In fact, compassion compels charity scientists to be extra rigorous because lives are on the line. They want to make sure that they are truly making the largest difference they can. 

But aren't most charities pretty good?

Most charities do some good, but many don't do anything and some actually do harm.

For example, the Scared Straight program was a nation-wide charity in the United States that took prison inmates to high schools to describe their lives, the goal being to deter kids from crime. However, they ran multiple randomized controlled trials on the program, only to find that it actually increased incarceration rates! (1)

There are far too many charities that have negligible impact to assume that any given charity is doing much good. We have to use science to find which ones are actually delivering.

How do become a charity scientist?

Well, there's the easy way and there's the hard way.

The hard way

1. Do a scan for all of the most promising areas
2. Search through the scientific literature to find relevant peer-reviewed studies.
3. Read said studies and check for methodological flaws. 
4. Summarize the studies.
5. Run a cost-effectiveness analysis on the top performing interventions.
6. Figure out which intervention has the best balance of strong evidence and cost-effectiveness. 
7. Do a scan of the charities which do these interventions.
8. Look through their financial history, interview their key staff, and ask experts and key players in the field what they think of the charity.
9. Choose the charity which has the strongest leadership, uses its money most wisely, and is transparent enough to give you this information.
10. Rejoice!

The easy way

1. Find a charity reviewer that has a team that uses science to find the most effective charities. 
2. Look at their top recommended charities.
3. Donate to the charity you like best. 
4. Rejoice!

Which charity reviewer?

If you have limited time and want to learn about the science in a fun and light-hearted way, we recommend reading Charity Science and donating to our recommended charities.

Charity Science

If you want the nitty gritty details, we recommend GiveWell. In fact, we rely heavily on GiveWell's research, as it is the best in the field.

GiveWell