Lloyd Chapman: Aid works (on average)

What this episode covers

2 April 2014 Most debate about whether aid works is focused on typical cases of aid, such as improving sanitation or access to clean water. The effectiveness of these cases is very hard to measure accurately. Even the best cases are hard to evaluate. However, there are extreme cases, such as the eradication of an infectious disease like smallpox, which are both more important and far easier to measure. In this talk, Lloyd Chapman will examine those spectacular successes, and the dramatic impact they have for the overall success of foreign aid. Because the long tail of the very most effective projects have such impact, just evaluating those can give us a (substantial) lower bound on the effectiveness of aid. Lloyd is a maths PhD student, interested in using his quantitative skills to research the most cost-effective ways to reduce poverty and suffering and communicating the information to other people to encourage them to think about what they can do to help.

Distinct summary based on available episode metadata or transcript content.