In an essay published last month in The Guardian, 15 leading economists — including the Nobel laureates Angus Deaton, James Heckman, and Joseph Stiglitz — criticized what they call "the 'aid effectiveness' craze" on the grounds that it leads us to ignore the root causes of global poverty.
I advocate assessing the effectiveness of aid and providing resources for interventions shown to be highly cost-effective. To that end, I founded The Life You Can Save, an organization that gathers evidence about which charities give donors the most bang for their buck and encourages people to donate to them. The Life You Can Save recommends proven interventions because we think donors are likely to do more good by helping individuals with unmet needs than by aspiring to eliminate the root causes of poverty without a realistic strategy for achieving that goal.
Deaton, Heckman, Stiglitz and their colleagues begin by telling us that global poverty "remains intractable." This statement reflects and reinforces the gloomy view that we are not making any progress in reducing poverty.