CT has a great article -- "Cost-effective compassion: the 10 most popular strategies for helping the poor." The author, Bruce Wydick is a professor of economics at U of San Francisco, and active in a micro-project in Guatemala (you have to read to the end of the article to hear what he is doing). He polled 16 development economists: "I asked them to rate, from 0 to 10, some of the most common poverty interventions to which ordinary people donate their money, in terms of impact and cost-effectiveness per donated dollar."
1. Get clean water to rural villages (8.3)
2. Fund de-worming treatments for children (7.8)
3. Provide mosquito nets (7.3)
4. Sponsor a child (6.9)
5. Give an efficient wood-burning stove (6.0)
6. Give a micro-finance loan (4.2)
7. Fund reparative surgeries (3.9)
8. Donate a farm animal (3.8)
9. Drink fair-trade coffee (1.9)
10. Give A Kid a Laptop (1.8)
That's a very useful, common-sense list. Thanks for reproducing it.
Posted by: Alan Adams | February 21, 2012 at 01:30 PM