Building Bridges: Reflections from Effective Altruism conference

Written by Dom Brain, Director of Funding and Communications

Effective Altruism (EA) is in the spotlight like never before. From a front cover and in-depth piece in The Economist, to being targeted by leading politicians in the US and featuring in mainstream development debates at the recent World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok. That politics is coming for EA is a sign of success, said Zac Robinson from the Centre for Philanthropy in the opening plenary of this week’s  EA Global Conference in New York. 

The community is thoughtful and values matter. It has been ahead of the game on pandemics, and on AI. Spending the weekend at the EA Global meeting certainly was humbling, compelling and thought-provoking. 

It was fascinating to observe and engage with a wide range of people – over 1500 attended the conference, the largest ever in the US. Effective Altruists are, relatively speaking, a younger crowd. It is incredibly sobering to speak to people who donate 10% or even 50% of their earnings to EA causes. Many of their peers who could donate even 1% to good causes do not. And they are not just giving their money, but organising a movement, and engaging with a genuine enthusiasm and curiosity to change the world and address some very neglected causes. 

I came away understanding that there is a healthy debate about cause areas and how to address them cost effectively through an evidence-based lens. And there is no surprise that AI safety is a leading cause area, one that the movement feels they have a big stake in. I was relieved also to hear that global health continues to attract strong support and commitment, and that there is expanding focus on new areas such as climate change.  

The movement is looking to grow the infrastructure to scale up with significant flows of money from the AI boom. Plenty of talent was at the conference, and active recruitment and career networking was tangible. 

For global health and poverty reduction there is a real opportunity to build partnerships between the EA movement and existing development sector players. EA brings a critical cost-effectiveness perspective and material levels of funding. The international development sector and their partners – governments, civil society and faith-based organisations – have strong connections to communities and their experience of the complex nature of poverty, and good fundable scalable ideas and programmes to address it. There are real synergies there. At Unlimit Health, we have feet in both camps, as a long-standing EA-backed organisation and development partner. We are committed to building bridges and strengthening relationships to focus on what matters most – supporting people to live healthier, more dignified lives and facilitating the environment for them to drive their own change.