Funding proposal: supporting a campaign to increase Canadian Official Development Assistance

Abstract

Bellow I lay out the case for a project that I believe may have a higher expected value then donating to GiveWell charities. There are a number of points that I still feel uncertainty about, but I thought I would err on the side of getting feedback early. Let me know what you think! The Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC) is an organization that brings together Canadian non-profits focused on international development. At their conference in October in 2017, they presented a pitch for their (as of then not-public) campaign to attempt to get Canada to honour their commitment to give 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to Official Development Assistance (ODA). If successful, this would represent an increase of approximately 9 Billion Canadian Dollars (CAD) per year to Canada’s ODA budget. [1] The campaign struck me as particularly compelling and well-researched, the consultants the CCIC employed to develop it seemed extremely knowledgeable. In addition, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which funded the campaign’s creation, have renewed their funding to hire a new campaign manager. After reviewing the campaign in more detail, I have become convinced it would be worth directing EA funds toward this initiative.