Effective altruism is worse than traditional philanthropy in the way it excludes the extreme poor in the global south.

 

By Anthony Kalulu  @KaluluAnthony  |  December 3, 2022:

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I have spent the vast portion of my life in ultra poverty.

My region Busoga, is also Uganda’s most impoverished, yet Uganda itself is among the poorest countries in Sub Saharan Africa. Although most people across Uganda live in chronic poverty, the level of destitution here in Busoga is unlike any other.

I first learned about the Effective Altruism (EA) movement around 2016, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

To me, EA’s goal of getting people to use their wealth “to help others”, and “to do the most good in the world” — especially in the lives of the world’s ultra poor — gave the impression of a movement that was out to do something that traditional philanthropy couldn’t do, especially for the poor and marginalized.

Before EA came, traditional philanthropy had historically kept people like us as passive participants in the global fight against poverty, because traditional philanthropy both operates at arm’s length from the poor, and only allows 1% of all global antipoverty funding to go directly to grassroots organizations in the global south.

That way, EA struck a chord with me. But not anymore.

The way I see it now, EA is even worse than traditional philanthropy in the way it excludes those of us who are directly battling ultra poverty in the global south.

First, albeit being a new and niche movement that it is, EA is no longer small in any way. Today, the movement is complete with its own billionaire megadonors in places like Silicon Valley and allover the world. And the more pronounced the concept of effective altruism has become, the more EA has swayed lots of young wealthy donors to embrace its ideology, making it the influential philanthropic movement that it is now.

So, for a movement whose remit is to do the most good in the world, and a movement that at least in theory seems more innovative than traditional philanthropy, one would expect EA to use that influence for the maximum benefit of the poor, or to help the world’s extreme poor in ways that traditional philanthropy couldn’t. Sadly, that is not what EA is.

In the name of being “effective”, EA has instead indoctrinated its followers to strictly support a small, select list of charities that have been labelled “most effective” by the movement’s own charity raters like GiveWell, Giving What We Can, The Life You Can Save etc, of which the named charities, right now, are all western.

But that is the very ingredient that makes traditional philanthropy a sector that keeps the world’s extreme poor on the sidelines. And by consolidating itself as a movement that completely never supports grassroots organizations directly, EA has proved to be more of a blockade to those of us who live in ultra poverty, even more than traditional philanthropy.

 

Squandering the opportunity to be better than traditional philanthropy:

One thing that effective altruists do not realize is: the moment you come to a truly impoverished community in the global south, for example in my region of Busoga, there is no distinction between the work of an “effective” charity, and that of a traditional global antipoverty agency.

They are all the same, at least in the eyes of the poor.

To put it another way, if you randomly asked one of the people who themselves live in abject poverty, there is no chance that they will mention one of EA’s supported “effective” charities, as having impacted their lives more than the work of traditional global antipoverty agencies. No. That’s out of question.

Why? In the eyes of the poor, traditional philanthropy and EA alike, have only pushed their own predetermined solutions which aren’t rooted in the lived experiences of the extreme poor. Secondly, traditional philanthropy and EA alike, have only pushed solutions that are mostly top-bottom, which then makes these solutions often very short-lived.

Most importantly, both traditional philanthropy and EA alike, have left swaths of remote rural poor communities completely untouched, because their own solutions only reach a few poor communities, yet they won’t directly support the poor, to enable them create their own poor people-led, grassroots solutions.

In my view, this is more of a wasted opportunity for EA, a movement that aims to do the most good, than it is for traditional philanthropy.

Moreover, for traditional philanthropy, albeit being a sector (or a community) that almost never supports the poor directly, there are countless occasions where even organizations like the Gates Foundation have funded the smallest grassroots organizations in the global south. Not the case with effective altruism.

 

EA is different, in the way it shuts out we the poor:

In Africa as whole, a continent with 54 countries, and which also doubles as the ground zero of the global fight against poverty, none of the charities that are operating here, and which have been labelled “most effective” by the EA movement, are African — yet these charities work primarily in Africa, and are only able to reach very, very few poor communities.

In a place like Busoga, Uganda’s poorest region which is nearly equivalent (in size) to the west African country The Gambia, it is very rare to find anything that is happening to end extreme poverty, be it as a result of an effective charity, or an ineffective one.

But in the eyes of a true effective altruist, lending a hand directly to people like us, is not one of those ways of doing the most good, unless we are part of a charity that has been declared by organizations like GiveWell as “effective” — which, at least for now, means being part of a western charity.

And that is before you even bring in EA’s other outlier beliefs like “longtermism”, which considers things like artificial intelligence as being existential threats to humanity (before they pose any threat), yet the movement won’t even lend a hand directly to those of us who are already starving in the present day.

 

Indoctrination, is EA’s ultimate undoing:

Somewhere in 2021, I contacted about a hundred people (mostly individuals) who identify as effective altruists, asking them not for money, but for social media posts about the plight of poverty in my region Busoga, and my quest to do something about it. Only one agreed to donate a social media post. Of those who declined, one wrote back saying, “I usually share projects that have been vetted by Givewell or a similar organization….Why do you think your project is more effective compared to all the others?”

I tried to fumble with an answer, but I couldn’t convince him, so he declined my request of only sharing my cause on social media. His decision was already preset by EA’s creed of only supporting the world’s “most effective” charities, even when the only help needed is a tweet.

Looking back, I couldn’t help but wonder how people like us will really ever escape poverty. Because, all this I was talking with him right from here in my village of  Namisita (in Kagumba Sub County, Kamuli), a place where some households find it very hard to even afford soap, and a place where there is nothing whatsoever that is happening to end poverty.

 

Moreover, EA’s idea of “effective” isn’t really effective, on the ground.

I hate to say this but, as someone who lives in one of the poorest corners of the planet, I can tell you that EA’s idea of “effective” is mostly correct only from a western viewpoint, and again, it is all because the global development community as a whole, EA included, has chosen to make the extreme poor passive participants in creating the change they want to see.

If you visited a truly impoverished country like Uganda, you will quickly notice that many of the things that effective altruists call “effective” — from mosquito nets, to $100 business grants that are provided to groups of 3 people — are the same short-term, disposable solutions that have not only kept their recipients in abject poverty, but also, they are the very kind of solutions that often disappear the same day their proponents exit.

The easiest way to see this, is for some effective altruist to come to a place like Busoga, only two years after one of their “most effective” charities has exited, to see how much of their work (if any) still exists.

 

Putting the lived experiences of the extreme poor to waste:

Like traditional philanthropy, EA misses the fact that lasting change depends only on the poor people’s own understanding of the struggles they face, and their ability to embrace the right innovations on their own, with continuity, all of which can only be possible when the poor themselves are directly at the helm.

So, by deciding not to directly support the people who live in ultra poverty in the global south, EA (again, like traditional philanthropy) not only squanders the chance to catalyze lasting, self-sustainable change, but also effectively puts the lived experiences of the world’s ultra poor to waste.

 

The lived experiences of the extreme poor themselves, are key:

In my region of Busoga, Uganda’s most impoverished region, we have one [well-funded] international charity which is among those described by the EA movement as being “effective”. That charity is also working with rural poor farmers here, principally on maize.

Besides, maize has been grown by every single household in our region, for centuries. Also, there are many other big antipoverty agencies that had worked with rural poor farmers here specifically on maize, before that effective charity came.

But the thing is: every household in our region that depends on maize, lives in chronic extreme poverty, and has lived in chronic poverty for eternity. Neither the effective charity nor the other big antipoverty agencies that came before it, have changed this.

By contrast, those farmers who are growing crops like sugarcane, no charity or antipoverty agency has ever supported them. But today, every village in our region that you visit, is covered with sugarcane. It is also the same with many other crops (rice, tomatoes, water melon etc) that are at least providing rural farmers with some tangible income. No one has ever supported farmers to grow these crops. But farmers end up growing them spontaneously, and on a sustained basis, while those crops that are championed by some well-funded agencies — or the newly imported methods of growing them — only last for a time.

Why? The answer is: there is a thing about local farming systems in general, and there is a whole array of underlying circumstances, which are known only to the poor themselves — and which an international charity which is only working here for a few years can never address, let alone on a sustained basis.

After all, the grip of poverty in our region has only continued to pinch harder, regardless of the number of effective charities or ineffective global antipoverty agencies that have come and gone.

In my view, this all means one thing: now really is the time for humanity to accept that the best way to end global poverty, is by putting the world’s ultra poor directly at the helm.

Top-bottom approaches, honestly, have had more than a good run. This has been the default way of ending global extreme poverty since the dawn of time, and it just hasn’t worked. The only thing this has accomplished, is that it has helped keep the world’s ultra poor on the sidelines of the global fight against poverty. It has only helped seal the fate of those of us at the very bottom of the pyramid, and it has only helped keep people like us on the extreme edge of humanity.

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Anthony Kalulu is a farmer in Namisita, a village in a remote part of Kamuli, eastern Uganda. He is also founder of the nonprofit Uganda Community Farm, working to end extreme poverty.