2.4 Where the case is weakest

The case for global health and poverty is the easiest in this course to grasp. It still rests on assumptions you might reject.

Key assumptions.

• Certainty matters. You prefer programmes with strong evidence to speculative bets with larger possible payoffs.
• People alive today are the main ones who count.
• Measurable outcomes, such as deaths averted and income gained, capture most of what matters.

The strongest objections.

• Symptoms, not causes. Bed nets and vitamin A save lives without changing the institutions, trade rules or politics that keep countries poor. Some argue that working on those causes would do more good, even though the results are harder to measure. Roser's own point about growth cuts the same way.
• Who decides? Outsiders deciding what poor communities need has a long and mixed history. Cash transfers are partly a response: they let recipients decide. The EA Fellowship discusses this in Week 2.
• Diminishing returns. As more money flows to the best-evidenced programmes, the next euro may do less.

None of these objections says the programmes don't work. They say there might be something better, or something missing.