All lives have equal value. That simple statement has become a core value for some of the world’s leading philanthropists. It’s also a battle cry for the effective altruism (EA) movement, which advocates for using evidence and reason to attack compelling problems like global poverty. It’s a powerful ideal and impossible to debate.
It’s also a bit utopian, since we live in a world where lives are not treated equally and where many want for basic resources while a few have vastly more wealth than they need. More than 700 million people live on less than $2 a day. And yet 10% of the world’s population holds 84% of the world’s wealth. To put those data in context: If you are an American with an average income, you are in the top 1% of the world’s wealth.
For decades, the philosopher Peter Singer has been making the case that we “haves” have a moral duty to help those in extreme poverty, first in his 1972 article “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” and then in his books “The Life You Can Save” and “The Most Good You Can Do.” He inspired today’s effective altruism movement and a generation of people like me to do what we can to address profound human needs that exist far outside our borders — in sub-Saharan Africa and corners of South Asia.
What’s missing from this picture is a gender lens. As Justin Trudeau said, “poverty is sexist.” It’s driven by discrimination and the burden of unpaid care and domestic work that is borne disproportionately by women and girls. The data are unambiguous. In low-income countries girls receive less schooling than boys, and too often are subjected to violence and forced marriage. When they grow up, they have far less political and economic power than men. Women in low-income countries also face far greater risk of intimate partner violence. According to the World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute, women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health. In a recent report, those organizations estimated that closing that gap could provide an annual boost of at least $1 trillion to the global economy by 2040.
A quiet revolution is underway in the world of philanthropy, much of it led by women such as Melinda French Gates and MacKenzie Scott. These emerging leaders are finding new ways to direct resources quickly and efficiently to places where the real work of improving lives — here and now — is done. Their giving practices signal a welcome commitment to bringing change straight into the homes and communities where human suffering — especially that of women and girls — originates and festers.
The time is right to launch an organization that’s inspired by the principles of effective altruism yet focused on researching and recommending nonprofits with a proven ability to improve the wellbeing of women and girls. There’s a rising cadre of thinkers and researchers — including scholars such as Emily Oster, an economist at Brown University — who are rigorously applying this kind of gender lens to their work. This new organization would engage and support people like Prof. Oster in the urgent task of providing effective altruists with choices of organizations that address the unequal distribution of political, economic and other societal resources that harms women and girls, particularly in developing countries.
The leading effective altruism organization, GiveWell, has done pioneering work to raise the bar for the entire sector by demanding proof of outcomes. It has no doubt helped extend countless lives and relieved profound suffering. But in the 15 years that it has been in business, less than 1% of the $2 billion that it has directed to organizations that it deems effective has been deployed to address the symptoms — let alone the root causes — of gender inequality. If you arrived from space, knew nothing about the world, and looked at GiveWell’s recommended charities, you would assume that poverty affects women and girls the same way it affects men and boys. But we know that it doesn’t. In other words, they largely ignore the structural inequality that negatively impacts women and girls.
Why has the EA movement missed this? Is it because it’s male dominated? The movement faced a reckoning last year for sexual harassment, reported by Time magazine and Vox. But more likely, the reason for this gender blind spot is that addressing gender inequity is daunting. While it is a problem as old as time, trying to attack its root causes and even its symptoms is more complex than providing commodities like insecticide-treated bed nets — a proven approach to prevent malaria, and the largest beneficiary of GiveWell’s work.
As Peter Singer has underscored for decades, we have the means to alleviate dire poverty. The biggest challenge that the EA movement now faces is to enlarge its circle of supporters, to grow the pie rather than simply focus on who gets a slice. Those of us who care deeply about alleviating unnecessary suffering must think hard about how to attract more people to the broader cause. Extreme poverty persists largely outside the U.S., and there is a vast need for investment in ways to address it. Yet only about 6% of total giving in the U.S. is directed to international causes — meaning that $94 out of $100 given to charity stays in the country. This proportion has not changed markedly in decades. If more compelling opportunities were available to raise the welfare of the half of humanity — women and girls — that doesn’t have the political and economic power of the other half, I believe the pie would grow.
The organization I run, Fistula Foundation, treats a problem unique to women — the childbirth injury obstetric fistula. We fund surgery to repair the stigmatizing incontinence that this injury produces and have peer-reviewed research to prove that what we do works at scale and is cost effective. There are plenty of other organizations that effectively fight the symptoms of gender inequity, such as Camfed, Room to Read and MSI Reproductive Choices, and others that work admirably to increase the power of women and girls, such as Girls Not Brides, the Global Fund for Women and Vital Voices. The Life You Can Save, an organization cofounded by Peter Singer, has developed a Help Women and Girls Fund, which is a good start. But there’s so much more we could do. It’s not just women and girls who would benefit from applying a gender lens to addressing extreme poverty. Women are the gatekeepers. Whole families and communities will rise when educated women can earn an income and provide better nutrition and better healthcare to their families.
Philanthropists MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates are bringing new thinking and bold action to the stodgy field of philanthropy. I think it’s time we shook up the EA movement, too, by starting a new EA organization dedicated to evening the global playing field for women and girls.
Kate Grant is the founding CEO of Fistula Foundation, a global nonprofit organization that provides surgical treatment for the childbirth injury obstetric fistula. She has led the organization from supporting one hospital in Ethiopia to being the clear global leader in obstetric fistula treatment.
