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PODCAST

GiveWell Conversations

Welcome to GiveWell’s podcast sharing the latest updates on our work. Tune in for conversations with GiveWell staff members discussing current priorities of our Research team and recent developments in the global health landscape.

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All Episodes

37:23

Taking Lessons from a Year of Aid Cuts into 2026:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/12/30

Global health programs faced major disruptions to their funding in 2025. Back in March, we published our first podcast episode to share a timely snapshot of the immediate impacts caused by the foreign aid freeze and GiveWell’s initial response strategy. It was unclear whether and when funding would resume, and what the medium and long-term implications would be for life-saving programs. Over the last year, GiveWell has drawn on almost two decades of cost-effectiveness research and analysis

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50:27

Growing Needs, Shrinking Aid Webinar Recording:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/12/15

On Thursday, December 4, 2025, GiveWell hosted a live webinar titled “Growing Needs, Shrinking Aid: Cost-Effective Action in a Year of Funding Cuts.” Major cuts to foreign aid this year created deep uncertainty for global health programs. In this live-recorded discussion, co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld moderates a panel of GiveWell researchers to discuss the effects of these cuts and how GiveWell is leveraging its nearly two decades of experience in cost-effectiveness research and

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34:23

Behind the Planet Money ALIMA Grant Story: December...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/12/09

This episode follows up on the November 26, 2025 episode of Planet Money, “Saving lives with fewer dollars,” which covered GiveWell’s evaluation of a grant to the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) to maintain primary healthcare, hospital services, and malnutrition treatment in two subdistricts of North Cameroon following unexpected aid cuts earlier this year. We recommend listening to the Planet Money episode first, as it provides important context. ***Significant changes to

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30:32

Bridging an Uncertain Time for a Lifesaving Program:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/11/20

Despite significant progress over the past several decades, malaria remains a leading cause of death globally for children under five. This year’s cuts to foreign aid funding disrupted highly effective programs to prevent malaria, such as seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC). SMC provides antimalarial medication to children under the age of five during the rainy season when malaria transmission is highest, reducing their risk of dying from the disease. Malaria Consortium’s SMC program,

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32:31

Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Days 5 and 6

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/10/30

Our Beyond the Spreadsheets mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. On day five, the GiveWell team visited a school in Lilongwe, where they spoke with school representatives and families of students in a nearby urban settlement. On day six, the GiveWell team

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23:58

Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Day 4

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/10/16

Our Beyond the Spreadsheets mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. On day four, the GiveWell team visited community projects funded by Spark Microgrants, including a maize mill and a sunflower oil mill, and spoke with residents about their impact. New to the

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24:07

Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Day 3

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/10/09

Our Beyond the Spreadsheets mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. On day three, the GiveWell team visited a rural health outpost where they met with health care workers to discuss the services they provide through village clinics and home visits—and the impact of

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20:58

Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Day 2

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/10/02

Our Beyond the Spreadsheets mini-series lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares the behind-the-scenes experience of a GiveWell site visit through real-time reflections and clips of conversations. On day two, the GiveWell team met with district health officials to learn about the impact of foreign aid funding cuts and visited a local hospital to review health data. Listen to day one

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34:09

Beyond the Spreadsheets: Malawi Site Visit Day 1

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/09/25

This episode was recorded on July 30, 2025 during GiveWell's site visit to Malawi and represents our best understanding at that time. We’re launching a new podcast mini-series that lets you ride along with our leadership team on their recent weeklong site visit to Malawi. Recorded daily during the trip, the series shares real-time reflections and clips of conversations with community members. New episodes will be released weekly over the next month, and you can subscribe to be notified when

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42:55

A Frontline View of Foreign Aid Cuts with CHAI’s CEO:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/09/11

This episode was recorded on August 20, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. Foreign aid funding cuts are reshaping the global health landscape, creating urgent funding gaps and forcing difficult prioritization decisions across health systems worldwide. To understand the real-world effects, it’s essential to hear from the organizations working on the front lines with government partners to navigate the funding crisis. The Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is a

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25:31

The Fragile Foundations of Global Health Data: August...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/08/21

This episode was recorded on August 13, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. GiveWell’s ability to find and fund highly cost-effective health programs relies on a foundation of credible data. A key source of that data, the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), recently had its primary funding from USAID discontinued. This creates the potential of a significant challenge for GiveWell’s research—and for evidence-based grantmaking across the global health sector.In this

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30:55

Advancing GiveWell’s Work on Family Planning: August...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/08/07

This episode was recorded on June 24, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. As GiveWell’s research team grows, that increased capacity and expertise allows us to evaluate a wider range of programs to find the most cost-effective opportunities to help people. Over the past year and a half, we’ve been investigating a new research area—family planning services that help people decide whether and when to have children. Family planning programs have particularly complex

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35:46

Malaria Funding at a Crossroads: July 18, 2025

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/07/18

This episode was recorded on July 16, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. Malaria is the cause area where GiveWell has directed the most funding over our 18-year history. We’ve recommended over $1 billion to malaria programs, which we estimate will avert over 200,000 deaths, mostly in young children, through support for programs like Against Malaria Foundation’s insecticide-treated nets and Malaria Consortium’s seasonal malaria chemoprevention.Despite significant

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31:16

Deepening GiveWell’s Focus on Livelihoods Programs:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/07/10

This episode was recorded on June 25, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. GiveWell has long grappled with fundamental questions about how to value different positive impacts and make funding decisions across diverse programs. In particular, how much more valuable it is to save a life than to substantially improve it? And how can we prioritize between programs that achieve those outcomes in different measures when there’s no “right” answer to that question?In this

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29:53

Forecasting the Future of Global Health Funding: June...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/06/26

This episode was recorded on June 11, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.In the face of potential major cuts to foreign aid, how can we anticipate the impact on global health and effectively direct resources to the areas of greatest need?In this episode, GiveWell’s CEO and co-founder, Elie Hassenfeld, speaks with Principal Researcher Alex Cohen to discuss the forecasting work GiveWell has undertaken to better understand what the future of global health funding might

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27:37

Exploring HIV/AIDS Funding Cuts and Emerging Needs:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/06/05

This episode was recorded on May 30, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.The US government has historically been a major funder of HIV/AIDS programs, providing around $5 to $6 billion annually through PEPFAR and other initiatives. With anticipated major reductions in US government foreign aid, including potential cuts of 20% to 50% to HIV/AIDS funding, GiveWell is assessing where new, cost-effective needs might emerge.GiveWell aims to find programs where additional

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30:34

Supporting Governments Navigating US Funding Cuts:...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/05/15

This episode was recorded on May 2, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.Cuts to US government foreign assistance have created unprecedented challenges for global health programs. Countries that have relied on this funding must now navigate substantial gaps and make difficult decisions about program priorities. In the fourth episode of GiveWell’s podcast series on these cuts, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Program Officer Dan Brown about grants to

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24:09

Making Cost-Effective Grants Amid Uncertainty: April...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/04/23

This episode was recorded on April 15, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time. The US government has historically spent approximately $12 billion to $15 billion annually in foreign assistance dedicated to global health. The funding cuts announced in the first few months of 2025 disrupted the global health landscape and created the possibility of enormous funding gaps that are still coming into focus. In response, GiveWell has approved around $18 million in grants to support

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23:38

Addressing Urgent Needs in Seasonal Malaria...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/04/03

This episode was recorded on March 31, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.Our first episode shared a broad overview of the impacts of US government aid cuts and GiveWell’s initial response. This time, GiveWell Program Officer Natalie Crispin joins CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld to zoom in on a specific case, focusing on grants we’ve made to support urgent funding gaps for seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC). SMC is one of the most cost-effective programs we’ve

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22:33

GiveWell’s Response to USAID Funding Cuts: March 19,...

GiveWell Conversations ·

2025/03/19

This episode was recorded on March 12, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.In this discussion between GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld and Senior Program Officer Julie Faller, we provide snapshots of how US funding changes are affecting global health programs:Immediate program trade-offs: As funds are paused, country governments are having to choose between essential health services, including one country that said it would prioritize HIV treatment programs

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