New podcast episode: Behind the Planet Money ALIMA grant story

By GiveWell @ 2025-12-10T23:00 (+23)

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.

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Significant changes to foreign aid this year created challenges for implementing organizations—and for funders evaluating which programs to support with limited resources. The Planet Money team followed along as we assessed the effects of the cuts in real time, focusing on our evaluation of a potential grant to ALIMA to maintain nutrition and primary healthcare services in Cameroon.

Following the announcement of the US government’s stop-work order and funding freeze in January, we created a rapid response research team and began assessing opportunities we thought were potentially highly cost effective. In March, we launched an investigation of the $1.9 million ALIMA grant, which we funded in June based on the team’s findings.

In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld dives deeper into the grant investigation with Program Officers Rosie Bettle and Alice Redfern, discussing the timeline, modeling approach, and what ultimately led us to make the grant.

Elie, Rosie, and Alice discuss:

• The grant investigation timeline: GiveWell completed the investigation in about six weeks from start to finish. Typically, GiveWell grant investigations build on months or years of prior research. While we’ve researched and funded malnutrition programs in the past (including ALIMA’s programs), this program’s scope was wider—covering primary healthcare, disease surveillance, and hospital logistics.
• How we adapted our modeling: As part of evaluating this grant, GiveWell attempted to estimate several parameters related to mortality, then used a series of simple models—rather than one comprehensive model—to estimate cost-effectiveness based on those parameters. These models, along with conversations with experts and other inputs, allowed the team to move quickly and respond to the urgent need.
• An update on grant progress: With GiveWell’s funding, ALIMA’s program is now up and running again. The program has been adapted to incorporate mobile clinics, and ALIMA is on track to treat the number of children GiveWell expected. Based on a number of conversations, we believe that ALIMA’s programs are leading to increased care-seeking behavior.

As GiveWell’s research team grows, that increased capacity and expertise allows us to evaluate a wider range of programs and adapt our approaches to better find the most cost-effective opportunities to help people. In this case, that growth enabled us to move quickly and navigate uncertainty to evaluate and fund ALIMA’s program.

Visit our Foreign Aid Funding Cuts page to learn more about our response to this year’s aid cuts, visit the All Grants Fund page to learn more about how you can support this work, and listen or subscribe to our podcast for our latest updates.

This episode was recorded on December 3, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.