Is region-level cause prioritization research valuable to spot promising long-term priority causes worldwide?

Discussions over local vs. global remind me the contrast between the performances of two Give Directly programs, 100+ (cash tranfers for American families), which received US$ 114.3 mi, and Covid-19 Africa, which received US$ 53.7. I can see reasons for GD supporting 100+, and I'm not surprised that US$1 is more likely to be donated to poor Americans than to sub-saharian Africa, but this made me (and other people, of course, but I speak for me) wonder if we can draw a line between "we're using parochialism to promote EA-like goals" and "we're compromising with parochialism, diverting scarce resources and giving up effectiveness"? I don't think of this as a main issue, but as a puzzle; it would be interesting to have some research on public criteria or clues about this difference.

Research of the most cost-effective causes, interpreted as means to create additional impact can inform long-term priorities – in regions of any levels of development. E. g. in Lokoja in Northern Nigeria, that means may be very different from that in Bangkok or Washington, D. C. Maybe in Lokoja that is informing mothers on the available prenatal and early childhood healthcare incentives (that in the long term gives rise to institutions perpetuating increased wellbeing), in Bangkok supporting regional norms on migrant work, and in Washington, D. C. lobbying for trade policy favorable to LMICs.

Different locally-identified measures can be globally compared in their cost-effectiveness, complementarities potentially concluded, and individual EAs may decide, based on their expertise and the extent of the fulfillment of care of more inner moral circles, whether they wish to focus on a local or more distant measure, or even relocate.

For this global cost-effectiveness comparison and insights into complementarities, knowledge of the entire field of possible impact, as well as the global structure within which the intervention extends and cascades impact, is needed.

Research of the most cost-effective local causes, interpreted as means to help locals, may also inform long-term priorities – also in regions of any levels of development. First, comparison can show where a local should allocate their focus to help most effectively (e. g. a person in Washington, D. C. can conclude that supporting migrant laborers in Southeast Asia is more cost-effective than supporting local homeless persons). Second, complementarities can be also drawn - e. g. a DC-based person may be able to benefit from focusing on a positive measure (e. g. migrant labor laws in Southeast Asia) as opposed to negative-emotions based advertisement - and person in Bangkok can benefit from increased ability to institutionalize positive change. Third, the identification of cost-effective means to help locals enables persons to fulfill their need to care for more inner moral circles more cost-effectively, so that further funds are left for more outer moral circles.

Thanks for the post! Would you have any examples of causes that could be a local priority, but not a global one?

I think your question is: Is there some problem/intervention that is high-impact that EA has missed out because it is specific to my country, and so nobody has thought of it?

Let's go through which countries are good for specific causes:

• Artificial General Intelligence: USA, China, UK
• Engineered Pandemics: USA, China
• Earning-to-give: rich countries like USA, Qatar, Singapore, Norway, UAE, Luxembourg, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland
• Nuclear Security: Russia, USA, North Korea
• Climate Change: Countries developing rapidly like Brazil, India and countries that emit a lot of greenhouse gases as of now like USA, UK, etc
• Improving Institutional Decision Making: Corrupt countries like Colombia, Brazil, India Mexico, Ghana, Bolivia and influential countries like USA, UK
• Malaria Interventions: A lot of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Influencing long-term future: Potential superpowers like Russia, China, India, Brazil
• Alternative meats: Brazil, China, USA, Israel, India
• Food/Water Fortification: India, West African countries

The countries that are good for specific problems/interventions are good because they exhibit certain "structural" properties. For example, countries good for earning to give are rich; countries good for factory farming have high consumption of meat; countries good for institutional decision making are corrupt or influential; countries good for influencing long-term future are potential superpowers; and so on.

These "structural" properties are present in multiple (on average around 5) countries, and thus there are around 5 countries that are high-impact for a specific cause area/intervention. Also, these countries are generall geographically and culturally dispersed - often belonging to different continents.

Coming back to the original question: Is there some problem/intervention that is high-impact that EA has missed out because it is specific to my country, and so nobody has thought of it?

If what I have argued above is correct, the premise that "a problem/intervention is specific to my country" is generally false. Going by the trend that the top ~10 problems/interventions today are not region-specific, I see no reason why a very promising problem/intervention would be found that is region-specific. And, so I argue that region-level cause prioritization research is not particularly valuable.

EDIT: I'm proposing that a majority of the promising problems are not restricted to a particular region. Ofcourse, there are some exceptions to this like war, US immigration, (maybe) health development in Sub-saharan Africa, etc.