Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa: Open Philanthropy Cause Exploration Prize

The article: “Energy Access in Sub-Saharan Africa: Open Philanthropy Cause Exploration Prize”

Fundamental Justification

I wrote the piece because I believe that the most important thing that might be done to rectify absolute poverty, and maybe to mitigate relative poverty, would be the provision of energy as cheaply as possible. And the second most important would be the universal provision of efficient infrastructure.

Energy infrastructure confers benefits that improve the welfare of the worst-off at scale in ways that organizations which rely on RCTs like Give Directly, AMF, etc. cannot do, such as by improving energy-dependent sectors like health, agriculture, industry, sanitation, and access to clean water. In the post I argue that energy access in Africa is the “killer app” for sustainable economic development and is important, tractable, and neglected.

I examine various interventions and recommend that OpenPhil fund the Clean Air Task Force Energy Access Africa program and look for more best-in-class opportunities to promote energy access and infrastructure.

What positive impact did you expect before you started the project? What were unusually good and unusually bad possible outcomes? (Please avoid hindsight bias and take the interests of all sentient beings into account.)

I hoped that OpenPhil will review the piece and examine how the interventions I proposed compare to the others in their Global Health and Well-being portfolio and direct a substantial amount of GHW funds to rectifying the problem I wrote about (as they’ve done with their work in South Asian Air Quality).

I also hoped that by submitting very early, I would inspire/remind others to submit their Cause Exploration posts.

What actual outcomes are you aware of?

Nothing tangible thus far. I believe that OpenPhil will review the piece in a few months. A few hundred people saw the post.

Who can make a legitimate claim to a fraction of the impact, and have you talked to them?

I quote Lily Ordano, the head of the Energy Access Africa program at Clean Air Task Force, many times in the post. Many of the arguments I make in the post are inspired by her articles ‘COP26: Africa is not a single static data point’ in African Arguments and ‘Discourse matters: The net-zero agenda and Africa’s priorities’ in African Policy Resource Institute.’ Aside from that and other research, I did not receive any help writing the post and I don’t believe there is anyone who is entitled to a fraction of the impact.

Who are the current owners of the impact and what fraction do they each own?

I have not sold any of the impact from my post. So I assume that I own 100% of it, but I’m not sure.

Procedural Questions

What is your minimum valuation under which you’ll not sell any shares in your impact?

I don’t intend to make a transaction for less than $250.

What would you have done had there been no chance to get retro funding? (This helps us assess our impact but has no effect on our evaluation of the certificate’s impact.)

• I wrote this post before I knew about the retro funding experiment. If I knew there was going to be one in the future, I might try to write more high-quality posts for altruistic reasons (i.e. being reminded to do so) and non-altruistic reasons (i.e being motivated to so by the promise of monetary reward).

What can we improve about this process?

More clearly explain the concept and mechanics of impact markets and retro funding.