Show Notes
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 challenges around targeting, logistics, and ensuring informed and voluntary choice. However, GiveWell's increasing research capacity now positions us to take on new and complex investigations like this. We’ve been reviewing evidence, consulting with experts, modeling the benefits of contraception, and conducting initial grant investigations, focusing on programs that aim to increase access to and use of modern contraception. This work is especially timely as anticipated cuts to foreign assistance could significantly reduce existing family planning support, creating substantial new funding gaps.
In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Research Associate Dilhan Perera about the complexity of evaluating family planning programs. They explore the types of programs GiveWell is considering, the unique challenges this area presents, and key questions we’re working to answer.
Elie and Dilhan discuss: Types of family planning programs: GiveWell is investigating several approaches, including direct service delivery to underserved communities, programs that provide counseling, and supply chain interventions that work with health facilities to prevent stockouts of contraceptives. The complexity of evaluation: Unlike programs such as malaria prevention that target a well-defined population and try to maximize coverage, family planning programs must account for individual preferences and avoid coercing people into using contraception they don’t want. This requires more sophisticated monitoring systems to prevent coercion, which raises the overall cost and complexity of effective program delivery. Operational challenges and trade-offs: Programs must often choose between reaching the most underserved communities (which are often remote and expensive to reach) and working within existing health facilities. The challenges in either approach include making sure people are accurately informed about their family planning options and navigating supply chain issues like stockouts.
We’re actively considering a handful of funding opportunities in family planning. Our goal is to make initial grants that will not only have a direct impact but also help us learn more about this type of intervention, helping us better compare these programs against other funding opportunities.
Visit our All Grants Fund webpage 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 June 24, 2025 and represents our best understanding at that time.
More from GiveWell Conversations
In an effort to direct substantially more funding to the most cost-effective opportunities we can find to help people, GiveWell’s research is expanding in two directions at once: going broader, to cover more areas of global health and development, and going deeper, to improve the inputs that inform our decision-making.
GiveWell works to continually improve our research so we can make better grant decisions and direct donations where we believe they can do the most good. GiveWell’s Cross-Cutting research subteam is an important part of that effort—it investigates the impact of the programs we fund, works to resolve our largest uncertainties, and aims to improve our research. As GiveWell’s grantmaking grows, the Cross-Cutting subteam is strengthening our data collection and analysis to support that growth. In this episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Program Director Alex Cohen, who leads the Cross-Cutting subteam, about how better data can improve our decision-making, our work to gather stronger evidence, and the ways we’ve tested AI as a tool to increase our research capacity and quality.
GiveWell, with co-funding from Coefficient Giving, recently made our largest grant to date: $276 million to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) to support the procurement and distribution of 92 million nets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2027 through 2029. We estimate that the nets, 46 million of which we think would not otherwise be distributed, will avert roughly 67,000 deaths. We have supported AMF’s work for more than 15 years, and the insecticide-treated nets it procures and distributes remain one of the most cost-effective ways we've found to save lives.
When GiveWell investigates a new cause area, we’re often focused on two priorities: directing funding where we think it can help people most and generating evidence to inform larger investments later. Family planning is a clear example. Recent foreign aid cuts—including reductions from the US, UK, and Dutch governments—deepened an already substantial need and opened up new cost-effective funding opportunities.
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