If this mortality rate continues and countries don’t establish Early Childhood Development policies in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we may witness the loss of 60m children’s lives between 2017 and 2030, according to a UNICEF report on child mortality. The scale of the problem is staggering, not only for its moral implications but also for its economic consequences. Hence, the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 include the under-five mortality rate as a key indicator of global development. Within this context, philanthropists are playing an increasingly prominent role and, as a corollary, there is an abundance of literature coming to the fore which advocates a dispassionate analytical approach.

Gold Standard of Philanthropy

The gold standard for many donors is now the randomised control trial (RCT). If an RCT on an intervention achieves a positive, statistically significant outcome, the donor accepts that intervention as “evidence-based” and funding for it gets the green light.

This is all good and well. However, an RCT doesn’t ask “how” or “why” a particular programme works. Moreover, RCTs can be costly to run and tend to take considerable time. In a world full of urgent challenges where multi-sectoral interventions are increasingly the norm and the trade-off between quality and scalability often requires creative and complex solutions, the “how” and “why”—and the “how fast”—are highly consequential questions that must be asked. This is where some leading-edge thinking is taking place.

IDEAS Impact Framework

The IDEAS Impact Framework, developed by Jack Shonkoff and his team at Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, is a case in point. It tackles these very questions and provides effective options for philanthropists and key funders to consider. It is focused on early childhood development but can be applied to interventions across diverse sectors. The ultimate pursuit of the Framework is simple: building better programmes that achieve a better impact for more young children and their families. 

IDEAS is a mnemonic for what the framework actually does: it encourages innovation to solve unmet challenges; aims to develop effective programmes with a clearly articulated theory of change; evaluates what works for whom and why; adapts in rapid cycle iterations; and then scales promising programmes.

Prospective Takers of IDEAS

Global pools of philanthropic funds are likely to increase in the coming years, and their geographic footprint will shift as well. The numbers of billionaires coming to the fore in China and India, for instance, will change the philanthropic landscape drastically. When the scarcity of philanthropic funds isn’t necessarily the key constraint but rather when the hindrance is a scarcity of high-quality—and ideally scalable—interventions from which to choose, it becomes evident that innovative thinking, a sense of urgency and, indeed, a healthy degree of risk-taking need to be embraced.

Cautionary Approach

Some of the most sophisticated donors avail themselves of simple questions that can be both revealing and profound: “what would a counterfactual universe look like if I were not here to fund this particular project or drive that initiative forward?” The answer may have consequences that are beyond one’s expectations and lead to impact in ways unimagined.

Sometimes, those who are new to philanthropy suffer from “paralysis through analysis” and are simply unsure of which philanthropic strategy to adopt or which cause to pursue. This is perfectly normal and, at times, none of the existing strategies may be ideal—one should feel free innovate and not accept the status quo.

Conclusion

Philanthropists and funders of various sorts must keep in mind that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach when assessing the merits of a given project or intervention. There are times when RCTs are precisely the right approach and others when their use would not be viable or sensible.  Benchmarks for success need not only to consider for whom a particular intervention has worked but also, and importantly, for whom it has not, and why. The scale of the challenge and the urgency of tackling it are huge if the moral imperative that nobody is left behind, underscored by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is to be fulfilled. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.