The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty

by Peter Singer

Nobel Prize-winning economist and social scientist Herbert Simon estimated that “social capital” is responsible for at least 90% of what people earn in wealthy societies.[liii]

According to the World Health Organization, in developing countries, there are 214 million women of reproductive age who would like to avoid pregnancy but are not using modern methods of contraception.[xciv]

GiveWell’s strict standards mean that if you go to their website and select one of their top-ranked charities, you can be confident that people in extreme poverty will benefit from your donation, and benefit in a manner that is highly cost-effective.

This “identifiable victim effect” leads to “the rule of rescue”: we will spend far more to rescue an identifiable victim than we will to save a “statistical life.”

The United States ties more of its aid than any other major donor—an estimated 32%.