Published on May 24, 2021 6:56 PM GMT

Context

Effective Altruism Israel has recently put together a document highlighting its key achievements and progress.

This document was originally made for a potential donor (and therefore leaves out common EA terminology), but we decided to share it on the EA forum, and intend to update it over time as we make additional progress. The most up-to-date version of this document can be found here.

This post is a copy of the document's current version, and we will publish a new version to the forum once a year, along with our most recent community survey report. In order to help keep track of the updates we make to this document, we will log significant changes in this document.

For background on EA Israel, please refer to our strategy document, and to our official website (currently only available in Hebrew). Additional information can be found on our most recent community survey.

Advocacy for Effectiveness

One of the primary goals of EA Israel is to encourage individuals and organizations to rely on evidence and reasoning in order to maximize their social impact.

Nonprofit sector

As a part of our initiative to encourage Israeli charities to conduct cost-effectiveness research, on Q4 2020 EA Israel’s volunteers published with Animals charity a cost-effectiveness report on their program for promoting a vegan diet.

While working with Israeli charities, we encountered a significant incentive gap within Israeli charities for cost-effectiveness research. In addition, we recognized the unique opportunity EA Israel has in filling this gap, as an organization that does not depend on Israeli charities as its ‘customers’, as do other actors in the existing landscape. For this goal, we made a detailed project plan for launching an Israeli Charity Effectiveness Prize, and consulted on its details with prominent figures of both the Israeli nonprofit sector and the global EA community. We are currently fundraising for this project.

Guidance on career and research topics

EA Israel has provided career guidance and thesis selection guidance to dozens of individuals to help maximize their social impact.Our experience in this field relies both on resources from the global community of EA, and on resources created and refined by EA Israel, such as a career consultation guide which is now widely used across the EA community.

In addition, we organized two career guidance events with over 250 participants that featured panelists who are successful entrepreneurs, researchers, and CEOs of charities.

Fourth sector (social entrepreneurship)

Israel is a strong hub for startups, considered to be one of the world’s strongest hubs outside the US, and EA Israel aims to assist entrepreneurs who want to have a significant positive impact through their work. We have built a collection of workshops and lectures providing entrepreneurs with concrete tools for evaluating the social impact of interventions and cause areas, and delivered them to the social accelerator BNZ Impact and the Kaveret program in order to collect feedback. We have already started approaching other social accelerators for additional collaborations.

Guide for effective donations

In Q2 2020, EA Israel published a guide for effective donations which reached ~1000 entrances and is now (without any paid promotions) one of the top Google results when inquiring in Hebrew about where to donate.

Fundraising for effective charities

Founders Pledge collaboration

Founders Pledge is an EA initiative where entrepreneurs make a commitment to donate a portion of their personal proceeds to charity when they sell their business. EA Israel worked on creating an Israeli Founders Pledge chapter, and recently organized a successful event with seven founders of round A+ startups as a pilot. We’re currently discussing the next steps with Founders Pledge, and preparing for a second event.

Giving Week

In 2019 and 2020 we participated in Google’s Giving Week in order to fundraise...

Published on May 24, 2021 6:56 PM GMT

Context

Effective Altruism Israel has recently put together a document highlighting its key achievements and progress.

This document was originally made for a potential donor (and therefore leaves out common EA terminology), but we decided to share it on the EA forum, and intend to update it over time as we make additional progress. The most up-to-date version of this document can be found here.

This post is a copy of the document's current version, and we will publish a new version to the forum once a year, along with our most recent community survey report. In order to help keep track of the updates we make to this document, we will log significant changes in this document.

For background on EA Israel, please refer to our strategy document, and to our official website (currently only available in Hebrew). Additional information can be found on our most recent community survey.

Advocacy for Effectiveness

One of the primary goals of EA Israel is to encourage individuals and organizations to rely on evidence and reasoning in order to maximize their social impact.

Nonprofit sector

As a part of our initiative to encourage Israeli charities to conduct cost-effectiveness research, on Q4 2020 EA Israel’s volunteers published with Animals charity a cost-effectiveness report on their program for promoting a vegan diet.

While working with Israeli charities, we encountered a significant incentive gap within Israeli charities for cost-effectiveness research. In addition, we recognized the unique opportunity EA Israel has in filling this gap, as an organization that does not depend on Israeli charities as its ‘customers’, as do other actors in the existing landscape. For this goal, we made a detailed project plan for launching an Israeli Charity Effectiveness Prize, and consulted on its details with prominent figures of both the Israeli nonprofit sector and the global EA community. We are currently fundraising for this project.

Guidance on career and research topics

EA Israel has provided career guidance and thesis selection guidance to dozens of individuals to help maximize their social impact.Our experience in this field relies both on resources from the global community of EA, and on resources created and refined by EA Israel, such as a career consultation guide which is now widely used across the EA community.

In addition, we organized two career guidance events with over 250 participants that featured panelists who are successful entrepreneurs, researchers, and CEOs of charities.

Fourth sector (social entrepreneurship)

Israel is a strong hub for startups, considered to be one of the world’s strongest hubs outside the US, and EA Israel aims to assist entrepreneurs who want to have a significant positive impact through their work. We have built a collection of workshops and lectures providing entrepreneurs with concrete tools for evaluating the social impact of interventions and cause areas, and delivered them to the social accelerator BNZ Impact and the Kaveret program in order to collect feedback. We have already started approaching other social accelerators for additional collaborations.

Guide for effective donations

In Q2 2020, EA Israel published a guide for effective donations which reached ~1000 entrances and is now (without any paid promotions) one of the top Google results when inquiring in Hebrew about where to donate.

Fundraising for effective charities

Founders Pledge collaboration

Founders Pledge is an EA initiative where entrepreneurs make a commitment to donate a portion of their personal proceeds to charity when they sell their business. EA Israel worked on creating an Israeli Founders Pledge chapter, and recently organized a successful event with seven founders of round A+ startups as a pilot. We’re currently discussing the next steps with Founders Pledge, and preparing for a second event.

Giving Week

In 2019 and 2020 we participated in Google’s Giving Week in order to fundraise...

Published on May 24, 2021 10:46 AM GMT

This post is focused on the UK Parliament, though hopefully some of its conclusions will be relevant to other similar systems (e.g. EU, other Parliamentary systems). See here for one of a number of posts about working in the US Congress. I have also written up similar articles for other policy roles which I may post if I get good feedback on this one - please do leave comments or reach out if you have any questions.

My credentials: former Senior Parliamentary Assistant to a backbench Member of Parliament (2.5 years). Before that: parliamentary intern for two MPs, constituency volunteer. Currently: political adviser (/lobbyist) for a development NGO, active in a UK political party.

The objective of this post is to inform readers about:

What working in Parliament involves

How it can have an impact

What experience and skill set are required or desirable

Future career opportunities after working in Parliament

What the risks are (personal and wider)

What kind of roles are available?

MPs have a taxpayer-funded budget to employ 3-6 employees divided between constituency and parliamentary offices. Some MPs combine these offices. Typically, the roles include:

Office manager (aka ‘chief of staff’ or ‘head of office’) - this is the most senior role, based in Parliament, and may or may not be combined with policy duties.

(Senior) Parliamentary assistant (aka ‘parliamentary researcher’, or just ‘staffer’) - the title for most policy roles based in Parliament. Sometimes, if the MP has a policy responsibility within the party, this may be called ‘policy adviser’, with a focus on a specific policy area.

Media adviser / communications assistant - typically based in Parliament with a comms, digital and/or media focus. These are often merged with the assistant role.

Constituency manager - responsible for running the constituency office.

(Senior) Caseworker - typically based in the constituency office with a focus on casework, which covers any issues arising from the MP’s local constituents.

Diary manager / administrator - often this role is merged with one of the assistant/manager roles. It can be either in either office.

Intern - typically based in Parliament for a month or so, will perform more administrative duties but may help with some policy work or casework.

What does the role involve?

This post will focus on parliamentary assistants, who provide a wide range of research, communication and administrative support for the MP’s parliamentary work. They tend not to focus on constituency casework. These are also likely to be the most impactful and competitive roles, due to the scope to influence policy and progress to other policy-relevant roles within and outside Parliament.

Parliamentary assistants' tasks include:

Writing briefings and speeches for MPs ahead of debates, events and select committee sessions

Monitoring legislation, debates and political issues for opportunities for the MP to intervene and impact policy

Managing press relations: writing press releases, building relationships with journalists, preparing notes for interviews

Meeting with lobbyists, constituents and campaigners to hear their concerns and translate into parliamentary action

Managing the MP’s diary

Writing letters to other MPs, lobby groups or constituents on policy issues

Setting up and running All-Party Groups on specific issues

Managing social media, emails, website and online communications

Developing policy for the party, particularly if the MP has a specific role (e.g. minister or shadow minister)

Attending events and conferences with or on behalf of the MP

Work can vary significantly day-to-day, and may be responsive to big political developments (such as Brexit), as well as small ones (such as a minister resigning or an internal party division). Work will be based in an office in Westminster, though this may become more home-based following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced staffers to work from home in 2020.

T...

Published on May 24, 2021 10:46 AM GMT

This post is focused on the UK Parliament, though hopefully some of its conclusions will be relevant to other similar systems (e.g. EU, other Parliamentary systems). See here for one of a number of posts about working in the US Congress. I have also written up similar articles for other policy roles which I may post if I get good feedback on this one - please do leave comments or reach out if you have any questions.

My credentials: former Senior Parliamentary Assistant to a backbench Member of Parliament (2.5 years). Before that: parliamentary intern for two MPs, constituency volunteer. Currently: political adviser (/lobbyist) for a development NGO, active in a UK political party.

The objective of this post is to inform readers about:

What working in Parliament involves

How it can have an impact

What experience and skill set are required or desirable

Future career opportunities after working in Parliament

What the risks are (personal and wider)

What kind of roles are available?

MPs have a taxpayer-funded budget to employ 3-6 employees divided between constituency and parliamentary offices. Some MPs combine these offices. Typically, the roles include:

Office manager (aka ‘chief of staff’ or ‘head of office’) - this is the most senior role, based in Parliament, and may or may not be combined with policy duties.

(Senior) Parliamentary assistant (aka ‘parliamentary researcher’, or just ‘staffer’) - the title for most policy roles based in Parliament. Sometimes, if the MP has a policy responsibility within the party, this may be called ‘policy adviser’, with a focus on a specific policy area.

Media adviser / communications assistant - typically based in Parliament with a comms, digital and/or media focus. These are often merged with the assistant role.

Constituency manager - responsible for running the constituency office.

(Senior) Caseworker - typically based in the constituency office with a focus on casework, which covers any issues arising from the MP’s local constituents.

Diary manager / administrator - often this role is merged with one of the assistant/manager roles. It can be either in either office.

Intern - typically based in Parliament for a month or so, will perform more administrative duties but may help with some policy work or casework.

What does the role involve?

This post will focus on parliamentary assistants, who provide a wide range of research, communication and administrative support for the MP’s parliamentary work. They tend not to focus on constituency casework. These are also likely to be the most impactful and competitive roles, due to the scope to influence policy and progress to other policy-relevant roles within and outside Parliament.

Parliamentary assistants' tasks include:

Writing briefings and speeches for MPs ahead of debates, events and select committee sessions

Monitoring legislation, debates and political issues for opportunities for the MP to intervene and impact policy

Managing press relations: writing press releases, building relationships with journalists, preparing notes for interviews

Meeting with lobbyists, constituents and campaigners to hear their concerns and translate into parliamentary action

Managing the MP’s diary

Writing letters to other MPs, lobby groups or constituents on policy issues

Setting up and running All-Party Groups on specific issues

Managing social media, emails, website and online communications

Developing policy for the party, particularly if the MP has a specific role (e.g. minister or shadow minister)

Attending events and conferences with or on behalf of the MP

Work can vary significantly day-to-day, and may be responsive to big political developments (such as Brexit), as well as small ones (such as a minister resigning or an internal party division). Work will be based in an office in Westminster, though this may become more home-based following the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced staffers to work from home in 2020.

T...

Published on May 22, 2021 3:12 PM GMT

CEA has a lot of open positions right now. So we’re hosting an AMA to answer questions about what it’s like to work here!

We’ll start to respond on Tuesday, 5/25, and keep going through the rest of the week. But if you happen to find this post after that, feel free to add a question, and Aaron will make sure the right people see it.

All questions are welcome, but here are some things we’d be especially keen to discuss:

Our open positions — what their impact might be, what sorts of people we’re looking to hire, etc.

CEA’s internal culture

What our different teams work on

Other links you might find useful:

What is CEA?

CEA’s strategy

CEA’s most recent quarterly update

Our current open positions

CBG Programme Manager

Community Events Manager

EA Strategy Coordinator

Events Generalist

Groups Associate (Scalable University Support)

Note: We previously had a separate AMA for the Events roles, but decided to merge it with this one.

Staff members joining this AMA

Aaron Gertler, content specialist and “Forum guy”

Amy Labenz, who has been producing events at CEA since 2015, including EA Global and a series of smaller, specialized retreats

Barry Grimes, who leads communications for EA Global and provides support to EAGx conferences around the world

Ben West, who manages the Forum team and thinks about a lot of community-level topics (e.g. retention)

Harri Besceli, who manages the Community Building Grants program(me). He’ll soon be taking another role at CEA, so we’re looking for a new manager.

Joan Gass, our Managing Director, who does a lot of work on CEA’s strategy, leads our recruitment, and manages the Groups team

Josh Axford, who manages CEA’s operations

Max Dalton, our Executive Director, who oversees everything we do and sets CEA’s overall direction as an organization

Nicole Ross, who works on broad community health questions and thinks about ways to improve the community’s epistemics

You can learn more about us on CEA’s Team page.

Published on May 22, 2021 3:12 PM GMT

CEA has a lot of open positions right now. So we’re hosting an AMA to answer questions about what it’s like to work here!

We’ll start to respond on Tuesday, 5/25, and keep going through the rest of the week. But if you happen to find this post after that, feel free to add a question, and Aaron will make sure the right people see it.

All questions are welcome, but here are some things we’d be especially keen to discuss:

Our open positions — what their impact might be, what sorts of people we’re looking to hire, etc.

CEA’s internal culture

What our different teams work on

Other links you might find useful:

What is CEA?

CEA’s strategy

CEA’s most recent quarterly update

Our current open positions

CBG Programme Manager

Community Events Manager

EA Strategy Coordinator

Events Generalist

Groups Associate (Scalable University Support)

Note: We previously had a separate AMA for the Events roles, but decided to merge it with this one.

Staff members joining this AMA

Aaron Gertler, content specialist and “Forum guy”

Amy Labenz, who has been producing events at CEA since 2015, including EA Global and a series of smaller, specialized retreats

Barry Grimes, who leads communications for EA Global and provides support to EAGx conferences around the world

Ben West, who manages the Forum team and thinks about a lot of community-level topics (e.g. retention)

Harri Besceli, who manages the Community Building Grants program(me). He’ll soon be taking another role at CEA, so we’re looking for a new manager.

Joan Gass, our Managing Director, who does a lot of work on CEA’s strategy, leads our recruitment, and manages the Groups team

Josh Axford, who manages CEA’s operations

Max Dalton, our Executive Director, who oversees everything we do and sets CEA’s overall direction as an organization

Nicole Ross, who works on broad community health questions and thinks about ways to improve the community’s epistemics

You can learn more about us on CEA’s Team page.

Published on May 24, 2021 6:39 PM GMT

Note: 80,000 Hours wants to keep the interviewee's name off of Google in this context. You can use "Howie" in comments, but please don't use his surname. We'll redact the surname if any comment happens to use it (but won't otherwise change the comment).

I'm linking to one of my favorite 80,000 Hours podcast episodes ever — not only because the topic seems important and broadly relevant, but because some of the interviewee's advice was directly applicable to problems I was experiencing and problems I've been working through with friends who are struggling.

I'd honestly recommend the episode to basically anyone in or out of EA, with a few caveats:

As 80,000 Hours notes, the conversation gets pretty intense. See the end of the quote below for advice on working around the most intense bits.

The podcast goes on at length about the ways in which the EA community can be deeply supportive of people struggling with mental illness. I can imagine parts of it being a difficult listen for people who either (a) spend a lot of their time in other communities that aren't so supportive, or (b) haven't gotten the same kind of support from within the EA community. In either case, I can imagine some of the advice not being very applicable, and this being frustrating.

Points that especially resonated for me:

Your friends may not be available all the time, but they'll almost always want to help in some way. Consider ways that even a few minutes per day of a friend's time could be good for you.

If you're struggling to get something done, and you're about to spend hours worrying about it or frantically churning out a terrible version of it before some arbitrary deadline... well, I'll quote the podcast:

Sometimes you can literally just write a one sentence email that’s like, “Hey, I’m not going to get to this for a week. I’m sorry,” and that clears the whole thing. The person writes back, “That’s totally fine,” and you don’t have to feel bad about it at all anymore. And nobody was ever upset.

Episode description

Mental illness is one of the things that most often trips up people who could otherwise enjoy flourishing careers and have a large social impact, so we think this could plausibly be one of our more valuable episodes.

We also hope that the episode will:

Help people realise that they have a shot at making a difference in the future, even if they’re experiencing (or have experienced in the past) mental illness, self doubt, imposter syndrome, or other personal obstacles.

Give insight into what it’s like in the head of one person with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome, including the specific thought patterns they experience on typical days and more extreme days. In addition to being interesting for its own sake, this might make it easier for people to understand the experiences of family members, friends, and colleagues — and know how to react more helpfully.

Several early listeners have even made specific behavioral changes due to listening to the episode — including people who generally have good mental health but were convinced it’s well worth the low cost of setting up a plan in case they have problems in the future.

So we think this episode will be valuable for:

People who have experienced mental health problems or might in future;

People who have had troubles with stress, anxiety, low mood, low self esteem, imposter syndrome and similar issues, even if their experience isn’t well described as ‘mental illness’;

People who have never experienced these problems but want to learn about what it’s like, so they can better relate to and assist family, friends or colleagues who do.

In other words, we think this episode could be worthwhile for almost everybody.

Just a heads up that this conversation gets pretty intense at times, and includes references to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

If you don’t want to hear or read the most intense section, you can skip the chapter called ‘Disaster’. And if you’d...

Published on May 24, 2021 6:39 PM GMT

Note: 80,000 Hours wants to keep the interviewee's name off of Google in this context. You can use "Howie" in comments, but please don't use his surname. We'll redact the surname if any comment happens to use it (but won't otherwise change the comment).

I'm linking to one of my favorite 80,000 Hours podcast episodes ever — not only because the topic seems important and broadly relevant, but because some of the interviewee's advice was directly applicable to problems I was experiencing and problems I've been working through with friends who are struggling.

I'd honestly recommend the episode to basically anyone in or out of EA, with a few caveats:

As 80,000 Hours notes, the conversation gets pretty intense. See the end of the quote below for advice on working around the most intense bits.

The podcast goes on at length about the ways in which the EA community can be deeply supportive of people struggling with mental illness. I can imagine parts of it being a difficult listen for people who either (a) spend a lot of their time in other communities that aren't so supportive, or (b) haven't gotten the same kind of support from within the EA community. In either case, I can imagine some of the advice not being very applicable, and this being frustrating.

Points that especially resonated for me:

Your friends may not be available all the time, but they'll almost always want to help in some way. Consider ways that even a few minutes per day of a friend's time could be good for you.

If you're struggling to get something done, and you're about to spend hours worrying about it or frantically churning out a terrible version of it before some arbitrary deadline... well, I'll quote the podcast:

Sometimes you can literally just write a one sentence email that’s like, “Hey, I’m not going to get to this for a week. I’m sorry,” and that clears the whole thing. The person writes back, “That’s totally fine,” and you don’t have to feel bad about it at all anymore. And nobody was ever upset.

Episode description

Mental illness is one of the things that most often trips up people who could otherwise enjoy flourishing careers and have a large social impact, so we think this could plausibly be one of our more valuable episodes.

We also hope that the episode will:

Help people realise that they have a shot at making a difference in the future, even if they’re experiencing (or have experienced in the past) mental illness, self doubt, imposter syndrome, or other personal obstacles.

Give insight into what it’s like in the head of one person with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome, including the specific thought patterns they experience on typical days and more extreme days. In addition to being interesting for its own sake, this might make it easier for people to understand the experiences of family members, friends, and colleagues — and know how to react more helpfully.

Several early listeners have even made specific behavioral changes due to listening to the episode — including people who generally have good mental health but were convinced it’s well worth the low cost of setting up a plan in case they have problems in the future.

So we think this episode will be valuable for:

People who have experienced mental health problems or might in future;

People who have had troubles with stress, anxiety, low mood, low self esteem, imposter syndrome and similar issues, even if their experience isn’t well described as ‘mental illness’;

People who have never experienced these problems but want to learn about what it’s like, so they can better relate to and assist family, friends or colleagues who do.

In other words, we think this episode could be worthwhile for almost everybody.

Just a heads up that this conversation gets pretty intense at times, and includes references to self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

If you don’t want to hear or read the most intense section, you can skip the chapter called ‘Disaster’. And if you’d...

Published on May 20, 2021 11:20 AM GMT

This is a summary of a new report from the Happier Lives Institute.

Authors: Caitlin Walker, Clare Donaldson, Michael Plant.

Executive summary

This report investigates the global burden of mental illness. It sets out how big the problem is, how much spending it receives, and how those resources are allocated. It then focuses specifically on what can be done to reduce anxiety and depression in low-income countries—the assumption is that this is the part of the problem where additional resources would have the highest impact. It closes by outlining some promising donation options and career paths in the area, but does not attempt to evaluate which of these options are the most impactful, or to compare mental health to other possible global priorities—that requires further research, which HLI is undertaking regarding donations. We expect this report will be most useful for those considering putting their career or charitable donations towards improving global mental health and who therefore want to gain a better understanding of the nature of the problem and what could be done about it.

What’s the problem?

Mental illnesses are among the worst, if not the worst, of life’s common misfortunes. Depression and anxiety are associated with bigger reductions in life satisfaction than debt, divorce, unemployment, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s. All over the world, those with mental illnesses suffer human rights abuses; these can be severe as being chained or caged.

Around one in every nine people lives with a diagnosable mental health disorder. These disorders are responsible for 5% of the global burden of disease, as measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and 15% of all years lived with disability. These figures are likely to be a substantial under-estimate for several reasons, for instance, that suicides and self-harm are not attributed to the burden of mental health disorders.

The vast majority of people living with mental health disorders, even in rich countries, do not receive treatment. The issue is even more acute in LICs, where mental health spending amounts to US$0.02 per person per year. In terms of development assistance, HIV receives 150 times more funding, per DALY lost to the problem, than mental and substance abuse disorders combined.

Effective interventions to improve mental health exist and can be deployed at scale. The 2016 Disease Control Priorities report noted a range of effective interventions for preventing or treating mental illnesses, and for promoting good mental health. Although there are few mental health specialists in low-income settings, one tried-and-tested way to scale-up interventions is ‘task-shifting’, where lay health workers provide therapy under the training and supervision of professionals.

While several treatments are deemed cost-effective (according to conventional standards in healthcare) the evidence-base for cost-effectiveness in low-income settings is limited. Not only are there few estimates of cost-effectiveness, these are mainly from high-income country contexts; almost no outcomes are measured in terms of subjective well-being.

Current mental health budgets could be spent more effectively. Around 80% of mental health spending in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) goes towards psychiatric hospitals. Mental health experts argue that carefully moving to community-based care would lead to better outcomes, given fixed budgets. Further improvement could come from integrating mental health services within primary healthcare and increasing the (limited) access to cheap pharmaceutical treatments, such as antidepressants.

Stigma and misunderstanding are a major problem. These are commonplace among the general public, policymakers, and health professionals. This causes an unfortunate cycle: individuals are unwilling to seek treatment or may not even know treatment is possible; policymakers, faced with this lack of demand, prioritise other matt...

Published on May 20, 2021 11:20 AM GMT

This is a summary of a new report from the Happier Lives Institute.

Authors: Caitlin Walker, Clare Donaldson, Michael Plant.

Executive summary

This report investigates the global burden of mental illness. It sets out how big the problem is, how much spending it receives, and how those resources are allocated. It then focuses specifically on what can be done to reduce anxiety and depression in low-income countries—the assumption is that this is the part of the problem where additional resources would have the highest impact. It closes by outlining some promising donation options and career paths in the area, but does not attempt to evaluate which of these options are the most impactful, or to compare mental health to other possible global priorities—that requires further research, which HLI is undertaking regarding donations. We expect this report will be most useful for those considering putting their career or charitable donations towards improving global mental health and who therefore want to gain a better understanding of the nature of the problem and what could be done about it.

What’s the problem?

Mental illnesses are among the worst, if not the worst, of life’s common misfortunes. Depression and anxiety are associated with bigger reductions in life satisfaction than debt, divorce, unemployment, Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s. All over the world, those with mental illnesses suffer human rights abuses; these can be severe as being chained or caged.

Around one in every nine people lives with a diagnosable mental health disorder. These disorders are responsible for 5% of the global burden of disease, as measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and 15% of all years lived with disability. These figures are likely to be a substantial under-estimate for several reasons, for instance, that suicides and self-harm are not attributed to the burden of mental health disorders.

The vast majority of people living with mental health disorders, even in rich countries, do not receive treatment. The issue is even more acute in LICs, where mental health spending amounts to US$0.02 per person per year. In terms of development assistance, HIV receives 150 times more funding, per DALY lost to the problem, than mental and substance abuse disorders combined.

Effective interventions to improve mental health exist and can be deployed at scale. The 2016 Disease Control Priorities report noted a range of effective interventions for preventing or treating mental illnesses, and for promoting good mental health. Although there are few mental health specialists in low-income settings, one tried-and-tested way to scale-up interventions is ‘task-shifting’, where lay health workers provide therapy under the training and supervision of professionals.

While several treatments are deemed cost-effective (according to conventional standards in healthcare) the evidence-base for cost-effectiveness in low-income settings is limited. Not only are there few estimates of cost-effectiveness, these are mainly from high-income country contexts; almost no outcomes are measured in terms of subjective well-being.

Current mental health budgets could be spent more effectively. Around 80% of mental health spending in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) goes towards psychiatric hospitals. Mental health experts argue that carefully moving to community-based care would lead to better outcomes, given fixed budgets. Further improvement could come from integrating mental health services within primary healthcare and increasing the (limited) access to cheap pharmaceutical treatments, such as antidepressants.

Stigma and misunderstanding are a major problem. These are commonplace among the general public, policymakers, and health professionals. This causes an unfortunate cycle: individuals are unwilling to seek treatment or may not even know treatment is possible; policymakers, faced with this lack of demand, prioritise other matt...