80,000 Hours Podcast With Rob Wiblin

If someone said a global health and development programme was sustainable, participatory, and holistic, you'd have to guess that they were saying something positive. But according to today's guest Karen Levy — deworming pioneer and veteran of Innovations for Poverty Action, Evidence Action, and Y Combinator — each of those three concepts has become so fashionable that they're at risk of being seriously overrated and applied where they don't belong.Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in March 2022.Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.Such concepts might even cause harm — trying to make a project embody all three is as likely to ruin it as help it flourish.First, what do people mean by 'sustainability'? Usually they mean something like the programme will eventually be able to continue without needing further financial support from the donor. But how is that possible? Governments, nonprofits, and aid agencies aim to provide health services, education, infrastructure, financial servi