Devex Newswire: Davos sees optimism, if not clarity, on AI

The World Economic Forum in wintery Davos began in earnest yesterday, and while the schnapps may be flowing, our team is staying upright in the snow storms. The 54th annual meeting — yes, Klaus Schwab was a mere early 30s when it all began — has much on its plate, but we start with artificial intelligence and Nile Rogers from the 70s disco group Chic.  

Also in today’s edition: We look at how focusing on the gut can help prevent repeated malnutrition in children, what it takes to get clean air, and how to get the best out of fundraising.

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On the AI-way to hell

Artificial intelligence is everywhere at Davos this year, from the official program to the billboards on the promenade, reports Devex correspondent Vince Chadwick. But is there even a common understanding of what AI is — and does it matter if there isn’t?

That’s what we asked at an event last night at AI House on AI's humanitarian and development applications.

“What my gut tells me is ‘No, we don’t have a common definition of what AI is,’ and I don’t know that it actually matters,” said Lauren Woodman, the CEO of DataKind. Where once big data and data science were seen as boring and inaccessible, Woodman reckons the surge in interest in AI over the past 18 months has generated “A spark of interest in really thinking about new and interesting ways to think about leveraging technology against some intractable and very difficult problems.”

Want to get more of our Davos coverage? Sign up for the Devex Invested newsletter to get Vince’s full analysis today, and a wrap-up of the whole conference next Tuesday.

ICYMI: The dangers of AI in global development (Pro)

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It takes guts

Still on the subject of guts, but in a totally unrelated way, it turns out that sorting out and balancing gut bacteria can have a real impact when it comes to fighting child malnutrition.

Ishawu Iddrisu, a clinical nutritionist in Ghana, knew there must be a better way to treat the children with severe acute malnutrition he saw monthly, who kept relapsing after being given a nutrient-dense paste known as ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTFs, to help them recover.  

But a potential breakthrough to prevent and treat malnutrition is finally on the horizon, writes Devex contributing reporter Andrew Green. The key is understanding the gut microbiome, the collection of trillions of microorganisms that help synthesize foods and produce nutrients critical to the body’s function.

Iddrisu and other researchers believe if they can find treatments that interact better with the microbiome and improve overall gut health, more nutrients will be available to malnourished children than through traditional RUTFs.

Read: The key to ending malnutrition may lie in the gut microbiome (Pro)

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Le freak, c'est chic

It wouldn’t be Davos without some celebrity sightings, and the usually tough-minded, impartial journalists on hand certainly freaked out — sorry — for musician Nile Rodgers of Chic fame at a media reception last night. Good times, indeed.

Discussing the birth of his charitable foundation We Are Family, Rodgers said that involvement in previous philanthropic efforts had taught him that “typically the money doesn’t get to where you want it to go.”

So, Vince asked, what has he done differently with his foundation? “I only made one decision that was like a dictator.

“When we started the foundation I said, ‘We have to have a 100% success rate.’ And everybody is looking at me going, ‘What are you talking about a 100% success rate?’ I said because we are dealing with young people, we are dealing with children and I’m Black. If I f--- up, believe me, I am going [to] jail. So we make sure that we do everything by the book. If anyone is out of line or if anything is reported to us, improperly, that’s it. They’re cut off.”

Airing grievances

Globally, philanthropic funding of clean air initiatives has been on the decline in recent years and it is “extremely low” in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia where air quality is poor and rapidly deteriorating, according to a report released to coincide with Davos.

The findings by the U.K.-based Clean Air Fund show that while funding for air quality projects quadrupled to $330 million total between 2015-2022, it remains less than 0.1% of annual giving overall. And while year-on-year growth in clean air funding was at $14.9 million between 2019-2021, those yearly increases dipped to about $3.8 million between 2021 and 2022.

But the news wasn’t all bad, my colleague Stephanie Beasley tells me. New climate funders such as the Bezos Earth Fund and the Earthshot Prize launched by the U.K.'s Prince William gave more than $30 million to air quality initiatives between 2021-2022. And if funders forge more partnerships with governments and the corporate sector they can increase the scale, reach, and impact of their funding, according to the Clean Air Fund — which receives funding from climate donors such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the IKEA Foundation, among others.

Opinion corner

• “Cervical cancer should be akin to smallpox and polio by now — maladies seen more in history books than in modern-day medical clinics,” writes Anuradha Gupta of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. The HPV vaccine is the closest thing we have to a cancer moonshot, yet only 2 in 10 girls receive it at the recommended age only 2 in 10 girls receive it at the recommended age — and a woman still dies every 90 seconds due to cervical cancer. Gupta examines the reasons behind the low uptake and how to turn the tide.

• To embrace localization, take the long view, says Cynthia Steele, whose foundation, EMpower, has adopted a trust-based, long-term, flexible funding model, investing in local organizations that work with marginalized youth in emerging markets. “By committing to fund NGOs over 10 years, broken into shorter increments, we, and they, can be more nimble than if tied to specific short-term outcomes,” she writes.

• The current living income benchmark system for farmers should be amended and enriched to include elements that go beyond the sum of its parts, argue Professor Emeritus Ruerd Ruben and sustainable development consultant Priscilla Selinam Opoku.

Adventures in fundraising

Cash transfer nonprofit GiveDirectly last week published lessons learned from a series of “experiments” to raise money and attract more donors. The organization has been testing methods to “maximize the dollars we deliver to people in poverty at the lowest cost, and without using poverty porn to guilt you into giving,” GiveDirectly said.

The list, which reads as a fundraising tip sheet, included the finding that a sleek, polished website with an embedded donation form made people 34% more likely to donate, Stephanie says.

Match multipliers — such as when a single donor offers to match gifts to a charity — drive up donations under some circumstances. Furthermore, a contingent match such as when “a donor will give $25,000 if 50 people make their first donation today,” was found to be effective, the group said.

Emails asking people how much they would pledge that year were also beneficial because it increased the likelihood of giving among those who committed, the group said. However, only a tiny percentage of people who received the emails opened them or made pledges, GiveDirectly said.

+ ICYMI, listen to our podcast interview with GiveDirectly's VP of partnerships.

In other news

Oxfam International said that the world’s first trillionaire might emerge within 10 years, marking the onset of what they term a “decade of division.” [AP News]

The United Nations urgently seeks $4.2 billion from donors to aid war-affected communities in Ukraine and support Ukrainian refugees this year. [VOA]

Aid agencies are considering delivering aid to Sudan via South Sudan as they struggle to access parts of the country due to its current conflict. [Reuters]

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