Episode Details

Donors need to know how best to fund peace: Introducing CEGA's Peace Per Dollar Initiative

Stockholm, Sweden, The mystery of Banksy. Max Folle

Authors

Josh Martin Eeman Abbasi Sean Luna McAdams

Wars are getting both more frequent and more destructive. Our technology for preventing or even mitigating political violence has improved to help us meet this challenge. But are we really able to “stop a war” before it starts? If so, how much would it cost? And would it be worth it?

Recent decades have seen a welcome emphasis on “what works” in development. Yet economists like Nobel Prize-winning Esther Duflo have argued that modern development economics should be “more concerned about ‘how’ to do things than about ‘what’ to do.” Responding to this call and to recent cuts in development assistance, the sector has renewed its emphasis on cost-effectiveness as a north star for value. Peacebuilding – our principal technology for addressing political violence – is playing catch up, recognizing that its sustainability depends on delivering verifiable social return.

What would it take to have a functioning market for evidence in peacebuilding?

Only 1.3% of the US Agency for International Development 2021 budget [...]

---

Outline:

(00:11) Donors need to know how best to fund peace: Introducing CEGAs Peace Per Dollar Initiative

(01:31) What would it take to have a functioning market for evidence in peacebuilding?

(05:12) Donors need to know how much peace they can buy with their dollars: Introducing Peace Per Dollar

(06:51) CEGAs Approach

---

First published:
March 19th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KfPeEd7oMSeFWnKji/how-much-peace-can-a-dollar-buy

Linkpost URL:
https://cega.berkeley.edu/article/how-much-peace-can-a-dollar-buy/

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.