“Malengo Impact Model Update, Fall 2025” by Johannes Haushofer

Johannes Haushofer and Richard Nerland Summary Malengo is a charity that facilitates international educational migration in the pursuit of poverty alleviation. Its flagship program supports Ugandan high school graduates in applying for and completing a Bachelor's degree in Germany. Four years into Malengo's operations and two years following GiveWell's initial cost-effectiveness analysis, we present early results from our ongoing Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT), and an updated estimate of our impact based on these results. Early RCT results suggest that program beneficiaries experience a USD 843 increase in monthly labor income already in their first year in the program, adjusted for purchasing power. They also report substantially improved psychological well-being. There is no evidence of negative economic or psychological spillovers on parents and siblings at home; in fact, parents also report a substantial increase in psychological well-being. Updated program metrics suggest higher retention rates than originally assumed, with only 2 students out of 250 having returned home so far. We use these results to provide an updated Back-of-the-Envelope Calculation (BOTEC) in the style of GiveWell. The program is 28 times more effective than cash transfers in a baseline scenario, and 3,732 times in an optimistic scenario. Introduction Malengo was [...] ---Outline:(00:15) Summary(01:40) Introduction(03:46) Early RCT Results(08:04) Ongoing Survey Results(11:52) Impact Model Updates(26:58) Relation to GiveWell's updated estimates of GiveDirectly's effectiveness(28:19) Outlook --- First published: November 26th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CpZYHkqLKAmLZSRbz/malengo-impact-model-update-fall-2025 --- 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.