“Reconciling Cost-Effectiveness and Cheap Enough” by Tony Senanayake

Two frameworks, one question: whose finances are we talking about, and to what end? As the development sector gathers at the Skoll World Forum in Oxford this week, against a backdrop of sharp cuts to official development assistance — the US has ended 83% of USAID's programmes, the UK has cut its aid budget by 40%, and the OECD projects an overall ODA decline of 9–17% in 2025 alone, with projected consequences for millions of lives — two financial frameworks are converging in the sector's conversations. The first is cost-effectiveness: IDinsight has launched a dedicated Cost-Effectiveness Unit and the FCDO's Best Buys evidence summaries are influencing billions in development spending. The second is the “cheap enough” framework developed by the Mulago Foundation, asking whether solutions are structured to scale through government financing rather than perpetual philanthropy. Both feel urgent right now. And together, they open a broader opportunity: to think more holistically about financial frameworks, not just how to maximise impact per dollar, but what among that which is highly cost-effective is also truly scalable and implementable. These two frameworks are not in tension. They are sequential, and the sector needs both. But to use them well, it [...] --- Outline: (02:40) Cost-Effectiveness: The Optimisation Tool (04:45) Cheap Enough: The Scaling Reality Check (06:47) Five Ways to Think About the Relationship (07:00) 1. Cheap Enough ⊂ Cost-Effective -- Recommended Approach (07:36) 2. Cost-Effective ⊂ Cheap Enough (07:58) 3. Partial Overlap -- the sector default (08:23) 4. Equivalent -- big-aid context only (08:47) 5. Mutually Exclusive -- avoid (09:10) Implications --- First published: April 17th, 2026 Source: --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .