Latest news with #GiveDirectly
Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
Cash might be the new way to reduce children's deaths
'This is easily the biggest impact on child survival that I've seen from an intervention that was designed to alleviate poverty,' said Harsha Thirumurthy, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the work. The decline in infant mortality is a 'showstopping result,' he said. Advertisement The outcomes suggest that delivering even smaller amounts of money to families — especially those that live near a hospital — immediately before or after the birth of a child might allow women to seek medical care and drastically improve their children's chances of survival. The study was published on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up More than 100 low- and middle-income countries have explored so-called cash transfers, especially after the pandemic began. Generally, the experiments have found that giving money to poor families improves school attendance, nutrition, and use of health services. Misuse of the funds — spending them on alcohol, gambling, or otherwise wasting them — has proved to be a minor concern, said Edward Miguel, a development economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leader of the new study. Advertisement But most cash transfer programs were not large enough, involved too little money, or did not track the recipients for long enough to home in on details, he said. In this case, the nonprofit group GiveDirectly — which, as its name suggests, helps individual donors send money directly to people living in poverty — provided the cash transfers. Between 2014-17, GiveDirectly provided $1,000 in three installments over eight months to more than 10,500 poor households in Siaya County, Kenya. The amount covered roughly 75 percent of the recipients' average expenses for a year. The donation was unconditional; families were selected at random to receive money and were given no suggestions on how to spend it. An independent team of researchers, including Miguel and his colleagues at UC Berkeley and Oxford University in Britain, then examined the effects. Over a decade, the researchers conducted four census surveys, collecting data on births, deaths, employment, and other factors in more than 650 villages. They compared data from households that received the funds with those that did not. In a subset of more than 10,000 families — only some of which had received the cash — the researchers went even deeper, asking about details of health behaviors such as seeking prenatal care. Consistent with other programs, the team saw an effect on poverty. Every dollar transferred generated $2.50 in business activity, observable more than a mile away. The families that received cash did better even during the COVID-19 pandemic and a drought. But the biggest gains were in child mortality, which the researchers had not expected. And the improvements became obvious immediately. 'When you come across an intervention that reduces child mortality by almost a half, you cannot understate the impact,' said Dr. Miriam Laker-Oketta, a physician at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and a senior research adviser at GiveDirectly. Advertisement When the women in the villages didn't have money, they were more likely to skip meals and prenatal appointments, perform hard labor long after it had become unsafe, and give birth at home rather than at a hospital. The infusion of cash helped pregnant women rest and deliver safely, the researchers said. The findings are particularly relevant as the United States and other countries have slashed foreign aid, putting children's lives at risk, Miguel said. The results show that even individual donors 'can do something very meaningful with a limited amount of money,' he said. The size of the study allowed the researchers to dig deeper into the reasons for the improvements. They collected geolocation data on clinics, dispensaries, and hospitals in and near the study area, and recorded how long it took people to get to hospitals. The money made the biggest difference when given to pregnant women who lived close to hospitals with a physician. And funds had the biggest effect when given right before or after the birth of the child. 'Ultimately, this study really shows that the best way to save the life of a child is to give a mother money at the time when they need it the most,' Laker-Oketta said. There were other findings. Children in families who received the cash were 44 percent less likely to go to bed hungry. Pregnant women given funds worked half as much in their third trimester and the months after birth, compared with other women. Advertisement 'I'm quite confident each of the things we emphasize is playing a role,' Miguel said. 'But it's hard to quantify exactly how much.' One shortcoming of giving the money in a big chunk is that as the cash dwindles, so do the benefits. Regular installments of smaller amounts may better sustain the benefits, said Thirumurthy, the University of Pennsylvania economist. 'Having that kind of steady infusion of cash would give you more steady results,' he said. 'Maybe not as dramatic, but more reliable.' This article originally appeared in
Time Magazine
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Texas Flood Donations Are Becoming a Culture-War Casualty
'No! They voted for this to happen,' a donor wrote in response to our call to give cash relief to Texas flood survivors. Normally, my organization GiveDirectly receives donations, not anger, when we respond to disasters. But this week, after at least 120 people, many of them children, died in the Texas floods, we've been inundated with messages implying that the victims had brought this on themselves by helping elect Donald Trump and that the politics of the state should dictate the response. 'Future Trump voters. Oh well.' 'Go ask Elon for help.' 'Are you Texans feeling that you voted for the right man?' A longtime donor said our Texas response has 'shattered' their image of our work. This has played out on social platforms as well, prompting some liberal commentators to speak out against the dehumanization of Texas communities. Political trolling online is nothing new, but its spillover into blaming victims and survivors of disaster is a dangerous new low. Read More: I'm a Climate Scientist. Here's What the Floods Tell Us Our support for low-income families impacted by January's L.A. wildfires received a positive response. There were no bitter comments blaming liberal forest-management policies. We simply offered aid, and people gave generously. The contrast with Texas is disturbing. Yesterday we had to stop promoting our online ads as the comments below a photo of a Kerr County flood survivor filled up with sentiments of 'they deserved it' and 'thoughts and prayers — well, not really.' As Nina Turner, a former national co-chair for Bernie Sanders, replied to a now-deleted viral post blaming the Texas victims for their own suffering: 'It takes a serious lack of humanity to see children die in a natural disaster and respond with something along the lines of 'that's what they voted for.'' Aid organizations are nonpartisan so we hesitate to weigh in given the current political climate. But as we are in the business of helping people, we have to speak out against a troubling trend: American disaster relief is being politicized, and with it, our shared humanity is at risk. We saw the effects of this polarization from the other side when responding to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina last year. Some survivors refused federal aid, fearing that FEMA agents were part of a political conspiracy. In one county, responders paused operations after reports of an armed militia 'hunting FEMA' turned out to be credible enough that responders had to evacuate. It's fair to disagree with policy decisions and believe those decisions leave communities exposed. The Trump Administration slashed FEMA and USAID, and disaster declarations are increasingly wielded as political tools. But you can hold that truth and still feel empathy for the families who lost everything. Anger at a broken system should never cancel out compassion for the people caught in its collapse. In fact, the cracks in that system are why nonprofits like ours now play an outsize role in disaster response. FEMA itself has said it can't act alone, relying on local groups, volunteers, and mutual aid to reach those in need. Our response as citizens cannot mirror the dysfunction at the top. It cannot become, 'I only help those who voted like me.' We should all be alarmed if liberals donate to only blue-state relief and conservatives support only red-state relief. Such behavior is deeply corrosive. It suggests that our compassion is conditional. That our help is earned only by ideological alignment. It's a slippery slope, and one that undermines both disaster recovery and the social fabric it depends on. To those wondering if Texans, who Trump quickly promised would receive federal aid, should receive donations at all: nonprofits like ours help reach those missed by or awaiting FEMA's cash aid that will take a month or more to reach them. This week, we're paying impacted families already on food stamps, living paycheck to paycheck. Many had no flood insurance. Some have no permanent home now so they may be missed by government aid. Three-quarters of the low-income L.A. families we reached said ours was the only support they received. Floods and fires don't check party registration before they destroy a home. Aid groups will continue sending emergency cash to families in Texas just as we've done for other disasters, agnostic to how the victims vote. And we hope, sincerely, that Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs will choose to respond with empathy rather than enmity.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: UK cash meant to combat climate change in Malawi funds loan sharks and helps men to dump their wives
Hard-pressed British taxpayers funding a £4.5 million scheme to alleviate climate change in Malawi are instead setting up locals as loan sharks and paying for the illegal migration of others to a better life in South Africa, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. About 8,800 villagers around Chikwawa in Malawi are receiving the equivalent of £433 each – and the Foreign Office insists the best way to send the money is directly to each of them. They even give each recipient a mobile phone to facilitate the online transfer. The hope is they will use the windfall to 'reduce the impact of climate extremes' through stronger homes, better farming practices and improved communications. Officials claim financial and business training will help 'beneficiaries make informed choices on what is likely to be the largest amount of cash they have ever seen'. But the Foreign Office explicitly leaves it up to them to decide how to spend the windfall, which is distributed through its partner GiveDirectly – known to villagers as 'Givie'. It is a fabulous sum in a poverty-stricken country where 70 per cent live on just £1.60 a day – and the MoS can reveal much of the money is squandered. The two-year Chikwawa project is part of a ramping-up of UK overseas aid for climate resilience with 'at least £1.5 billion' spent in 2024-25, according to the Foreign Office. It defends the cash transfers, and says it monitors all programmes to ensure 'value for money for the British taxpayer'. In the village of Mwanaakula, Henry Maliko, 26, said he was buying iron sheets for his small mud hut as part of the scheme. But he has also found 'a creative way of investing the rest of the money by becoming a money lender'. Mr Maliko explained: 'Some people who are yet to receive their money have been coming to ask for loans and offering to pay me back double the amount. 'People here lack many things. They have no patience to wait for their money to arrive so they go to those who have received theirs and ask for loans.' Madame Mwanaakula, the female 'headman', who by tradition takes the name of the village, told the MoS: 'There's been plenty of young men who have gone to South Africa after receiving money from Givie. 'It helps them get a passport quickly, throw backhanders to government agents, pay for transport and accommodation and find a job on the black economy so as to send money home.' The trend has left 21-year-old Triza Piterson to await the birth of her first child alone. She confirmed her husband used his money to bribe officials, obtain a passport and travel to South Africa in search of work. Without a visa – unlikely to be granted to an unskilled foreigner – he is there as an illegal immigrant. She says she is confident he will come back eventually. And Ruth Harold, 32, said her husband Essau walked out on her and their two children, aged five and four, within days of receiving his cash. He has since set up home with another woman. Essau says he left because she got her payment before him, and her personality changed. He said: 'She became rude after she got her money'. Last night, Tory MPs called for an urgent investigation into the project. Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Tories' Common Sense Group at Westminster, said: 'A great nation should have a big heart and helping those in the greatest need has been a characteristic of our great nation. 'However, making sure that money that is spent delivers on the objectives requires proper oversight and management. 'The reason so many people have doubts about overseas aid is that money is misspent and wasted. 'This project needs to be investigated very quickly as a result of The Mail on Sunday's investigation.' The Malawi project was approved under the last Conservative government in April last year. It took effect after Labour came to power with the first cash payments made six months later. The Foreign Office's 'business case', signed off by the British High Commissioner to Malawi, Fiona Ritchie, argues that there is 'a large amount of evidence on the effectiveness and efficiency of cash transfers'. A spokesman for GiveDirectly said: 'Anecdotes are a poor way to judge the effectiveness of aid programmes. Independently run randomised control trials objectively prove direct cash assistance reduces extreme poverty and builds long-term resilience.' But John O'Connell, chief executive at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'This is a damning example of UK taxpayers' money being sprayed abroad with no accountability and little to show for it. Ministers need to get a grip.'
Time Magazine
20-05-2025
- Business
- Time Magazine
Nick Allardice
GiveDirectly was already one of the world's largest providers of unconditional cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty when Nick Allardice, former head of the grassroots organizing platform came on as president and CEO last year. Now, under Allardice's leadership, the nonprofit is undertaking its most ambitious projects yet—despite a $20 million hit to funding because of USAID cuts. 'We're leaning more into humanitarian work now because cash can be uniquely powerful when all the other supply chains are super disrupted,' Allardice says. In the U.S., GiveDirectly's Rx Kids initiative is expanding to more than a dozen communities, after an initial program in Flint, Mich. showed promising improvements to participants' health and financial security. The program provides poor expectant mothers with $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month for up to a year after the child's birth. Other new initiatives include a pilot program in Nigeria testing anticipatory aid, sending money to people before a flood hits; another uses phone location data in the Democratic Republic of Congo to spot and send cash payments to people fleeing violence—cutting a typical 130-day wait for relief to five days. Allardice's biggest bet: a program in Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, to test 'whether it's possible to catalyze an entire country out of poverty simultaneously.' To find out, GiveDirectly will send 200,000 adults in one region $550 each over the next 18 months in its largest-ever cash program. 'The world needs more moonshots,' Allardice says.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nick Allardice
Credit - Courtesy Allardice GiveDirectly was already one of the world's largest providers of unconditional cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty when Nick Allardice, former head of the grassroots organizing platform came on as president and CEO last year. Now, under Allardice's leadership, the nonprofit is undertaking its most ambitious projects yet—despite a $20 million hit to funding because of USAID cuts. 'We're leaning more into humanitarian work now because cash can be uniquely powerful when all the other supply chains are super disrupted,' Allardice says. In the U.S., GiveDirectly's Rx Kids initiative is expanding to more than a dozen communities, after an initial program in Flint, Mich. showed promising improvements to participants' health and financial security. The program provides poor expectant mothers with $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month for up to a year after the child's birth. Other new initiatives include a pilot program in Nigeria testing anticipatory aid, sending money to people before a flood hits; another uses phone location data in the Democratic Republic of Congo to spot and send cash payments to people fleeing violence—cutting a typical 130-day wait for relief to five days. Allardice's biggest bet: a program in Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, to test 'whether it's possible to catalyze an entire country out of poverty simultaneously.' To find out, GiveDirectly will send 200,000 adults in one region $550 each over the next 18 months in its largest-ever cash program. 'The world needs more moonshots,' Allardice says. Write to Kerri Anne Renzulli at
