"If they had given me food, it would have been long gone by now," Karisa, a father of five, told AFP News Agency. "But with the money, I've been able to change my life." "My family often went to bed hungry, my children were sent home from school for unpaid fees and I was buried in debt," said Karisa. Now he beams at his lush farm blooming with okra, the result of a one-off donation of 110,000 Kenyan shillings (roughly $930 at the time) from a New York-based NGO, GiveDirectly. He used the cash to lease a plot of land with two neighbours in his village of Milore, install an irrigation system and start farming. He built up credit and bought two cows, as well as a chainsaw he rents out for 2,000 Kenyan shillings at a time. GiveDirectly believes charities and NGOs should stop handing out things like food and school books, and start just sending people cash. It has given donations to almost 1.5 million Africans, and has carried out 18 studies across the continent to measure the impact. Fears the money would be misused or wasted were unfounded, it said. One Kenyan study found that families generated $2.50 for every $1 received. "We can show evidence of cash having reversed domestic violence, improved child mortality, improved business outcomes, made families healthier, children accessing more education," said Caroline Teti, GiveDirectly's VP for risk in Africa. With the United States and other Western countries sharply cutting aid in recent months, GiveDirectly believes cash handouts offer a way to do more with less. Traditional aid systems spend vast amounts on planning, supplies, transport, offices and expensive Western staff. A 2022 study by University of Washington found that back-office costs in the United States ate up 30-60% of budgets for global health projects. Much more was lost getting supplies to the final endpoint. GiveDirectly still has overhead costs, but says 80% of donations goes directly into the hands of recipients. "Cash is not a magic bullet," Teti said. Governments are still needed for fundamentals like schools, health facilities and electricity. But for improving livelihoods of the poor, cash can be effective and fast. Other aid agencies have embraced the concept over the past 10-15 years as hundreds of studies have shown its efficacy. The NRC - Norwegian Refugee Council now gives 20% of its aid in cash, but could easily give as much as 45%, said Tariq Roland Riebl, its strategy and innovation director... The only real obstacle, Riebl told AFP, is "latent conservatism" in the aid sector: "There's something more comforting about handing over a kit of non-food items or a sack of rice, than giving cash."... Read the full article: (fb)

Devex: One promising solution [to global aid cuts]: GiveDirectly is piloting direct cash transfers to pregnant women and families with young children... The organization is piloting programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi, which have shown positive results. A previous project in Kenya also found that infant and child mortality went down by about 46% among families that received unconditional cash. In DRC’s South Kivu province, where over 70% of children need nutritional support, pregnant women and young children from 4,805 households are receiving $1,370 each over two years. The money is helping mothers afford nutritious food, settle hospital and school bills, while also diversifying family assets like buying land where they can settle down and invest in income-generating enterprises. “I received the first $40 and immediately paid the hospital fees. I also bought a mattress to sleep on, so no more sleepless nights because of back pains. I hope I won’t have any complications with my pregnancy because I am eating well,” said 24-year-old Alliance from the DRC. In the Malawi pilot, GiveDirectly is partnering with Save the Children Malawi to test whether combining cash with nutrition education can improve nutritional outcomes in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. With cash in their pockets, vulnerable families can reduce child stunting and mortality, and increase vaccination rates, because they can make big investment decisions, including paying school fees ahead of time, starting a business, or buying farmland, Tyler G Hall, the director of communications at GiveDirectly, said. “When people have a large lump sum of money, they can sustainably provide for their children beyond just two years of stabilization. This is extremely exciting to know we could be reducing such issues as premature deaths for children, increasing safer births for mothers, and better child development,” Hall said. Beyond the lifesaving results, advocates argue that cash transfers address gaps in traditional aid models, including transparency, accountability, and efficiency. “The single greatest advantage of cash transfers is that the impact is very traceable and proven. They are very cost-effective, creating improvement to child and maternal well-being, and that traceable impact is the most important question for people wanting to do good in the world right now,” Hall said. With global donors increasingly focused on measurable results, the ability to show clear, documented impact may be cash aid’s strongest selling point, he said. Read the full piece: https://www.givedirectly.org/devex-may-2025/ (fb)