Cash transfer program with GiveDirectly

The premise of this program is that people living in extreme poverty are the best judges of what they need. Instead of choosing a good on their behalf, the program sends money and lets the household decide. Recipients have used transfers to buy livestock, repair a roof, pay school fees, cover medical costs and start small businesses.

Villages are selected using government data, targeting places where most or all residents live below the World Bank's extreme poverty line. Field staff enrol one member of every household in the village, so the transfer is not means tested within the community and nobody has to prove need to a stranger. Each enrolled household receives roughly 1,000 USD, sent in two instalments over mobile money and withdrawn as cash through a local agent.

The program runs in Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. The charity that implements it is GiveDirectly.

Cash transfers are among the most heavily studied interventions in development economics, partly because they are simple enough to evaluate cleanly. Randomized controlled trials have measured effects on earnings, school attendance, nutrition, physical health and mental well-being, and hundreds of studies are now collected in a public research explorer. Cash is also the natural benchmark for every other program: an intervention is worth funding if it beats simply handing people the money.

Canadians can support this program through Rethink Charity and receive an official Canadian donation receipt, which is not available when giving directly to a non-Canadian charity. If you would rather spread your giving, the Global Health Fund pools gifts across several programs. Our FAQ covers receipts, monthly gifts and payment methods.