GiveDirectly Foreign aid has traditionally taken the form of in-kind assistance: sending meals or medicine, helping build houses or schools, and so on. This can lead to all kinds of unfortunate side effects, as when free food from abroad undercuts local farmers. There is also a recurring mismatch between what the planners in aid agencies think a community needs and what the people on the ground actually want. And so a small group of forward-looking aid workers has embraced a cheaper, more flexible, and less paternalistic approach: Just send people cash instead.
The leading player here is GiveDirectly , a […]
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