While the world keeps attempting to find ways to eradicate poverty around the world,?a former UK cabinet minister has a different take on it. Rory Stewart, who has been a one-time Conservative leadership contender and recently got appointed as President of an American NGO GiveDirectly, is trying to shake the foundations of the aid world.??
¡°Instead of giving a tent to people in poverty, which they sell for cash to buy what they want, or moving wheat halfway around the world from a farmer in Idaho, we¡¯re actually letting people determine what their needs are,¡± 49-year-old Stewart told The Telegraph while in Kilifi, a drought-stricken county in southern Kenya.??
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The report mentioned that the NGO GiveDirectly¡¯s pitch is as radical as it is simple. They argue that if you give every family in an impoverished community a no-strings-attached one-time payment of $1,000 (?865), i.e. roughly four days¡¯ salary for a typical UN staffer,? you can transform their lives for the better in almost every way.??
¡°Cash has this magic multiplier effect. It gets the general economy going,¡± says Stewart. ¡°It allows people to buy a roof for their homes. ¡°A cash donation lets people get a cow which produces milk and gives calcium to their kids. It lets them set up a small business or get their children through school. It improves their diets, so they¡¯ll have fewer sick days,¡± 49-year-old Rory Stewart said.??
Stewart, who was Secretary of State for International Development in 2019, is damning in his criticism of patronizing attitudes in the aid sector. ¡°We dress it up in fancy words like best practice and capacity building. But basically, ¡®best practice¡¯ means we know what¡¯s best. And ¡®capacity building¡¯ means we need to teach you what to do. And then if you fail, we say there¡¯s a lack of ¡®political will¡¯. In other words, you¡¯re lazy,¡± he says, as per The Telegraph report.?
¡°At some level, these are fancy jargon words for suggesting that communities in Asia or Africa are ignorant, unskilled and idle.¡±?
By effectively cutting out the highly paid middlemen, the NGO GiveDirectly claims that its work has a better bang for its buck than almost any other intervention. As per its website, the New York-based NGO?was recently named?the world¡¯s fastest-growing nonprofit organization, and it is now on the brink of hitting a $1 billion fundraising total.
As per The Telegraph, five years ago, almost everyone in the Mgandamwani village lived in fragile, leaky huts. There was no electricity and women used to walk three hours a day to the nearest reservoir to get water. Most men earn a pittance ?3.50 to ?7 working the occasional hard labour job in town.??
But then, villagers say their lives transformed overnight when they received $1,000 on their mobile money accounts. They got local builders to get tin roofs, concrete floors, solar panels and lights so their children could read in the evening. Some young men went on training courses to become electricians or welders.?
¡°It¡¯s the genius of the market. It¡¯s very pure market economics,¡± said Stewart. ¡°Most people in extreme poverty have spent their entire lives thinking about what they would do if they got a bit of money and they can get it much cheaper than we can.¡±?
A broader level of research backs up the improvements at Mgandamwani. A major study by academics at the Universities of California San Diego and Georgetown reportedly found that a simple $500 transfer reduced the child mortality rate by 70% and improved child growth. A review of seven studies in Africa found that cash transfers reduced risky sexual behaviour, increased the use of antenatal care and increased the likelihood of having a nurse on site when a woman gave birth.
Ever since the NGO was founded by a pair of PhD students at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008, they have reached more than 3 lakh households with large payments across Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda, as per the report. But, could the massive investment of liquid cash lead to rampant inflation??
¡°It¡¯s difficult. It¡¯s not just that people are selfish; it¡¯s psychological. People have dedicated their whole life to the idea that they have a unique set of knowledge and skills and that they are necessary to save people,¡± says NGO¡¯s President Stewart. ¡°If you have to confront the fact that actually, the villagers have a better idea about what they need than you do, your whole life is called into question.¡±
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