How big are villages in Malawi? The answer, our team has been learning, is not entirely straightforward. But it matters, for two key reasons: First, the randomized control trial we are running in partnership with USAID requires us to achieve a certain sample size (i.e. number of villages), within a budget constraint. If villages are […]
Blog
Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
Opinions
Reflections from a trip to Kenya
One of our donors recently spent five days with our team in Kenya and shared his reflections. We found them thoughtful, candid, and insightful, and asked to republish them here. — Carlos Dominguez Context note: I work at a financial firm in NYC. This firm has an “employee philanthropy bulletin board” where people discuss their […]
Research
4 years in the making: first cash benchmarking results released
Today we can finally share with you something we’ve been hard at work on for over 4 years: the results from our first experimental benchmarking study, a unique collaboration with USAID, Google.org, and academic and implementing partners set in Rwanda. The animating idea behind this project is incredibly simple: if we’re serious about helping other […]
Operations
Large, unconditional cash to refugees: phase 1, complete!
If you’re interested in supporting our work with refugees, you can do so here. If you’re a long-term refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo now living in Uganda, what is your biggest priority? It’s possible you have a skill-set that you could use to start a business but lack the capital. You might need […]
Operations
GiveDirectly launches in the Democratic Republic of Congo
You may have read our recent announcement that operations are afoot in Liberia. We’re excited to announce that we’ll be expanding our program to a fifth country: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As with Liberia, we’re learning that for each new launch, some of our standard playbook carries over (e.g. Day 1: figure out […]
Recipients
How receiving a basic income affects elderly women
Since October 2016, GiveDirectly has been sending monthly cash transfers to 95 adult residents in a remote village in Kenya. This village is the pilot site for our broader universal basic income initiative. “Remote” is often a code word for “poor.” But other vulnerabilities in age, gender and marital status contribute as much, if not […]
Operations
GiveDirectly launching in Liberia
In 2009, our co-founder & President Michael landed in Nairobi, connected with a local M-Pesa staffer, and transferred money to a handful of families in an internal displacement camp (he might still have the handwritten ledger he used to keep records). It goes without saying that our maiden voyage setting up a country office involved […]
Research
Our take on HS18, revisited
Johannes Haushofer and Jeremy Shapiro recently released a paper (HS18) estimating the three-year impacts of individually randomized cash transfers on GiveDirectly recipients. We wrote a short note on these results in February; recently there has been active discussion among researchers (e.g., e.g.), and we’ve since followed up with many of them. Our failure in original […]
Opinions
How crypto can help refugees
We have some good news to share: OmiseGO, with an additional generous contribution from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, is donating the equivalent of $1 million USD in OMG tokens directly to refugees living in extreme poverty, and GiveDirectly will deliver those funds. The crypto economy has grown immensely over the last year, bringing a great […]
Operations
Announcing cash for refugees
Images of refugees in boats make headlines and grip hearts, but we rarely think about what happens to them 1, 2, or even 10 years later. It turns out that refugees spend, on average, 10+ years in settlements or camps. The aid they receive helps them survive, but rarely do they get the chance to […]
