Why fund it
800M+ people live on less than $3/day, 600M+ of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and aid budgets are falling. Direct cash is the most highly evidenced poverty solution that exists, with proven impacts across diverse outcomes. It uniquely respects the dignity and agency of people in poverty to decide for themselves what’s important, and is simple, fast and scalable.
We send large, one-time transfers to people in extreme poverty delivered through mobile money. These transfers are unconditional, meaning recipients can spend them on whatever they most need, and are typically ~$550 per person—enough to cover immediate needs and invest in longer-term assets like livestock or a small business. 87%+ of each dollar reaches recipients as cash, while the rest pays for targeting, enrollment, payments, fraud controls and overhead.
Research on GiveDirectly programs has affirmed positive impacts ranging from income to health: in Kenya, a ~$1,000 transfer generated ~2.5x its value in local economic activity and drove a 48% drop in infant deaths among households who got cash. And impacts have lasted: recipients were still spending and earning more 5-7 years later, with 10-year results expected in 2027.
Today, the majority of global poverty funds are delivered in Malawi and Rwanda, where we’re rigorously studying the economy-wide growth effects of cash at district wide scale.
Recent cash delivery
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Rwanda
280K+ people reached across 22 of 30 districts, co-financed by the government.
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Malawi
288K+ people reached, where we are studying economy-wide effects of cash at district scale.
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Uganda, Karamoja
Delivering to ~100K people at ~$800 each.
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Mozambique
80K+ people reached across 27 districts, with government co-implementation.
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Kenya
280K+ people reached, via our longest running program.
Current priorities
We expect to reach 340K+ people in 2026, and could reach 1M+ in 2027 with more funding.
- $550can transform the life of someone in poverty, enabling them to meet immediate needs and drive long-term income
- $10Mlaunches operations in Kitui, a poor region in Kenya suffering recurrent droughts
- $25Mfunds entry into at least one new high-need country like Nigeria
- $80Mcompletes delivery for ~100K people in Karamoja, Uganda’s poorest region
- $270Mreaches every eligible family (~180K+) across Rwanda’s five poorest districts
Room for more funding:
- Next 12 months:
- $1.1B+
- Next 3 years:
- $7.2B+
How we allocate
Gifts to this fund go only to Global Poverty programs. We decide where to deliver by weighing three things:
- Scale of need: countries with large numbers of people in extreme poverty.
- Operational feasibility: government approval, digital payment infrastructure, local partners.
- Impact and learning value: conditions that favor large welfare gains and/or economy-wide multiplier effects, or fill critical gaps in the evidence on cash.
Our current focus is scaling up in countries where we already work. They all have significant need and room for more funding, and cash programs get more efficient as they grow. In parallel, we’re investing in entering high-need countries like Nigeria, so we can reach many more people in extreme poverty in future years. We aim to publish biannual reports on how donations to this fund were spent, the impacts on people in poverty, and our plans ahead.
Risks and uncertainties
Delivering cash at this scale has many unknowns:
- Cashing out. In remote areas, mobile-money agents and physical cash on hand can limit how fast people can cash out. We work with all major telecoms there, but a fast ramp can still add delays.
- Prices and currencies. Ensuring our programs aren’t driving up local prices becomes increasingly important as we scale. Independent research from Kenya and Malawi has found nearly zero local inflation from our programs to date, but we still monitor prices closely across contexts so we can slow down delivery speed if we detect higher inflation. Also countries with pre-existing high inflation (like Malawi’s ~20% annual inflation) threaten to erode the value of our cash transfers, so we periodically adjust transfer sizes and send ‘top-up’ payments where needed to ensure recipients have sufficient funds to make the large purchases necessary for long-term gains.
- Government approvals. Expanding within a country often needs new approvals or data-sharing agreements. They can take months, for reasons outside our control, and can’t start until funding is confirmed. We also work alongside government systems, and take care not to crowd out public spending.
- Fraud, safeguarding, and security. At higher volumes, rare but serious events happen more often. Cutting in-person checks in DRC and Malawi last year coincided with higher fraud rates, which we’ve factored into new designs. We expect more incidents at scale, and we’re always improving our systems to mitigate these risks.
- Concentration. Rwanda and Malawi are where we can deliver the most funds. A major shock, such as a natural disaster or political disruption, could force a pause, and building similar capacity elsewhere takes time. We’re preparing our other countries and bringing new ones online so we can shift funding if we’re blocked.
And cash isn’t a silver bullet. If your goal is a specific outcome, like vaccination uptake, a targeted intervention may do more good per dollar.