Co-founder Paul Niehaus talked about the saying “teach a man to fish…” in a lively conversation with Tiny Spark podcast’s Amy Costello. Also this week, the World Bank and its President Jim Yong Kim continued to advocate for cash transfers to the poor as an effective policy following their report last week. And in basic income news, President Obama, in an interview with Wired, suggests that this is a topic we’ll be debating for the next decade..
GIVEDIRECTLY IN THE NEWS AND BLOGS
1. Forget “Teach A Man To Fish…” Just Give Him Cash
Tiny Spark podcast, Amy Costello, October 13, 2016
An American charity is getting ready to test an idea to end global poverty: give poor people cash. GiveDirectly has been doing this for a few years already but never on this scale. Later this month, the organization will start a pilot project that aims to give 6,000 Kenyans the equivalent of a month’s salary, every month, for a decade or more. No strings attached.
2. 50 Voices of the Future: Paul Niehaus on rethinking ways to eradicate global poverty
UC San Diego Newsroom, October 11, 2016
As one of the co-founders of the international charityGiveDirectly, Niehaus has helped rethink the basic model of getting money into the hands of the people who need it most. The idea is to let donors make a contribution from their bank account directly to a person in dire straits – a starving farmer in Kenya, for instance. Fifty years from now, if all goes as Niehaus predicts, “the hope is that my field won’t exist.”
CASH TRANSFER NEWS
3. EU disburses €467 million out of €3 billion aid pledged for Syrian refugees in Turkey
Daily Sabah, October 17, 2016
“With €348 million in funding from the Facility, one million of the most vulnerable refugees in Turkey will receive a debit card, onto which they will receive a monthly cash transfer. This will help them cover basic needs such as food or shelter, as well as helping them to send their children to school,” Juncker said.
4. World Bank to Increase Support to End Stunting in Bangladesh
The World Bank, October 17, 2016
The Banks’ investments in children’s early years in Bangladesh will support nutrition services and include a conditional cash transfer program targeted to 600,000 poor families in 43 sub-districts.
5. Bangladesh has much to celebrate, much to do in fight against poverty
The Huffington Post, Jim Yong Kim, World Bank President, October 17, 2016
In the 1990s, the female secondary school stipend program, one of the first conditional cash transfer program in the world, helped achieve gender parity in secondary education.
EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
6. The most influential ethicist alive says the world is actually becoming a better place
Quartz, Olivia Goldhill, October 15, 2016
Singer has been hugely influential in shaping the effective altruismmovement, which advocates donating 10% of your salary to specific charities that have significant practical impact.
BASIC INCOME
7. President Obama: We’ll be debating unconditional free money ‘over the next 10 or 20 years’
Business Insider, Chris Weller, October 12, 2016
Speaking with Wired editor-in-chief Scott Dadich and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito in a recent interview, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his belief that universal basic income would be harder to ignore in the coming decades. UBI is a system of wealth distribution in which the government provides everyone with some money, regardless of income.
8. Obama warns of the danger of AI wiping out jobs
CNN Money, Matt McFarland, October 12, 2016
In an interview with Wired Magazine, Obama spoke of redesigning the social compact and starting a conversation around fair wages. He cited teachers as being underpaid, and called for a reexamination of what we value, and what we’ll pay for. Obama addressed basic income, a proposal for all citizens to receive a government stipend in order to meet their costs of living. The idea has gained recent support among some futurists and economists, given concerns over how technology will eliminate jobs and impact salaries in coming years.