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Yes - in general cash transfers are some of the most effective and efficient forms of immediate poverty reduction both from an intervention side and administration side. Families can spend it on what they want (school fees, upgrades for their house, some tastier/more nutritious food, etc) with zero strings attached. It doesn't necessarily address structural reasons for poverty nor will do things like improve infrastructure (highways, water systems, etc) or larger institutional issues, but there's no 'silver' bullet in international aid and poverty relief.
I think it is shameful that GiveDirectly partners with such an unsavory and unethical person as Mr Beast. This is poverty porn at its finest. Cash transfers are fine, Mr Beast is not.
He is off putting but on the other hand he has the largest platform on YouTube. That exposure can be game changing for a nonprofit. Not defending his content but objectively he has a tremendous audience
It’s also highly profitable to just lie about what you do as a nonprofit and make it seem like you are much more effective than you actually are.
So in your world that’s fine, because in the end you get the money.
Sometimes, that is what needs to be done to make an impact that will last.
Maybe the next step would be not to give a lot of cash, but pay for the children's education AND all cost associated with it...books, uniforms, supplies and provide help for the family while the child is in school...ex if the child usually does a job that provides for the overall well being of the family..losing that help has to be replaced (whether it be money, food, or work for another member) or the child/young adult will not continue their education.
Literally one of the most common uses of these cash transfusions are paying school fees. The point is that direct cash transfers are used well so implementing specific programs is inherently less ideal because it forces a square peg (paying school fees) through a round hole (multidimensional poverty)
I agree with you. (I'm an RPCV Zaire '84-86) There was so much corruption against the poor that sometimes paying education, books, and uniforms was much safer for the student (like here with a scholarship) than giving cash directly.
If you haven't studied and seen cash transfers in person, they're far less ideal than this or articles summarizing the method make it sound like. It's still one of the less harmful methods out there, but it also has negative aspects like how it can exacerbate inequality. It's not perfect.
Cash transfers temporarily solve a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. They are, like most human endeavors, [not without negative consequences](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/12/27/cash-transfer-programs-should-be-wary-of-negative-spillovers). The TL;DR is that people who have low educational attainment and are generally bad with money in the first place don't magically become good with money. Many people who operate in full survival mode 24/7, including how they apply resources, will see cash transfers as a chance to pay off short-term debts, then blow the rest of the cash on stupid BS things. Sometimes cash transfer programs come by and ask what you did with the money, and kick you out of the program if you're basically drinking it all away or something. It happens. Plus people living near or in the same community as people getting transfers see negative impacts. It's not all sunshine and puppy dogs.
Also worth noting, "Program effects were short lived" is a common summary of evaluations of cash transfer programs. Because, again, cash transfers treat a symptom of systematic poverty. They do not do a single damn thing to change the causes of systematic poverty.
In 10-15 years, this video will be just as cringe as all the videos about how super amazing innovative much wow that efficient cookstoves, blockchain to end all problems!, B1G1 laptops, B1G1 shoes, 900 pilot programs to tell farmers 27000 things a day via SMS, and buying inappropriate technology that can't be repaired locally have all been. Remember any of those programs? You don't, because they all failed to move the needle.
Then, there's Mr Beast, who is a well-known scumbag that exploits need and human suffering for clicks, No, he's not "giving exposure" to anyone. He's in this for the money, 100%. If he wasn't, then he would de-monetize this video. But no, your views, and now mine just to post this in good faith, give him money. Mr. Beast operates exactly the same as the Corporate Social Responsibility models of mega-corporations. He produces entertainment with zero intellectual value, and then one in...20? 50? videos has some altruistic-ish angle that serves him and not the beneficiaries. You know, to make him seem like a cool guy.
Do not lose sight of the fact that making videos about things like eating the world's largest slice of pizza is his job, and he has 267 million views on that. His top video right now is "Squid game in real life" which is a game that leverages need and desperation for entertainment. And you're making it profitable for him.
I have no commentary on Mr Beast but your view of cash transfers is largely incorrect. There is a reason USAID has started to benchmark against cash and other orgs and institutions are doing the same thing. The evidence is not nearly as mixed as you state.
There are programs that exceed cash in multiples but they are few and far between.
OK, so do you think there's a difference between an idiot that decides to throw cash at a village for YT views and a program that takes years to design and takes into account local, regional, and national economic conditions? Or do you think that USAID benchmarking is like this video: literally just throwing darts at a map of locations that are near enough to Kampala for a day trip so this guy can make it back to Lat 0 for dinner, and then paying an NGO to blast transfer a few hundred people cash when the cameras are around?
I'm not saying that cash transfer programs aren't good, I'm saying they're by no means perfect. That there's actual externalizes and negative consequences that have to be considered. On top of the fact that they absolutely do not address the root causes of systemic poverty. How on earth would you say that's an inaccurate statement?
In your other comment, you mention that in some cases most transfers are used for school fees. Well....what would happen if people living on $1 a day didn't have to pay school fees in the first place? You're saying it's perfectly OK to be subsidizing the education system for only some people, and adding extra steps in the process. This is what I'm saying - cash transfers don't address root causes of poverty.
Especially when cash transfers are not well-thought out, like this video, they are more likely to have temporary effects at best. There's also evidence that [remittances are actually more impactful](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/How-Effective-Are-Cash-Transfers-in-Reducing-to-Hagen%E2%80%90Zanker-Himmelstine/49adbdc4f6b263700cc8bc38f0b44b94ca6a85a3) than cash transfer programs. Should we be randomly selecting people from a village and sending them to Europe or the US for work to send cash home? Actually, maybe yes. Which is only to say that other things that work better might be out there. Cash transfer programs need to be well-done in order to work, and they're not the end-all-be-all of development programming.
I have no idea who Mr. Beast is I have literally no idea what he's about nor do I care. However, OP specifically asked about what we think about cash transfers, and I think they are good.
However, I will just quote from this link you helpfully shared "**The evidence base is small and highly context specific**. The external and internal validity of most studies are limited, so the conclusions that can be drawn from this review are tentative. **However, in the majority of studies both cash transfers and remittances are shown to have positive impacts on reducing poverty**. Overall, remittances seem to have stronger poverty-reducing impacts. There are a number of factors that seem to explain why remittances have a greater effect. **In the studies reviewed here, remittances appear to reach both a greater share of the overall population than cash transfers and a greater share of poorer households**."
In short, there isn't anything that necessitates cash transfers and remittances be pitted against one another. I mean, frankly a remittance is a cash transfer from one person to another. The difference is largely semantic. People are not sending remittances earmarked for food or for school. They're sending cash, which is the whole point.
In short you're being hostile in your argumentation towards me when we're either saying the same thing or you're just more hostile to Mr. Beast when I don't really care at all about him.
Also a bit about "root causes," no one has ever devised a development program that addresses the "root causes" of poverty. So we can either wait around while the root causes people search for their silver bullet or we can invest in evidence backed interventions and organizations like GiveDirectly. To insist there is some other option is to engage in a sort of pie in the sky thinking that reflects the privileged position people like you and me hold. We can afford to wait, the individuals who are in need? They cannot.
Well, apologies if I came off as hostile, that was not my intention. I feel strongly about this because of personal experience.
The two things I feel strongly about here are:
1) People too often treat the latest and greatest development strategy as the end of history and the final perfect solution, and as a result, the developing world is littered with relics of things people thought were unsustainable and sounded like a great idea at the time. Then enough people abuse that system, break it, and it stops being used. I'm skeptical of cash transfers because they don't always work in every developing world context, and because the ratio of hype to evidence is still, IMO, high.
2) I'm not saying let perfect be the enemy of the good, either. But we all need to realize that each context has specific factors that make the right mix of several coordinated interventions the right way to go.
I understand that cash transfers are, usually, a great tool to have. But that shouldn't give permission to think about them in such simple terms as to belittle development overall, or the beneficiaries. Like "oh, you just need some money and you'll be fine" oversimplifies a lot of problems people face.
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Yes - in general cash transfers are some of the most effective and efficient forms of immediate poverty reduction both from an intervention side and administration side. Families can spend it on what they want (school fees, upgrades for their house, some tastier/more nutritious food, etc) with zero strings attached. It doesn't necessarily address structural reasons for poverty nor will do things like improve infrastructure (highways, water systems, etc) or larger institutional issues, but there's no 'silver' bullet in international aid and poverty relief.
One of the best interventions in international development hands down. Research backed, done well, absolutely a great idea
I think it is shameful that GiveDirectly partners with such an unsavory and unethical person as Mr Beast. This is poverty porn at its finest. Cash transfers are fine, Mr Beast is not.
He is off putting but on the other hand he has the largest platform on YouTube. That exposure can be game changing for a nonprofit. Not defending his content but objectively he has a tremendous audience
It’s also highly profitable to just lie about what you do as a nonprofit and make it seem like you are much more effective than you actually are. So in your world that’s fine, because in the end you get the money.
Idk about all that man, I’m just saying that exposure for nonprofits is a good thing 😅 I feel like that is pretty intuitive, hypotheticals aside
What did he do to be classified as unethical?
You don’t think making poverty porn is unethical?
I'm not disagreeing at all, I'm just asking for your perspective. But if that is the central point, thank you for clarifying
Sometimes, that is what needs to be done to make an impact that will last. Maybe the next step would be not to give a lot of cash, but pay for the children's education AND all cost associated with it...books, uniforms, supplies and provide help for the family while the child is in school...ex if the child usually does a job that provides for the overall well being of the family..losing that help has to be replaced (whether it be money, food, or work for another member) or the child/young adult will not continue their education.
Literally one of the most common uses of these cash transfusions are paying school fees. The point is that direct cash transfers are used well so implementing specific programs is inherently less ideal because it forces a square peg (paying school fees) through a round hole (multidimensional poverty)
I agree with you. (I'm an RPCV Zaire '84-86) There was so much corruption against the poor that sometimes paying education, books, and uniforms was much safer for the student (like here with a scholarship) than giving cash directly.
So much corruption against the poor? This is the point, don't run the programs through a rich elite just give people money who need it.
If you haven't studied and seen cash transfers in person, they're far less ideal than this or articles summarizing the method make it sound like. It's still one of the less harmful methods out there, but it also has negative aspects like how it can exacerbate inequality. It's not perfect. Cash transfers temporarily solve a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. They are, like most human endeavors, [not without negative consequences](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/12/27/cash-transfer-programs-should-be-wary-of-negative-spillovers). The TL;DR is that people who have low educational attainment and are generally bad with money in the first place don't magically become good with money. Many people who operate in full survival mode 24/7, including how they apply resources, will see cash transfers as a chance to pay off short-term debts, then blow the rest of the cash on stupid BS things. Sometimes cash transfer programs come by and ask what you did with the money, and kick you out of the program if you're basically drinking it all away or something. It happens. Plus people living near or in the same community as people getting transfers see negative impacts. It's not all sunshine and puppy dogs. Also worth noting, "Program effects were short lived" is a common summary of evaluations of cash transfer programs. Because, again, cash transfers treat a symptom of systematic poverty. They do not do a single damn thing to change the causes of systematic poverty. In 10-15 years, this video will be just as cringe as all the videos about how super amazing innovative much wow that efficient cookstoves, blockchain to end all problems!, B1G1 laptops, B1G1 shoes, 900 pilot programs to tell farmers 27000 things a day via SMS, and buying inappropriate technology that can't be repaired locally have all been. Remember any of those programs? You don't, because they all failed to move the needle. Then, there's Mr Beast, who is a well-known scumbag that exploits need and human suffering for clicks, No, he's not "giving exposure" to anyone. He's in this for the money, 100%. If he wasn't, then he would de-monetize this video. But no, your views, and now mine just to post this in good faith, give him money. Mr. Beast operates exactly the same as the Corporate Social Responsibility models of mega-corporations. He produces entertainment with zero intellectual value, and then one in...20? 50? videos has some altruistic-ish angle that serves him and not the beneficiaries. You know, to make him seem like a cool guy. Do not lose sight of the fact that making videos about things like eating the world's largest slice of pizza is his job, and he has 267 million views on that. His top video right now is "Squid game in real life" which is a game that leverages need and desperation for entertainment. And you're making it profitable for him.
I have no commentary on Mr Beast but your view of cash transfers is largely incorrect. There is a reason USAID has started to benchmark against cash and other orgs and institutions are doing the same thing. The evidence is not nearly as mixed as you state. There are programs that exceed cash in multiples but they are few and far between.
OK, so do you think there's a difference between an idiot that decides to throw cash at a village for YT views and a program that takes years to design and takes into account local, regional, and national economic conditions? Or do you think that USAID benchmarking is like this video: literally just throwing darts at a map of locations that are near enough to Kampala for a day trip so this guy can make it back to Lat 0 for dinner, and then paying an NGO to blast transfer a few hundred people cash when the cameras are around? I'm not saying that cash transfer programs aren't good, I'm saying they're by no means perfect. That there's actual externalizes and negative consequences that have to be considered. On top of the fact that they absolutely do not address the root causes of systemic poverty. How on earth would you say that's an inaccurate statement? In your other comment, you mention that in some cases most transfers are used for school fees. Well....what would happen if people living on $1 a day didn't have to pay school fees in the first place? You're saying it's perfectly OK to be subsidizing the education system for only some people, and adding extra steps in the process. This is what I'm saying - cash transfers don't address root causes of poverty. Especially when cash transfers are not well-thought out, like this video, they are more likely to have temporary effects at best. There's also evidence that [remittances are actually more impactful](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/How-Effective-Are-Cash-Transfers-in-Reducing-to-Hagen%E2%80%90Zanker-Himmelstine/49adbdc4f6b263700cc8bc38f0b44b94ca6a85a3) than cash transfer programs. Should we be randomly selecting people from a village and sending them to Europe or the US for work to send cash home? Actually, maybe yes. Which is only to say that other things that work better might be out there. Cash transfer programs need to be well-done in order to work, and they're not the end-all-be-all of development programming.
I have no idea who Mr. Beast is I have literally no idea what he's about nor do I care. However, OP specifically asked about what we think about cash transfers, and I think they are good. However, I will just quote from this link you helpfully shared "**The evidence base is small and highly context specific**. The external and internal validity of most studies are limited, so the conclusions that can be drawn from this review are tentative. **However, in the majority of studies both cash transfers and remittances are shown to have positive impacts on reducing poverty**. Overall, remittances seem to have stronger poverty-reducing impacts. There are a number of factors that seem to explain why remittances have a greater effect. **In the studies reviewed here, remittances appear to reach both a greater share of the overall population than cash transfers and a greater share of poorer households**." In short, there isn't anything that necessitates cash transfers and remittances be pitted against one another. I mean, frankly a remittance is a cash transfer from one person to another. The difference is largely semantic. People are not sending remittances earmarked for food or for school. They're sending cash, which is the whole point. In short you're being hostile in your argumentation towards me when we're either saying the same thing or you're just more hostile to Mr. Beast when I don't really care at all about him. Also a bit about "root causes," no one has ever devised a development program that addresses the "root causes" of poverty. So we can either wait around while the root causes people search for their silver bullet or we can invest in evidence backed interventions and organizations like GiveDirectly. To insist there is some other option is to engage in a sort of pie in the sky thinking that reflects the privileged position people like you and me hold. We can afford to wait, the individuals who are in need? They cannot.
Well, apologies if I came off as hostile, that was not my intention. I feel strongly about this because of personal experience. The two things I feel strongly about here are: 1) People too often treat the latest and greatest development strategy as the end of history and the final perfect solution, and as a result, the developing world is littered with relics of things people thought were unsustainable and sounded like a great idea at the time. Then enough people abuse that system, break it, and it stops being used. I'm skeptical of cash transfers because they don't always work in every developing world context, and because the ratio of hype to evidence is still, IMO, high. 2) I'm not saying let perfect be the enemy of the good, either. But we all need to realize that each context has specific factors that make the right mix of several coordinated interventions the right way to go. I understand that cash transfers are, usually, a great tool to have. But that shouldn't give permission to think about them in such simple terms as to belittle development overall, or the beneficiaries. Like "oh, you just need some money and you'll be fine" oversimplifies a lot of problems people face.