SOPREON A payment process using mobile phones was adapted to the complication that 90 percent of the supposed beneficiaries did not have a mobile phone. Instead they were entitled to a SIM card for a mobile phone. The SIM card was, in essence, an entitlement for an amount of money on a given date. The payment process in this case meant bringing the SIM card to a recognized economic center in a community that was nearest to the individual who did not have a mobile phone. There, at the economic center, would be a mobile phone for the SIM card. This adaptation ensured that individuals obliged to cash payment transfers received them efficiently. Concerns about the pricing factor of one mobile phone in the economic center being read by one individual were addressed.
GiveDirectly The largest organization exclusively devoted to cash transfers is
GiveDirectly. GiveDirectly was founded by economics graduate students in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, with two main inspirations: the growing evidence that cash transfers could work, and the growth of cheap and reliable money transfer technology. GiveDirectly's operations were initially limited to
Kenya, where the
m-Pesa money transfer system is well-established. In November 2013, the organization expanded to
Uganda.
Charity evaluator GiveWell first noticed GiveDirectly in July 2011, named it as a standout charity in November 2011, and gave it top charity status starting November 2012. GiveDirectly has been a GiveWell top charity in the years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. Largely as a result of GiveWell's recommendation,
Good Ventures, the private foundation of
Facebook co-founder
Dustin Moskovitz and his wife
Cari Tuna, that works closely with GiveWell, has donated well over $40 million to GiveDirectly (in grant sizes of $7 million, $5 million, $25 million, and $9.8 million). An impact evaluation of GiveDirectly's cash transfer program was conducted in collaboration with GiveDirectly, with the working paper released in October 2013, later published in 2016 after peer review. The paper attracted commentary from
World Bank economist
David McKenzie. He praised the robustness of the study's design and the clear disclosure of the study lead's conflict of interest, but raised two concerns: • The
observer-expectancy effect, where the people being asked questions may be subtly influenced in their answers by the experimenter's expectations. • The lack of clear positive effect on long-term outcomes, as well as the lack of increased spending on health and education. These concerns were in part addressed by other studies. A follow-up of the above study finds net positive spillovers at the community level from unconditional cash transfers. Another study finds beneficial effects of unconditional cash transfer programs not only in self-reported outcomes, but also in health outcomes like body weight and biomass.
The CALP Network The CALP Network (CALP) global network of organisations engaged in policy, practice and research in humanitarian cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and financial assistance more broadly. Members currently include local and international non-governmental organisations, United Nations agencies, the Red Cross/Crescent Movement, donors, specialist social innovation, technology and financial services companies, researchers and academics, and individual practitioners. Their website includes a number of studies on unconditional cash transfers, with a particular focus on cash transfers made in the aftermath of natural disasters. Salient examples include: •
UNICEF's Alternative Responses for Communities in Crisis Programme, the largest humanitarian multi-purpose unconditional cash transfer partnership in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. • Unconditional cash transfers to reduce food insecurity for displaced households and to assist with repatriation in
Niger following a food crisis. • Unconditional cash transfers for relief and recovery in
Rizal and
Laguna in the
Philippines, in the aftermath of
Typhoon Ketsana. The Electronic Cash Transfer Learning Action Network (ELAN) within CaLP has also worked with Mercy Corps, and Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) on case studies for humanitarian electronic transfer projects in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh. These case studies Examine the extent to which: • recipients used digital financial services (e.g. money transfers, savings, credit, purchases) through mobile money; • the factors that affected recipients' uptake of these financial services; and • considerations for future humanitarian programs aiming to increase the use of digital financial services among recipients.
Centre for Homelessness Impact Unconditional cash transfers and their impact in communities experiencing or with experience of homelessness have been trialled by the Centre for Homelessness Impact in the United Kingdom. Tests to date have included cash transfers to young people leaving the care system. as well as people with experience of street homelessness Cash transfers for care leavers found improvements in housing stability, a reduced likelihood of criminality and reduced instances of sofa-surfing.
Other programs A blog post by Vishnu Prasad for the
Institute for Financial Management and Research summarized existing research on unconditional cash transfers, citing studies around the following programs: • South African Old Age Pension Scheme, a means-tested unconditional cash transfer scheme in
South Africa to women over the age of 60 and men over the age of 65. •
Bono de Desarollo Humano, an unconditional cash transfer scheme in
Ecuador • South Africa's mean, unconditional child grant == Reception ==