the thursday buzz: spotlight on GiveDirectly

hey lil bees!! 🐝 happy almost friyay!

Another week, another stream of consciousness by Sneha on how she’s trying to live her truth in this crazy chaotic world!!!

For today’s piece, stay tuned for:

• Fun memes to get you through the week relevant to this Tuesday’s piece

• A spotlight on non-profit GiveDirectly’s work

memes

sneha’s stream of consciousness: shoutout to GiveDirectly

In this last Tuesday’s piece, I talk about how people are distrustful of giving back because they’re not sure how people will spend their money.

This is a word-for-word quote from GiveDirectly’s website. GiveDirectly is a 501(c)3 non-profit that is dedicated to giving cash directly to people living in poverty. Their hypothesis is these people deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives — cash enables that choice. The better part of a solid hypothesis is having data to back it up. Using both rigorous external and internal research, they’ve been able to show that people in poverty actually use this money in very creative and resourceful ways, whether it be for medicine, cows, school fees, businesses, solar lights, etc.

For too long, the narrative has been, “don’t just throw money at the problem.” People say people are poor because they’re not financially literate: they don’t won’t know how to use that money properly. Others will say “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.”

These two statements are more related than you think. The first assumes that an impoverished person is not aware of their own needs. Like I said in Tuesday’s article, people jump to not giving a homeless person money because they’ll buy drugs. Poverty is a systemic construct and layered concept that looks different for each culture, let alone each community. It’s presumptuous to say that every single person who is poor does not understand their basic needs to survive.

Folks who say the second, including myself, probably think it’s more worthwhile to teach someone to do something for themselves than to do it for them on an ongoing basis. I think this is generally true to institute systemic change. But, it can be more insidious than you think. What is it that we want to teach impoverished people?

Some of the most impoverished countries and communities have the world’s richest histories, and (not) ironically enough, richest resources. A great example is the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the poorest nations yet extremely resource-rich (i.e. 2/3 of world’s Cobalt, a critical resource for batteries and electric vehicles, is in the DRC).

I’m not saying rich countries (measured by GDP per capita) don’t have any resources to share with countries that are marked with poverty, political instability or a lack of infrastructure. Banking & infrastructure are access cards to the world! But let me quote myself from the last article: lacking money in a society that values material wealth and success can be weaponized and be one of the most humiliating and shameful things to experience. This helping hand has removed a lot of dignity from poor individuals who have the right to decide how to best improve their lives. There is this anglocentric, one-sided lens on what aid should look like, when in reality, this relationship should be symbiotic. We forget that people who lack money and resources can also be some of the most scrappy and creative people because there is no room for inefficiencies. Whereas over $140 billion in global aid money is spent per year, while the global poverty gap is now estimated to be half that amount (quote from Michael Faye, co-founder of GiveDirectly). Just let that sit with you for a moment.

I'm passionate about challenging the status quo on topics like unconditional cash transfers and universal basic income. Expect a series of in-depth explorations on different case studies / research 👀 In the meanwhile, I encourage you all to think deeply about how you feel around giving others money with no conditions. It’s okay if that’s overwhelming and evokes lots of different thoughts and emotions; I was really surprised when I learned about GiveDirectly and the power of giving back without conditions. If you’re interested in sharing your thoughts with me, please reach out to me at [email protected] :)