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Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos, David Hulme, 2010: Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South. Sterling: Kumarian Press.

If it sounds novel to suggest that if you want the poor to have more money, you could just give them money, these are strange times. What could be more straightforward than giving money to people in need? But cost recovery, self-help, and “financial deepening” are essential tenets of the current development ethos, so someone must go out and make the argument – as Joseph Hanlon, Armando Barrientos and David Hulme do in Just Give Money to the Poor – that simply handing out cash may be easier, and better, than anything else.

Cash transfers are a rising idea in development policy. Even The Economist likes them. Still, they are far from a hype, and little is known to most people about the successful programmes implemented by Brazil, Mexico or Indonesia, for example. This book aims to change that. Perhaps its greatest strength and weakness is its simplicity. But hard science can be discussed elsewhere. Just Give Money to the Poor introduces a broader audience, and gives impetus, to the simple but still-controversial idea: that redistribution works.

The authors recap evidence from two decades of experimental and pragmatic progress on social transfer programmes in the developing world. They argue that no-strings-attached, widespread systems of cash distribution are far more effective and cheaper than other models, such as vouchers, food subsidies (where monitoring creates costs) or microcredit. The key is that the money must be a dependable, substantial and easy source of income for the poor. Assured regular cash transfers – not charity or philanthropy – are the key, even at a relatively small scale, for achieving impressive outcomes:

“In the short term they reduce poverty levels and ameliorate suffering. In the medium term, they enable many poor people to exercise their agency and pursue micro-level plans to increase their productivity and incomes.  In the longer term, they create a generation of healthier and better educated people who can seize economic opportunities and contribute to broad-based economic growth.”

The target groups could be particularly vulnerable demographics – children, the elderly – or simply everyone. Programmes can be gradually expanded as experience grows, since garnering political support by demonstrating impact, fairness and adequacy, is key. Read the rest of this entry »