Can We End Poverty by Just Giving People Cash?

The Next Big Idea

Next Big Idea Club

Self-improvement, Arts, Books, Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 a day, has long been seen as an intractable problem. But what if the solution is simple? What if you could eradicate extreme poverty by just giving people cash? That’s what Rory Stewart believes. He’s the former UK Secretary of State for International Development and now a senior advisor to GiveDirectly, a non-profit that has distributed $800 million — in cash — to 1.6 million people around the world, including right here in the US. Today on the show, Rory charts his evolution from cash transfer skeptic to evangelist, shares what he wishes philanthropists like Bill Gates would do with their billions, and explains why he thinks it’s possible to end extreme poverty in our lifetimes. 🎙️ Check out Rory's previous appearance on this show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify 💸 Learn more about GiveDirectly at www.givedirectly.org 🎬 Watch Rory’s new TED Talk, “To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice” 🎁 Get 20% off a Next Big Idea Club membership when you use code PODCAST at nextbigideaclub.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn presents.
0:05.0	Imagine for a moment that it's your job to try and solve one of the world's most intractable problems.
0:11.0	Extreme poverty. You have billions of dollars at your disposal, an eager
0:17.6	beaver team of experts ready to carry out your plans. What would you do?
0:23.0	The conventional wisdom says,
0:24.8	build schools and hospitals, dig wells, pave roads, fight disease.
0:30.6	That's what we've done for years. And on the surface, it looks like it's worked.
0:35.0	Worldwide, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has come down.
0:39.0	But zoom in on a place like Sub-Saharan Africa,
0:42.0	and the picture changes.
0:45.0	Yes, the percentage has improved, but the total number of people living in extreme poverty
0:50.0	has more than doubled since 1980.
1:00.0	430 million people there live on less than $2.15 a day.
1:07.0	So maybe the whole top-down infrastructure thing isn't working. But what's the alternative? Well, what if I told you the solution is so simple, it's been overlooked for years. Just give people cash. I'm
1:17.4	Caleb Bisinger and this is the next big idea. Today, why is it that sometimes the most effective solutions are the ones we're most reluctant to try? That job I just described, it's not made up.
1:46.7	Rory Stewart actually had it.
1:49.1	As the UK's Secretary of State for International Development,
1:52.4	he oversaw a budget of $20 billion.
1:55.0	And he used that money in all the conventional wisdom ways you'd expect.
1:59.2	But then one day, he goes to see this sanitation project that his team's been working on in Africa.
2:04.0	So I get in my car, I drive out to see the first one of these schools in rural Zambia.
2:10.0	Step out of the car, and the first thing I see is a row of very smart white jeeps.
	...

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