Giving cash directly - the future of aid?

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 17 August 2023

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What’s the best way to help people in need?

In the past, humanitarian aid has focused on providing shelter and food, but there’s a growing move towards direct cash payments.

We'll take you to Syria, Egypt and Kenya to find out how it works and why it's being embraced.

We speak to Rory Stewart, president of the US charity Give Directly, which is based entirely on direct cash payments. And hear from two women who’ve used some of that money to develop their own small businesses in Kenya.

Elias Abu Ata explains how the International Rescue Committee used cash in the wake of the earthquake in Syria earlier this year, and Rasha Batarseh, UNHCR cash programme officer for Egypt tells us how it’s being used to help refugees fleeing the conflict in Sudan.

Finally, is cash assistance more vulnerable to fraud? Oliver May, former head of counter fraud at Oxfam, gives his view.

Producer/presenter James Graham Additional production support from Chrystal Onkeo

(Image: Rory Stewart from Give Directly visiting a project in Malawi. Credit: Give Directly.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	I was working in a coffee shop in Boston to, like, help pay rent while I was training for the trials.
0:05.3	And so people kept joking.
0:06.4	They're like, oh, yeah, she just took a two-hour coffee break and went and ran the Olympic trials marathon.
0:11.7	On the podium is back with more Olympians and Paralympians sharing their journeys to the top.
0:17.5	On the podium from the BBC World Service, listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
0:24.4	Hello, my name's James Graham. Today on Business Daily, we're looking at how money talks in the
0:30.5	aid world. Humanitarian aid is a multi-billion dollar business and cold, hard cash is becoming an
0:36.7	increasingly important part of how it all works.
0:39.7	Advocates argue that giving people money directly, no strings, can pay real dividends.
0:44.9	I think this is the future, and you'll find people spending more and more of their money on cash,
0:49.3	because what we're learning is that the traditional way that we did business didn't make sense.
0:53.7	In this program, we'll take you to emergency aid hotspots like Syria and Egypt,
0:58.3	and also to Kenya where individuals are being supported with one-off payments.
1:02.6	When I got the aid, I received $400.
1:05.5	I used $80 for my domestic needs.
1:07.9	Then I bought stock for the business.
1:10.3	From that time, until now, I have found
1:13.1	grace.
1:17.7	The distressing sound of destruction after a catastrophic earthquake hit Syria and Turkey in February.
1:24.3	Thousands died. Its estimated 2.5 million were left homeless.
1:28.6	There was an urgent need for temporary shelter, blankets and food.
1:32.5	And this is how most of us think of emergency aid, things being provided.
	...

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