91探花

91探花 has written a lot about what giving people money is consistently very good at (e.g., recipients earn more, spend more, own more assets, and the local economy gets a boost), the myths that aren鈥檛 true (e.g, cash doesn鈥檛 make people or ), and the fact that it鈥檚 what most recipients . 

But the fact that cash improves many things doesn鈥檛 mean it improves everything. And frankly, that鈥檚 an unrealistic bar to set. 

I鈥檝e spent the last 15 years doing cost-effectiveness analyses across education, health, nutrition, and livelihoods鈥攆irst at MIT鈥檚 J-PAL, then at the International Rescue Committee and USAID, and now at 91探花. 

The major lesson I鈥檝e learned is that no one intervention is 鈥渢he best鈥� for all outcomes鈥攚e have to grapple with tradeoffs. So, allow me to state the obvious part out loud: Cash is not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets.

Roads, electricity, and water systems are public goods that require many people to invest at once. While there are of cash recipients pooling funds for things like wells, the average person who receives $500 鈥攁nd they shouldn鈥檛 have to. Building infrastructure is a government job, typically made possible by raising and managing public funds.

In the United States, where I live, our biggest infrastructure achievements鈥攍ike 鈥攚eren鈥檛 built because people spent their individual money more wisely. They were built because the government through public systems. That鈥檚 an essential part of the longer-term economic transformation that we think of as 鈥渄evelopment.鈥�

And of course, there is evidence on how to make smart infrastructure investments (see: ). If your goal is to improve infrastructure, consider programs like that!

馃毇馃彌锔� Cash doesn鈥檛 build or reform public institutions. 

For communities to sustain long-term economic growth, they depend on functioning courts, civil registries, and tax systems鈥� built on trust, coordination, and legitimacy, none of which you can buy in a market.

There鈥檚 some that cash reduces vote-selling in elections, which is a good thing. But we haven鈥檛 seen consistent gains in civic trust or participation. And without broader reform, it鈥檚 a stretch to think that giving people money will make governments more responsive or accountable.

That鈥檚 okay. There are other tools designed for institutional reform (e.g., , ). Fund those, if that鈥檚 your goal.

馃毇馃彨 Cash can improve access to services, but it can鈥檛 make them work.

Where money is a key barrier, cash can help people improve a variety of outcomes. We鈥檝e seen this in both education and health: Cash (both and ) can improve school enrollment and attendance and can also help people access nearby healthcare. But being in school doesn鈥檛 mean you鈥檙e learning. And visiting a clinic doesn鈥檛 mean there are drugs there to treat you. 

I spent years evaluating education programs, and the is clear: in many countries, teaching quality, curriculum relevance, and time spent learning are low. If your only goal is to improve learning, there are than giving cash.

This isn鈥檛 a failure of cash, it鈥檚 a reminder that some outcomes, like child learning or maternal survival, depend on functioning public sectors. One of tested this directly: a government cash transfer program was rolled out in Nicaragua, with and without improvements to local health and education systems. The biggest impact came from doing both. Because access and quality are complements, not substitutes. 

As my colleague and research expert Dr. Miriam Laker Oketta , 鈥淭he takeaway isn鈥檛 that cash replaces health care. It鈥檚 that cash makes health care reachable.鈥�

When poverty reduction is the goal, cash works; when the goal is something else, we test

If your goal is poverty alleviation, cash works well. Period. It鈥檚 and across many contexts. Unconditional cash transfers are the index fund of global development鈥攔eliable returns, low management overhead. (And frankly, the returns to many other interventions are pretty disappointing *cough鈥� 鈥�*cough*).

That鈥檚 why we advocate using unconditional cash as a default in poverty alleviation programs. If other programs cost more and deliver less than cash, that shouldn鈥檛 be a hard decision.

But when the goal is something else (like reducing mortality, improving child nutrition, or responding to climate shocks), we don鈥檛 assume lump-sum cash is best. We look at the evidence, and when the evidence doesn鈥檛 exist, we test. Here are some of the cool things we鈥檙e testing right now: 

• 馃懇馃従鈥嶐煃� Cash for moms and babies: suggests transfers during pregnancy or infancy cut infant mortality in half; we鈥檙e testing how to maximize that impact in Kenya and eastern DRC.
• 馃啒 Faster disaster response: Building the to deliver cash anywhere within 5 days of a crisis, and testing whether response speed amplifies impacts on spending and income.
• 馃�濔煆� Cash + coaching: Adding simple training and behavioral support to large lump sum cash, and testing whether we can achieve the impact of more multifaceted for certain populations, at lower cost. 
• 馃洠锔� Cash + community grants: Building on the block grant approaches noted above, we鈥檙e testing whether giving villages pooled funds for local infrastructure projects can amplify the impact of individual transfers and complement broader public investments.

For each, we鈥檙e asking the same question: What鈥檚 the most cost-effective way to improve a particular outcome? If the answer is cash, we scale. If it鈥檚 cash-plus-something-else, we adapt our core cash program. And if cash doesn鈥檛 perform comparatively well, then we鈥檝e learned something useful for the aid sector! 

This isn鈥檛 an either/or鈥攊t鈥檚 about using the right tool for the outcome

Even though we are fired up about what cash does really well, improving people鈥檚 lives shouldn鈥檛 be a turf war. Many others are doing critically important work to build the systems and services that cash alone can鈥檛 provide. Both things can be true.

At 91探花, we focus on cash because it solves poverty effectively, scalably, and respectfully. We follow the evidence on where it works best, and we are honest about where it isn鈥檛 the best tool.

We鈥檙e not in love with cash. We鈥檙e in love with what works.