Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Whatever happened to Concern Worldwide's cash transfer programs?
Before GiveDirectly burst upon the scene, other charities operated cash transfer and voucher programs with less fanfare – and they still do so. GiveDirectly has in fact relied on reviews and evaluations of these earlier programs to promote its own valuable work. In a 2010 research note, GiveDirectly stated: "Reviewing cash transfer projects run by Concern Worldwide and Oxfam following flooding in Western Zambia, Concern Worldwide (2007) found that less than 0.5% of the transfers were spent on 'unproductive' uses (including alcohol and tobacco)."
I began contributing to Concern Worldwide because I read about its cash transfer and voucher programs. Apparently these programs continue; a page on Concern Worldwide's website is devoted to them: https://www.concern.net/category/free-tagging/cash-transfer. However, Concern Worldwide does not appear to be promoting these cash transfer programs: its home page does not mention them, and I could not even reach its page on cash transfers through links on its home page (I found the page on cash transfers through Google).
Possibly Concern Worldwide's reticence about its cash transfer programs reflects an old-fashioned assumption that contributors to international charities do not favor cash transfers. I would have thought, and hoped, that Concern Worldwide would be more willing to expand and promote its own cash transfer programs now that GiveDirectly has made such programs by charities (dare I say it) sexy. I actually think the structure of Concern Worldwide's programs is superior to that of GiveDirectly's programs: As I have argued, GiveDirectly's standard grant of $1,000 per family is too large.
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