When done at scale, cash transfers have the ability to transform entire economies, not just the individual. However, much of billions spent annually on global development continues to be spent on ineffective interventions and, despite champions including Abhijit Banerjee, co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, adoption remains stalled. In response to a recent critique of universal basic income programmes, Caroline Teti, director of recipient advocacy at GivingDirectly, explains why providing cash outperforms conventional aid programmes such as job training or sanitation and nutrition: Namely, because people in poverty know their needs better than experts thousands of miles away.
