The Most Important Question 116: What Really Happens When You Just Give People Money?
In Episode 116, Quinn wants to know: why is simply giving people money the most effective way to 1) help them make positive changes to their lives and 2) erase global poverty along the way?
To help him understand the answer, he brought on Caroline Teti and Michael Faye from GiveDirectly.
Caroline Teti (or just Teti, as she likes to be called, we swear) works on the ground in Kenya, Nairobi, handling recipient advocacy for GiveDirectly’s global operations. She’s our new favorite person, sorry Michael.
Michael Faye is the co-founder and president of GiveDirectly, and he’s great too. Seriously! You’re great. So great. But Teti, wow.
Anyways! There’s so many amazing programs out there helping folks in extreme poverty by providing food, water, clothing, medicine, and more.
But different people need different things on different days. Michael and Teti have done tremendous work to explore the data behind poverty and how to fix it: and it turns out the best way to get people what they need is to give them the resources -- namely cash -- to make those decisions themselves.
None of us will end poverty, individually. But anyone can lift just one person out of poverty, so listen in and let’s do this thing.
Have feedback or questions? Tweet us, or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com
Important, Not Important Book Club:
- “The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova
- “The Art of Reading Minds” by Henrik Fexeus
- https://bookshop.org/shop/importantnotimportant
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