TED@NYC
Joy Sun: Should you donate differently?
Filmed:
Readability: 3.7
1,304,324 views
Technology allows us to give cash directly to the poorest people on the planet. Should we do it? In this thought-provoking talk, veteran aid worker Joy Sun explores two ways to help the poor.
Joy Sun - Veteran aid worker
TED Fellow Joy Sun helped to launch a rare type of charity. GiveDirectly lets donors transfer money directly into the hands of impoverished people — empowering them to set their own goals and priorities. Full bio
TED Fellow Joy Sun helped to launch a rare type of charity. GiveDirectly lets donors transfer money directly into the hands of impoverished people — empowering them to set their own goals and priorities. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
I suspect that
0
914
1409
00:14
every aid worker in Africa
1
2323
1757
00:16
comes to a time in her career
2
4080
1593
00:17
when she wants to take all
the money for her project —
the money for her project —
3
5673
3316
00:20
maybe it's a school or a training program —
4
8989
3102
00:24
pack it in a suitcase,
5
12091
1889
00:25
get on a plane flying over the
poorest villages in the country,
poorest villages in the country,
6
13980
3984
00:29
and start throwing that money out the window.
7
17964
3184
00:33
Because to a veteran aid worker,
8
21148
2316
00:35
the idea of putting cold, hard cash
9
23464
2707
00:38
into the hands of the poorest people on Earth
10
26171
3039
00:41
doesn't sound crazy,
11
29210
1655
00:42
it sounds really satisfying.
12
30865
4076
00:46
I had that moment right about the 10-year mark,
13
34941
2902
00:49
and luckily, that's also when I learned
14
37843
2467
00:52
that this idea actually exists,
15
40310
3664
00:55
and it might be just what the aid system needs.
16
43974
3843
00:59
Economists call it an unconditional cash transfer,
17
47817
2703
01:02
and it's exactly that: It's cash given
18
50520
2160
01:04
with no strings attached.
19
52680
2272
01:06
Governments in developing countries
20
54952
1564
01:08
have been doing this for decades,
21
56516
1676
01:10
and it's only now, with more evidence
22
58192
2532
01:12
and new technology that it's possible
23
60724
3191
01:15
to make this a model for delivering aid.
24
63915
4319
01:20
It's a pretty simple idea, right?
25
68234
2914
01:23
Well, why did I spend a decade doing other stuff
26
71148
4106
01:27
for the poor?
27
75254
2138
01:29
Honestly, I believed that I could do more good
28
77392
3543
01:32
with money for the poor
29
80935
1946
01:34
than the poor could do for themselves.
30
82881
2610
01:37
I held two assumptions:
31
85491
1033
01:38
One, that poor people are poor in part
32
86524
2589
01:41
because they're uneducated and
33
89113
2002
01:43
don't make good choices;
34
91115
2160
01:45
two is that we then need people like me
35
93275
2711
01:47
to figure out what they need and get it to them.
36
95986
3738
01:51
It turns out, the evidence says otherwise.
37
99724
4222
01:55
In recent years, researchers have been studying
38
103946
2849
01:58
what happens when we give poor people cash.
39
106795
3405
02:02
Dozens of studies show across the board
40
110200
2671
02:04
that people use cash transfers
41
112871
2756
02:07
to improve their own lives.
42
115627
2168
02:09
Pregnant women in Uruguay buy better food
43
117795
2848
02:12
and give birth to healthier babies.
44
120643
2234
02:14
Sri Lankan men invest in their businesses.
45
122877
3094
02:17
Researchers who studied our work in Kenya
46
125971
2698
02:20
found that people invested in a range of assets,
47
128669
2917
02:23
from livestock to equipment
to home improvements,
to home improvements,
48
131586
4350
02:27
and they saw increases in income
49
135936
2122
02:30
from business and farming
50
138058
2383
02:32
one year after the cash was sent.
51
140441
3690
02:36
None of these studies found that people
52
144131
2564
02:38
spend more on drinking or smoking
53
146695
2409
02:41
or that people work less.
54
149104
2505
02:43
In fact, they work more.
55
151609
4108
02:47
Now, these are all material needs.
56
155717
3263
02:50
In Vietnam, elderly recipients used
57
158980
3171
02:54
their cash transfers to pay for coffins.
58
162151
4511
02:58
As someone who wonders if Maslow got it wrong,
59
166662
4011
03:02
I find this choice to prioritize spiritual needs
60
170673
4727
03:07
deeply humbling.
61
175400
2267
03:09
I don't know if I would have chosen to give food
62
177667
2213
03:11
or equipment or coffins,
63
179880
3611
03:15
which begs the question:
64
183491
2290
03:17
How good are we at allocating resources
65
185781
2996
03:20
on behalf of the poor?
66
188777
1845
03:22
Are we worth the cost?
67
190622
2895
03:25
Again, we can look at empirical evidence
68
193517
1943
03:27
on what happens when we give people stuff
69
195460
2790
03:30
of our choosing.
70
198250
2676
03:32
One very telling study looked at a program in India
71
200926
2869
03:35
that gives livestock to the so-called ultra-poor,
72
203795
3307
03:39
and they found that 30 percent of recipients
73
207102
3921
03:43
had turned around and sold the
livestock they had been given
livestock they had been given
74
211023
4153
03:47
for cash.
75
215176
3353
03:50
The real irony is,
76
218529
1558
03:52
for every 100 dollars worth of assets
77
220087
2581
03:54
this program gave someone,
78
222668
2152
03:56
they spent another 99 dollars to do it.
79
224820
4686
04:01
What if, instead, we use technology to put cash,
80
229506
3646
04:05
whether from aid agencies or from any one of us
81
233152
4587
04:09
directly into a poor person's hands.
82
237739
3770
04:13
Today, three in four Kenyans use mobile money,
83
241509
2870
04:16
which is basically a bank account that can run
84
244379
2823
04:19
on any cell phone.
85
247202
1498
04:20
A sender can pay a 1.6 percent fee
86
248700
3466
04:24
and with the click of a button
87
252166
2038
04:26
send money directly to a recipient's account
88
254204
2951
04:29
with no intermediaries.
89
257155
2730
04:31
Like the technologies that are disrupting industries
90
259885
2863
04:34
in our own lives,
91
262748
1799
04:36
payments technology in poor countries
92
264547
2563
04:39
could disrupt aid.
93
267110
3107
04:42
It's spreading so quickly that it's possible
94
270217
2312
04:44
to imagine reaching billions
95
272529
2532
04:47
of the world's poor this way.
96
275061
2799
04:49
That's what we've started to do at GiveDirectly.
97
277860
2621
04:52
We're the first organization
98
280481
1665
04:54
dedicated to providing cash transfers to the poor.
99
282146
3173
04:57
We've sent cash to 35,000
people across rural Kenya
people across rural Kenya
100
285319
4668
05:01
and Uganda
101
289987
1167
05:03
in one-time payments of 1,000 dollars
102
291154
3178
05:06
per family.
103
294332
2585
05:08
So far, we've looked for the poorest people
104
296917
2260
05:11
in the poorest villages, and in this part of the world,
105
299177
3303
05:14
they're the ones living in homes
106
302480
1444
05:15
made of mud and thatch,
107
303924
1178
05:17
not cement and iron.
108
305102
2460
05:19
So let's say that's your family.
109
307562
2222
05:21
We show up at your door with an Android phone.
110
309784
2452
05:24
We'll get your name, take your photo
111
312236
2327
05:26
and a photo of your hut
112
314563
1416
05:27
and grab the GPS coordinates.
113
315979
2475
05:30
That night, we send all the data to the cloud,
114
318454
2100
05:32
and each piece gets checked
115
320554
2280
05:34
by an independent team
116
322834
1878
05:36
using, for one example, satellite images.
117
324712
3391
05:40
Then, we'll come back,
118
328103
1996
05:42
we'll sell you a basic cell phone
119
330099
2391
05:44
if you don't have one already,
120
332490
2267
05:46
and a few weeks later,
121
334757
2321
05:49
we send money to it.
122
337078
2291
05:51
Something that five years ago
123
339369
1561
05:52
would have seemed impossible
124
340930
1528
05:54
we can now do efficiently
125
342458
2885
05:57
and free of corruption.
126
345343
2138
05:59
The more cash we give to the poor,
127
347481
2316
06:01
and the more evidence we have that it works,
128
349797
3656
06:05
the more we have to reconsider
129
353453
2408
06:07
everything else we give.
130
355861
2489
06:10
Today, the logic behind aid is too often,
131
358350
3588
06:13
well, we do at least some good.
132
361938
3112
06:17
When we're complacent
133
365050
1416
06:18
with that as our bar,
134
366466
2370
06:20
when we tell ourselves that giving aid
135
368836
2592
06:23
is better than no aid at all,
136
371428
2914
06:26
we tend to invest inefficiently,
137
374342
2272
06:28
in our own ideas that strike us as innovative,
138
376614
3982
06:32
on writing reports,
139
380596
2154
06:34
on plane tickets and SUVs.
140
382750
3846
06:38
What if the logic was,
141
386596
2324
06:40
will we do better than cash given directly?
142
388920
5271
06:46
Organizations would have to prove
143
394191
1510
06:47
that they're doing more good for the poor
144
395701
2229
06:49
than the poor can do for themselves.
145
397930
2756
06:52
Of course, giving cash won't create public goods
146
400686
2948
06:55
like eradicating disease or
building strong institutions,
building strong institutions,
147
403634
5318
07:00
but it could set a higher bar
148
408952
2226
07:03
for how we help individual families
149
411178
2962
07:06
improve their lives.
150
414140
3026
07:09
I believe in aid.
151
417166
1563
07:10
I believe most aid is better than just
152
418729
3099
07:13
throwing money out of a plane.
153
421828
1912
07:15
I am also absolutely certain
154
423740
2548
07:18
that a lot of aid today
155
426288
2233
07:20
isn't better than giving directly to the poor.
156
428521
3525
07:24
I hope that one day, it will be.
157
432046
3876
07:27
Thank you.
158
435922
2056
07:29
(Applause)
159
437978
3967
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joy Sun - Veteran aid workerTED Fellow Joy Sun helped to launch a rare type of charity. GiveDirectly lets donors transfer money directly into the hands of impoverished people — empowering them to set their own goals and priorities.
Why you should listen
The idea of using mobile technology to put cash directly into the hands of the poorest people on earth doesn’t sound crazy to veteran aid worker Joy Sun — it sounds deeply satisfying. In this talk, she talks about what happens when we use technology to give cash instead of services to the poor.
Joy Sun | Speaker | TED.com