With the launch of their Future Perfect section, Vox discusses IPA research on cash benchmarking, comparing cash to the multi-faceted "graduation approach" to helping the poorest of the poor. They discuss how this worked in Uganda and a large-scale randomization tested in Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, India, Pakistan, and Peru. The piece and the research highlight when cash can be effective, but also how IPA is finding out what might work even better.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Christine Emba writes on an IPA cash benchmarking study in Rwanda, connecting it to a broader debate on the most effective methods to reduce poverty
Vox's Dylan Matthews covers an IPA cash benchmarking study in Rwanda and the context around it, including interviews with Berk Özler of the World Bank and Amanda Glassman of the Center for Global Development.
Wired reports on an IPA study on cash benchmarking in Rwanda. The evaluation compared how a standard WASH and nutrition program compares to just giving people cash, measuring impacts on indicators of poverty and malnutrition.
GiveDirectly co-founders Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus write about a cash benchmarking evaluation in Rwanda. This IPA study compared a standard nutrition and WASH program to cash transfers.
NPR's All Things Considered features an IPA study on cash benchmarking in Rwanda. The study compared a standard nutrition and WASH program to cash transfers.
Quartz’s technology and science reporter, Michael Coren, reviews IPA’s cash benchmarking study in Rwanda.
In the New York Times Fixes Column, Marc Gunther writes about an IPA study on cash benchmarking in Rwanda. The study compared how a standard WASH and nutrition program compares to just giving people cash, measuring impacts on indicators of poverty and malnutrition. While that column was released before the results were out, you can read Gunther’s reflections on the implications of the results on his blog, here.
While many cash transfer studies report outcomes over the first several years, Vox reports on IPA returning to study how Ugandan cash beneficiaries fared nine years later. Christopher Blattman describes, how he, with Nathan Fiala and Sebastian Martinez, found that their conclusions changed when discovering the comparison group caught up to the cash recipients in the long run.
Uganda's New Vision reports on IPA's randomized evaluations of several variations of programs designed to help the ultra poor in Uganda. The article also discusses the use of the Poverty Probability Index (PPI®) as a measure of poverty in a population, as used in the study.
Nature's news section covers an evaluation in Kenya conducted by IPA and GiveDirectly on the effects of a universal basic income (UBI), a type of unconditional cash transfer that is enough to meet basic needs, and delivered to everyone within a community. Researchers are monitoring the short and long-term effects of UBI as well as their effect on factors including economic status, time use, risk-taking, and gender relations.
BBC News highlights an ongoing IPA study, in partnership with GiveDirectly, evaluating the effects of universal basic income (UBI) in rural Kenya.
Dianne Calvi of Village Enterprise writes on NextBillion about their work with IPA to evaluate their ultra-poor graduation programming in Uganda. Nathanael Goldberg, director of IPA’s Social Protection program, explained how studies like these can help inform the development of scalable and streamlined programming.
Mother Jones covers recent discussion on the long term effects of cash transfers, including Chris Blattman's reflections on a study he and other IPA-affiliated researchers conducted with IPA in Uganda.
The Daily Monitor covers the personal impact of Village Enterprise’s graduation-style program in Uganda, which provides poor households with cash transfers, mentorship, training, and support for the formation of businesses and savings groups over a one-year period. Village Enterprise and IPA Uganda partnered with researchers to conduct a randomized evaluation of this program.
