Piali – GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly launches in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Piali — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 03:15:00 +0000

You may have read our recent announcement that operations are afoot in Liberia. We’re excited to announce that we’ll be expanding our program to a fifth country: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As with Liberia, we’re learning that for each new launch, some of our standard playbook carries over (e.g. Day 1: figure out key contacts in the relevant government ministry we’re working with)…

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Targeting innovation in Kenya

Piali — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 22:25:00 +0000

Anti-poverty programs must often start with a rather obvious step: finding poor people. This may seem like a simple exercise, particularly in countries with high poverty rates. However, consider the potential pitfalls of some common approaches: a simple asset test (questions like “do you have a bicycle? A cow? A radio?”) may be easy to game; a complex survey tool assessing consumption may yield…

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In their own words: GiveDirectly’s first recipients reflect on the past three years

Piali — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:52:00 +0000

Last week, I met with six randomly-chosen recipients from the first villages GiveDirectly enrolled in 2012. We gathered in the home of Joshua, one of the recipients, who had used part of his transfer to build a permanent home for his family. We discussed challenges, goals, and the various ways these recipients had invested their transfers. Three years later, the impact was persistent and palpable.

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Cash transfers: not “whether,” but “how”

Piali — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:48:00 +0000

Many people think that simply giving money directly to the poor is a radical new idea. We’re flattered, but the reality is: it isn’t. Over the last decade, cash transfers have quietly become one of the most widely used poverty-fighting tools in the toolkits of aid agencies and emerging market governments. If the question about cash ten years ago was “whether,” the question now is “how.

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Two countries, one team

Piali — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 21:54:00 +0000

I had the great pleasure of attending our first East Africa staff retreat this past weekend. Eight members of our Kenya team made the six hour trip from Kisumu to Mbale, the hub for our Uganda country operations. Members of our Kenya and Uganda field teams gathered in Mbale, Uganda for last weekend’s GiveDirectly staff retreat. We spent three days together visiting recipients…

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GiveDirectly is in Uganda!

Piali — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 00:09:00 +0000

From the beginning, our goal at GiveDirectly has been to build an efficient and scalable platform to deliver cash transfers to poor people around the world. After months of planning and execution, we are very happy to announce that we now have a program up and running in a second country: Uganda! Cash transfer recipients gathered for a village meeting with GiveDirectly staff in Kawo village…

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A Report from the Field: Following Up with Cash Transfer Recipients

Piali — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:53:00 +0000

This post comes from Piali Mukhopadhyay, our Chief Operating Officer. As of this spring, Piali and our field team in Kenya have overseen the transfer of over $1 million to more than 1,000 households in Western province. They have also laid the groundwork to transfer $675,000 to an additional 1,500 households over the coming months. Last week Piali visited one village to meet with individuals…

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