Cash transfers

Abstract

Cash transfers are an intervention that gives cash grants to poor people in low-income countries. Those grants can either be unconditional, in which case funds are given without requiring recipients to take any specific action, or conditional, in which case the funds are tied to specific actions recipients take. This intervention report, which was last updated in 2018, discusses both types of cash transfers but focuses on unconditional cash transfers. We use unconditional cash transfers as a benchmark for comparing the cost-effectiveness of different funding opportunities (see here for more information about our current funding bar). We’re continuing to research unconditional cash transfers, with a focus on whether there might be positive spillover effects into areas adjacent to where cash transfers are received that could increase our estimate of its cost-effectiveness. In July 2022, we recommended a grant to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley to support a follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of GiveDirectly’s unconditional cash transfer program in Kenya. For more information about conditional cash transfers, see our more recent intervention reports on New Incentives’ program to provide conditional cash transfers to increase infant vaccination in Nigeria and our IRD Global’s program using an electronic immunization registry to deliver mobile conditional cash transfers to incentivize immunization in Pakistan.