GiveDirectly
Location
Uganda
Sector
Reconstruction & Relief
Type of Investment
Grant
Project Stage
Test & Transition
Length of Investment
2019+
Website
Investment Overview
GiveDirectly will engage extensively with major players in the humanitarian space including UNHCR, and, conditional on the efficacy of the intervention, help influence policy makers, host governments, donors and implementing organisations to shift toward the use of large cash transfers in refugee settings.
The Development Challenge
An estimated 65 million people are currently forcibly displaced from their homes by conflict. Of these, 22.5 million are refugees, and most are hosted by countries which are also afflicted by poverty and political fragility. Though the expectation is that refugees are displaced for a short duration, refugees are increasingly living in refugee camps and settlements for prolonged periods. About two-thirds of refugees have been displaced from their home country for five consecutive years or more. The focus of refugee aid is currently on short-term solutions (such as emergency food rations), rather than on longer-term solutions with potential to help refugees improve self-sufficiency and build sustainable livelihoods. Approximately USD 3.4 billion of international aid is spent supporting long-term refugees through various forms of short-term, in-kind assistance. Humanitarian aid in refugee contexts is in need of a change of approach.
The Innovation
Traditional refugee aid is typically in-kind forms of relief (food, shelter, clothes) or more recently, small and frequent small cash transfers, both of which essentially service consumption requirements. GiveDirectly’s innovation is to test whether delivering a relatively large lump-sum cash transfer, as opposed to traditional forms of aid, can enable refugees to jump start a better life and build sustainable livelihoods. By generating learnings and adding to the evidence base, GiveDirectly aims to influence the effectiveness and efficiency of aid money spent in refugee resettlement.
Our Investment
The objectives of GIF support are as follows:
- Successful delivery of large, unconditional cash transfers efficiently and impactfully to help improve the lives of refugees and host nationals.
- Successful delivery of a robust external impact evaluation, consisting of a randomised controlled trial and qualitative research, on the lives of refugees and host nationals in order to fill an existing evidence gap and inform future decision-making about cash programmes by donors and implementing organisations.
- Dissemination of learnings and findings from evidence generated using strategic communications and advocacy, conditional on the efficacy of the intervention, to influence practitioners, policy makers, and donors in the humanitarian sector to shift towards a more efficient and effective (in terms of enabling the creation of sustainable livelihoods) cash transfer approach.
Investment Objective
To deliver large, lump sum cash transfers to improve the lives of refugees and host nationals, and to conduct a randomised controlled trial to demonstrate success in a refugee context, and use the findings to advocate for wider adoption as a potentially more efficient and effective refugee aid model.
Why we invested
There is currently little evidence around the impact of the use of large cash transfers in refugee settings.
Refugee situations are becoming increasingly protracted. It is estimated that more than 80% of refugee crises last for ten years or more.
The project addresses an important issue of increasing efficiency of funds in the humanitarian space at a time of constrained funding and high need.
There is interest in this project from large UN agencies as well as other donors and implementing organisations.
GiveDirectly has an experienced team leading this project and is a reputed organisation in the domain of cash-transfers research and implementation.
This investment is aligned with GIF’s priority investment theme of Improving How Public Services Work for the Poor.
GiveDirectly in numbers
Of refugee crises last for ten years or more
Have received unrestricted cash transfers so far
Innovating for Climate Resilience
The world’s poorest are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they are both more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods and less equipped to adapt and respond, given their limited access to financial resources. Cash transfers can help them build climate resilience by increasing household consumption and providing them with opportunities to invest in assets or save money so they can better cope with adverse climate shocks in the future.
GiveDirectly Impact Brief
Introduction
The international humanitarian sector is seeking out more efficacious and efficient ways of managing the $3.4 billion in annual spending on refugee aid, which tends to be makeshift and in-kind in nature. Though the expectation is that refugees are displaced for a short duration, refugees are increasingly living in refugee camps and settlements for prolonged periods. Of the 25 million refugees in the world today, about two-thirds have been displaced from their home country for five consecutive years or more, and it is estimated that more than 80% of refugee crises last for ten years or more (click here to read more). Larger lump-sum cash transfers offer the possibility of transitioning refugee assistance towards the creation of sustainable livelihoods.
GiveDirectly’s innovation is to deliver large, lump-sum, unconditional cash transfers to long-term refugees to enable them to rebuild their lives in their new, adopted homes. Cash transfers are also provided to people living in host communities, who are living in poverty and are often excluded from services provided to refugees. GiveDirectly’s project in Uganda’s Kiryandongo settlement builds on an operational pilot in 2017 and will rigorously test the impact of this solution through a randomised controlled trial. In 2019, GIF contributed a $2.1M grant toward this project, which aims to fill an evidence gap for large, lump-sum cash transfers in protracted refugee settings while simultaneously providing over 9000 recipients with transfers to facilitate their sustainable integration into host communities. The evidence generated by the study may help influence stakeholders in the humanitarian sector to shift toward more efficient and efficacious cash approaches as part of their refugee assistance programmes.
Use of GIF Funds
GIF funding of $2.1 million is allocated to the following cost categories:
Direct cash transfers and the costs of facilitating transfer
Operational costs including personnel, software, equipment, travel etc.
Communications and dissemination activities
Objectives
To deliver large, lump sum cash transfers to improve the lives of refugees and host nationals, and to conduct a randomised controlled trial to demonstrate success in a refugee context, and use the findings to advocate for wider adoption as a potentially more efficient and effective refugee aid model.
Increase effectiveness of humanitarian aid by adding to the evidence base, providing a de-risked implementation model, and supporting advocacy.
Deliver large, unconditional cash transfers efficiently and impactfully to help improve the lives of refugees and host nationals.
Deliver a robust external impact evaluation, in the form of a randomised controlled trial and qualitative research, on the lives of refugees and host nationals in order to fill an existing evidence gap and inform future decision-making about cash programmes by donors and implementing organisations.
Disseminate learnings and findings from evidence generated using strategic communications and advocacy, conditional on the efficacy of the intervention, to influence practitioners, policy makers, and donors in the humanitarian sector to shift towards a more efficient and effective (in terms of enabling the creation of sustainable livelihoods) cash transfer approach.
Impact to Date
To date, GiveDirectly has provided unrestricted cash transfers to over 4,800 households living in the Kiryandongo refugee settlement via a mobile money payments platform. Over half of the beneficiary households are refugee households and the remaining are host households. The research study is ongoing.