By: Mike Kubzansky, Tracy Williams
February 7, 2017
Omidyar Network’s foundational belief that empowering people frees them to better themselves, their families, and their communities has great evidence in the growing literature around the benefits of cash transfers. In these programs, low income individuals who receive cash benefits achieve remarkable outcomes in country after country: improvements in nutrition, household income, status of women, school attendance, and a range of other positive indicators.
Given this compelling fact base, it is clear that cash transfers have an important role to play in alleviating poverty and empowering people. In addition, they are at the crux of two other strategic development areas. First, they provide a strong use case for digitization of financial services, an essential first step toward a more inclusive financial system, as well as government transparency. In fact, driving the shift to digital payments with government to people (G2P) cash transfers is why we support the work of groups like the Better Than Cash Alliance.