GiveDirectly

GiveDirectly Pilot for Unconditional Cash Grants to Ugandan Refugees

Project disclaimer

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Description

A $3.4M pilot project delivering large cash transfers to ~4,400 protracted refugees and host community households in Uganda. This program delivered transfers of ~$660 to households living in extreme poverty in both refugee and local, host communities. The program was implemented in Uganda: home to over a million refugees, and also some of the world’s most progressive policies towards them. In Ugandas, refugees have the right to work, set up businesses, and are given small plots of land on which to live and farm. As such, it provided the opportunity to test the impact of large, unrestricted cash transfers, in an environment where refugees have relative freedom to invest them.

Objectives

Broadly speaking, the overall objectives are to: 1) To establish proof of concept for large, unconditional cash grants as a transformative and cost-effective model in protracted refugee settings, enabling the further scaling and testing required to promote widespread adoption. 2) To improve living standards of recipient households. More specifically, the first phase of the pilot had two core goals: 1. First, we sought to deliver direct benefit to the program’s recipients: families living in extreme poverty, often unable to meet their basic needs. Specifically, we looked to answer the following questions: A. What was the state of livelihoods amongst the recipients before transfers? B. What was the immediate impact of the transfers? C. What indication do we have of longer-term impact? D. What was the impact on social cohesion within communities, and between the refugee and host communities? 2. Second, we sought to address a series of key questions related to the feasibility of delivering large transfers in refugee settings. Specifically, we looked to answer: A. Can organizations effectively and efficiently deliver large transfers in refugee settings? B. Can recipients safely receive and withdraw large cash transfers in refugee settings? C. How do local markets respond to an injection of cash transfers? D. How would recipients themselves have improved on the delivery of the program?

Target Groups

There are two target groups for this project: 1) Protracted refugees who are no longer receiving World Food Programme food- or cash-based support. 2) Host community households from neighbouring villages, selected according to a proxy means test.

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Location

The country, countries or regions that benefit from this Programme.

Uganda

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