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At the centre Aid is not development: transfers can relieve poverty, but the work that actually lifts a country out of it is not work donors do. Holds CBChris BlattmanOKOliver Kim Read this korrent →

• Similar wording The case for giving poor people cash is not that it is a cure, but that it is less bad than most of what aid already does. Holds CBChris Blattman
• Similar wording Some aid programmes will beat cash at solving a specific problem, but few will beat it at simply making poor people less poor. Holds CBChris Blattman
• Similar wording Many aid programmes will beat cash on cost-effectiveness, and the ones that do will be those that fix a market failure or a supply problem. Holds CBChris Blattman
• Similar wording Cash helps a poor person whose only obstacle is a lack of capital, and does little for anyone whose obstacle is something else. Holds CBChris Blattman
• Similar wording Cash transfers are the index fund of development: the benchmark every actively managed aid programme should have to beat. Holds CBChris Blattman
• Similar wording Aid transforms a country only where a capable state with a development plan is already there to spend it. Holds OKOliver Kim
• Similar wording Aid to African states has been large enough to warp their politics and too small to transform their economies. Holds OKOliver Kim
• Similar wording Development economists can contribute far less to a poor country’s growth policy in real time than either they or their critics assume. Holds NSNoah Smith