GiveDirectly Uganda Endline Report: Unconditional cash transfers in Kiryandongo refugee settlement, Uganda
GiveDirectly Uganda Endline Report: Unconditional cash transfers in Kiryandongo refugee settlement, Uganda
Many studies have shown that large, unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) reduce poverty and improve quality of life, at least in the short run. But will UCTs be as successful in refugee communities, where residents face larger barriers to income-generating opportunities? And will they have similar effects in the context of the dual shocks of COVID-19 and aid cuts? The non-profit organization GiveDirectly is providing a 1,000 USD UCT to ~10,000 refugee households and ~5,000 host community households in Kiryandongo District, Uganda over three years. As the evaluation partner, IDinsight conducted an impact evaluation to examine the impact of cash transfers on households and to inform future decision-making about cash programs by donors and implementing organizations. The impact evaluation included a randomized controlled trial and a longitudinal, qualitative study. Through a public lottery, IDinsight and GiveDirectly randomly assigned ~9,000 refugee households to one of 24 cohorts to receive the cash transfers sequentially. For our study, cohorts 1 and 2 are the “treatment” group, and a random sample of cohorts 17 to 20 is the “control” group. We measure outcomes ~19 months after most treatment households received the cash transfer. The impact evaluation shows that – amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and cuts to the monthly World Food Programme cash and food aid – refugees in Kiryandongo effectively used the cash transfer to improve their economic and psychological well-being. By our endline survey, treatment households owned more assets, consumed more goods and services, and earned more business income compared to the control group. The observed effects are in line with the effect sizes observed in other large UCT studies conducted outside of refugee settlements.