27 February 2021 | New Scientist | 39>Eradicate
world
poverty
Perhaps the most important thing we could
do for human welfare would be to alleviate
poverty. According to the World Bank, about
10 per cent of the planet’s population, or
760 million people, earn $1.90 or less per day.
The hardship is such that the life expectancy
of the world’s poorest people is nearly 15 years
lower than that of the richest.
The widespread policy of easing taxes on
business and wealth with the expectation that
money will “trickle down” hasn’t helped the
world’s poorest. So let’s try something else.
We will give everyone in extreme poverty
a lump sum of up to $1000, or equivalent
assets. One objection often raised against
such proposals is that people will waste such
gifts. However, a 2014 review of cash handouts
by the World Bank found that this is hardly
ever the case. People tend to use handouts
wisely. Even one-off cash and asset transfers
seem to genuinely change people’s lives.
In a trial in Bangladesh, for example,
ultra-poor families were given assets in
the form of livestock. Follow-ups showed
that the handouts had sustainably changed
their lives and put them on a new trajectory
out of extreme poverty.
Similar asset-transfer programmes have
been rolled out in Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras,
India, Pakistan and Peru, involving a total
of more than 10,000 people. After the second
year of this project, families enrolled in the