42 2GM Saturday June 11 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
Bad knee forces Pope
to cancel Africa visit
Vatican City The Pope has
cancelled his trip to the
Democratic Republic of Congo
and South Sudan because of a
problem with his knee. In a
statement yesterday the Vatican
announced that the trip from July
2 to 7 had been postponed on
doctors’ orders, with a new date
yet to be set. It said: “In order not
to jeopardise the results of the
therapy that he is undergoing for
his knee, the Holy Father has
been forced to postpone, with
regret, his Apostolic journey.” The
Pope has been using a wheelchair
for about a month because of
strained ligaments in his right
knee that have made walking and
standing difficult. (AP)Abolition of mandatory
death penalty in sight
Malaysia The government has
agreed to abolish the mandatory
death penalty and allow judges to
choose alternatives. It will
consider other punishments for 11
offences that carry a mandatory
death sentence, and for more
than 20 that can incur one. The
changes to the law will need to be
passed by parliament first.
Malaysia has more than 1,300
people on death row. (AP)Ramaphosa shouted
down in parliament
South Africa Attempts by
President Ramaphosa to speak in
parliament were disrupted for a
second day as opposition MPs
confronted him over allegations
that he tried to cover up the theft
of cash from his game farm. He
was accused of laundering money
at the farm and trying to hide it
by not reporting the theft to the
police. Ramaphosa has denied
any wrongdoing. (AP)Calls for equality at Tel
Aviv’s Pride Parade
Israel Tens of thousands of people
attended this year’s Pride Parade
in Tel Aviv. Israel is a rare bastion
of tolerance for the LGBTQ
community in the conservative
Middle East. Gay people serve
openly in Israel’s military and
parliament, yet they haven’t
attained full equality. Jewish
ultra-Orthodox parties oppose
homosexuality as do other
religious groups in Israel. (AP)KFC cabbage ‘scandal’
makes PM spitting mad
Australia Anthony Albanese, the
prime minister, declared a
tongue-in-cheek “national crisis”
after KFC said it was replacing
lettuce in its Zinger burgers with
a cabbage mix because of rising
costs. The price of a lettuce has
risen fourfold to about £4.50 in
Sydney and Melbourne. Albanese
said “cabbage isn’t lettuce... that’s
just wrong” and vowed to put it
on the cabinet’s agenda. (AFP)Thirteen arrested over
Tehran bank break-in
Iran The authorities have arrested
13 people suspected of stealing
168 safe deposit boxes by cutting
into the vault of a Tehran bank
near a police station. A car
containing stolen jewellery, gold
coins and dollar bills was found
abandoned at one of the city’s
airports. Three of the suspects
were arrested abroad. Bank raids
are rare in Iran and if convicted
they all face long sentences. (AP)The smile has not left Lusiya Chikoya’s
face since she and every adult from her
village were offered a life-changing
lump of cash: not a loan, an American
charity assured them, but a gift, with no
strings attached.
Despite never having had much
money to spend, Chikoya was quite
sure how she could use the promised
$600 — a sum that would take a local
farm labourer five years to make in this
poor pocket of Malawi.
Buying piglets for breeding would
bring a return; as might educating her
four children. “There hasn’t always
been money for school,” Chikoya, 44,
told The Times, nodding to where one of
her sons was attending to his harvest of
ground nuts. “Having a doctor for a
child would be lovely.”
Not telling recipients what to do with
their windfall is central to GiveDirectly,
a New York-based charity that was
started in 2008 by four Ivy League
graduates. It operates in 11 countries,
most of them in Africa, with an
approach that has drawn interest from
Silicon Valley’s philanthropists. Donors
include Elon Musk, the world’s richest
person, the Twitter founder Jack Dor-
sey and MacKenzie Scott, the former
wife of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Many are harder to convince that
“biased social priorities”. Yet, in Malawi,
there can be little doubt of its immedi-
ate effect. New bicycles and metal roofs
glint in the village of Mwanda, a few
miles from Kasamila, where transfers
were introduced two months ago. To
minimise resentment and disruption
between local economies, the charity’s
“saturation” model aims to reach every
village in a targeted district.
National poverty data, the census
and satellite images are used to identify
candidate communities. Since opening
its Malawi office in 2019, GiveDirectly
has dispersed $41.3 million to 86,000
people in 1,284 villages.
Among the youngest is Maupo
Gidion, 22, who wants a different life to
his farmer parents. Already one of the
world’s poorest countries, where most
of its 18 million population rely on agri-APT
he wedding
was
traditional.
The bride
wore red, as
Hindu brides do, and
was weighed down by
ornaments, from
jewels draped in her
hair to rings on her
toes (Amrit Dhillon
writes).
One thing was
missing, however: a
groom. Kshama
Bindu, 24, married
herself in Vadodara,
Gujarat, in perhaps
India’s first
“sologamy”. The kiss
after the ceremony
was to her reflection
in the mirror.
“I had always, since
I was a little girl,
wanted to be a bride,
to be in the limelight,”
she said. “But I didn’t
want a man or
married life. It’s a
gesture of self-love. I
am making a
commitment to love
and look after
myself.”
Bindu was
surrounded by family
and friends who
supported her despitetheir initial shock.
Bindu said: “My
friends told me to
take a deep breath
and think carefully.”
Others were not
convinced. The plan
was for a priest to
marry Bindu in a
local temple but
Sunita Shukla, of the
ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party, found
out and protested.
“She told me I could
not misuse a Hindu
temple for this ‘crazy’
purpose and accused
me of being seduced
by the West. This
scared the priest, who
told me he’d rather
marry me to a tree
than to myself,” she
said. The situation
became so fraught
that Bindu had the
wedding three days
before the planned
date at an undisclosed
venue, with a taped
recording of a priest
performing the
rituals. She plans to
have a honeymoon in
Goa: “I am looking
forward to celebrating
my sologamy with no
husband around.”No second thoughts as
bride marries herself
Kshama Bindu, 24,
said that her solo
wedding was a
“gesture of self-love”Cash handouts to families in
Africa signal an aid revolution
cash aid will not be splurged on the al-
cohol, gambling and substance abuse
that affects the world’s poorest nations.
Scarce evidence of any frittering has
been found in more than 300 studies,
however, and the approach is gathering
interest in mainstream development
circles.
As a courtesy to tradition, Henry
Chibwe, 48, Kasamila’s chief and Chik-
oya’s husband, was approached by the
charity with the proposal a day before
everyone else. Its field team moved
quickly, arranging a census in days,
running eligibility checks and issuing
phones.
Rory Stewart, the UK’s former secre-
tary of state for international develop-
ment, has become an “apostle” for
direct cash support, describing trans-
fers as “probably the most effective
single intervention you can do for a
very poor family”.
It is also cheap to administer. Of
every $1 donated to GiveDirectly, it
promises that 89 cents reaches recipi-
ents. At Oxfam, 70 cents of every euro
is “directly invested in humanitarian
work, development programs and
influencing work”, according to its
website.
Still, cash can take the very poor only
so far. Growth in per capita income
does not improve outcomes in key
areas such as education and health in
the absence of government policy
shifts. Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-
winning Indian economist, has warned
of the potential unintended conse-
quences in switching to cash transfers
from development programmes, such
as food and education, since women
and girls could be disadvantaged byculture, Malawi is also among the most
vulnerable to climate change. Losing
harvests and homes to cyclones traps
people below the extreme poverty line
— living on less than $1.90 a day.
“I don’t want to be dependent on the
weather, being in business looks better
to me,” said Gidion on his front porch,
which doubles as a barber’s shop. Pur-
chases from two cash transfers includ-
ed hair clippers, school uniform and
pens for a younger brother and a large
solar panel from which he charges
neighbours’ phones for a small fee.
Four hours’ drive south from there,
Ngatala villagers in Mangochi district
received their final transfer from Give-
Directly a year ago. A total of $800 split
into two lump sums over 12 months was
transferred to 425 households. Recipi-
ents who spent theirs on homes and
transport are picking up work from
building sites and new businesses.
Stafford Kamwendo, 38, a smallhold-
er and the local pastor, decided against
any short-term comfort. “I would
rather plant something now that will
pay for a house later,” he said. A new
pump and irrigation pipes bring water
from the river to every inch of his three-
acre plot where he now grows cash
crops instead of food. His first harvest
of sugar cane earned him $100. Other
assets include a large speaker for his
church and a generator.
When the very poor have money
they spend it locally, research has
shown, which passes on benefits to
others. For every $100 handed directly
to households the total local impact is
between $250 and $270 when the
effects for recipients and non-recipi-
ents are included.Lusiya Chikoya, centre, spent her
$600 gift on piglets for breedingRadical approach is
already reaping
rewards, writes
Jane Flanagan
in Malawi