Cross-posted from the EA Forum

In this video, we outline a plan to eradicate global extreme poverty using cash transfers. The approach is based on GiveDirectly's internal research and documentation about the topic. Allen Liu, the first author of this post, has written the script. Writer, the second author, has given feedback. Give Directly provided significant help and feedback during the script-writing and storyboarding phases.

On the top-right of the YouTube page, we included a fundraiser for GiveDirectly. Our goal is to raise 100,000 USD by the end of the year.

Below, you can find the script of the video.

Over 600 million people worldwide can’t afford basic needs, like enough food, clean water, electricity, or basic life-saving healthcare^[1]. Their day to day survival is under threat in ways unimaginable to most people watching this video. It's honestly kind of embarrassing for humanity as a whole that hundreds of millions of us are suffering so much simply because they don't have enough money. Couldn’t we just give them some money? Could we actually end global extreme poverty with such an enticingly simple approach? Let's find out!

We would like to thank GiveDirectly for helping us write this video by providing their detailed research on the topic. They are a nonprofit that delivers donations as cash directly to people in extreme poverty across the world.

Giving money for people to spend without any restrictions is a type of aid called “unconditional cash transfers” or “UCTs”. Like all forms of aid, there are both advantages and limitations to cash transfers as a whole, and UCTs in particular.

If we want to end global extreme poverty through cash transfers, we’ll need to raise enough funds, and send them to the people who need them. We also need to be sure that we are actually helping the recipients, and not hurting people who are not receiving anything. We also recognize in advance that there are a host of moral and ethical questions involved with such a large undertaking. For example, who should be given money first? And do we need to prevent people becoming dependent on aid? Additionally, poverty does not exist in isolation from the world’s other major issues such as food security, human rights, and climate change. Those questions won’t be the main focus of this video. Instead, we’re goi...

Global poverty