美国国家公共电台 NPR How To Fix Poverty: Why Not Just Give People Money?

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

There's an unprecedented¹ experiment happening in a village in Kenya. Most people there had been scraping by on less than $2 a day. But last fall, an American charity announced they're going to give every adult an extra $22 a month every month for the next 12 years, no strings² attached. NPR's Nurith Aizenman traveled to the village and brought back this report.

(CROSSTALK)

NURITH AIZENMAN, BYLINE³: The villagers are gathering⁴ under some trees for one of their community meetings. Suddenly everyone's cell phone starts tinkling⁵.

(SOUNDBITE OF CELL PHONES RINGING)

AIZENMAN: It's an alert from the charity that's launched this experiment, a U.S.-based group called GiveDirectly. The money gets wired to mobile bank accounts linked to the villagers' phones. And this month's payment has just posted.

(CHEERING)

AIZENMAN: A bunch of the women break into song.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing in foreign language).

AIZENMAN: GiveDirectly was founded by some economists⁶ to challenge the traditional form of aid, giving poor people a cow or schoolbooks or training programs. What if you just gave people cash, let them decide how best to use it? Over the last decade, the charity has given away tens of millions. And they've shown through rigorous studies that people don't waste it. But those were modest, one-time cash grants.

With this experiment, GiveDirectly wants to see what happens when you give people a much longer runway, a guaranteed income they can count on for years. It plans to extend these monthly payments to every adult in hundreds of villages across Kenya and compare them to villages that don't get the cash. It'll take a long time to determine the impact. But right now, six months in, you can get a hint from two cousins who are smiling as they check their phones.

DENNIS OTIENO: I got it.

AIZENMAN: Dennis Otieno is a 36-year-old father of four. He holds up his phone to show his new balance.

D. OTIENO: Thank you.

AIZENMAN: Next to him is 30-year-old Dancan Odero, who is single, kind of shy but just as pleased as he clicks through his phone.

DANCAN ODERO: I'm more happy.

AIZENMAN: For each of them, the money has already proved life-changing but in totally different ways. I catch up with Dennis Otieno one morning in a field by his house as he slashes⁷ off tree branches with a machete. He's going to burn the wood to make charcoal⁸.

Otieno is an entrepreneurial kind of guy who all his life has been striving to climb out of poverty. He's tried being a mechanic, a fisherman, starting a bar. Nothing's worked. And finally there's this charcoal making.

D. OTIENO: I'm just going to carry those, go to the burning place there.

AIZENMAN: Sweat pours off him as he heaves the logs onto the burn pile. The process will take two days, after which he'll have enough charcoal to sell for at best $5.

D. OTIENO: Heavy work.

AIZENMAN: So the combined $44 a month Otieno and his wife have been getting from the charity is boosting their income by as much as 50 percent. The benefits - his 2-year-old daughter Gloria - she's healthy, full of pep. She used to cry all the time because she was hungry. Now Otieno can guarantee her solid food every day. She picks up a stick, pretends it's a machete. Which are your cuttings, Otieno asks her, speaking the local language, Dholuo.

GLORIA: (Speaking Dholuo).

D. OTIENO: (Laughter).

AIZENMAN: "These," she says, pointing at some leaves. Longer-term, Otieno has even more ambitious plans for his kids.

D. OTIENO: Well, I'm thinking of putting up a forest.

AIZENMAN: A forest of eucalyptus⁹ trees. They're used as lumber¹⁰ in construction. Every month, Otieno has been setting aside $10 of the charity money to save up for saplings. They should be big enough to sell in five years. He wants to use the money to put all four of his kids through high school.

D. OTIENO: Yes.

AIZENMAN: And that's basically going to be your children's high school tuition.

D. OTIENO: Yes, that's going to be their bank.

AIZENMAN: Their bank account and maybe more. Otieno hopes this venture will be the one that finally boosts his family out of poverty so that 12 years from now when the money from the charity stops flowing, they won't need it. Now to Otieno's cousin Dancan Odero, the young, single guy. He's had a different experience. When I catch up with him, he's also hacking¹¹ at branches. This field belongs to his elderly aunt. He's clearing underbrush while he chats with her.

ODERO: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: She looks worried. Odero has epilepsy. Working in the sun is risky¹².

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: "I'm scared he could have a seizure¹³ right here," she says.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: Have you seen him fall down like that?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: "Yeah," she says, "many times, but he insisted on helping¹⁴." Odero's family says he's constantly trying to prove he can be useful, be independent. But people hesitate to hire him for even odd jobs. He'll go out with the other young guys to look for work, then watch as everyone gets picked but him. Back at his house, he says...

ODERO: (Through interpreter) It makes me so frustrated¹⁵. I start shaking, and I feel like crying, but I just keep it inside.

AIZENMAN: With no real income of his own he's had to rely on his mother and siblings¹⁶ to pay for even food, let alone his medication. And his sister Betty says he so hates having to keep asking for money that there were times he wouldn't even tell them he was out of epilepsy drugs.

BETTY: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: They'd just notice his attacks were getting more frequent and realize...

BETTY: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: ...Oh, he's got no medicine. But these days, Odero says he can use the new charity money to buy his meds.

ODERO: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: He takes them out...

ODERO: (Through interpreter) These ones are known as phenobarb.

AIZENMAN: ...Handling them very carefully. They eat up a third of his monthly payment. Still, he's had enough left over to save up for something just as precious to him - a sofa and two armchairs. See; in the village, when a guy reaches adulthood¹⁷, he builds himself a house on his parents land, a mud hut with a living area and sleeping nook. But Odero never had the money. It wasn't until a year ago that his brothers built one for him. Even then, he had no furniture. He says buying that sofa set was important so that when guests came to visit...

ODERO: (Through interpreter) I wouldn't be ashamed.

AIZENMAN: Now, unlike his cousin Dennis Otieno, Odero has no scheme for how to use the charity income to make more money, no plan for the day the money will stop coming.

Do you worry that at that point, you will be back to where you were before?

ODERO: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: "Yes," he says. "I think I might." Is that a problem? Michael Faye, the chairman of GiveDirectly, says not necessarily.

MICHAEL FAYE: We would obviously hope cash has the long-term impact.

AIZENMAN: But he points out that nonetheless, every year, the world spends billions on food and other traditional aid for desperate people with no expectation it's going to permanently¹⁸ lift them out of poverty. And he says it would be enough for this experiment to show the value of just giving those people cash.

FAYE: Let them make the choices. The poor are pretty good at making them.

AIZENMAN: Only they can know the specific ways poverty does its damage. For Odero, what poverty really stole from him was his dignity, and the couch set is what's given it back. Now when he invites people over, he has a place for them to sit in.

ODERO: (Through interpreter) Now I can be seen as a human being.

AIZENMAN: And for practical, go-getter Otieno, it's late afternoon. Otieno and his wife, Bentah, are sitting in their hut, calculating their budget for the month.

BENTAH OTIENO: (Speaking Dholuo).

D. OTIENO: (Speaking Dholuo).

AIZENMAN: They never used to talk money - too stressful. And the silence had creeped into the rest of their relationship. But now figuring out how to spend the charity windfall has become this hopeful joint¹⁹ project, and it's got them doing other fun stuff together.

D. OTIENO: Walk around the village, pairing hands. It's like we married the other day.

AIZENMAN: You're like newlyweds.

D. OTIENO: Yeah, right.

AIZENMAN: Like newlyweds, he says.

D. OTIENO: (Laughter).

AIZENMAN: Nurith Aizenman, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF DJ JAZZY JEFF AND DAVE GHETTO SONG, "COME ON")

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

5 tinkling   

n.丁当作响声

参考例句：

• I could hear bells tinkling in the distance. 我能听到远处叮当铃响。
• To talk to him was like listening to the tinkling of a worn-out musical-box. 跟他说话，犹如听一架老掉牙的八音盒子丁冬响。 来自英汉文学

6 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 slashes   

n.（用刀等）砍( slash的名词复数 )；（长而窄的）伤口；斜杠；撒尿v.挥砍( slash的第三人称单数 )；鞭打；割破；削减

参考例句：

• They report substantial slashes in this year's defense outlays. 他们报道今年度国防经费的大量削减。 来自辞典例句
• Inmates suffered injuries ranging from stab wounds and slashes to head trauma. 囚犯们有的被刺伤，有的被砍伤，而有的头部首创，伤势不一而足。 来自互联网

8 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

9 eucalyptus   

n.桉树，桉属植物

参考例句：

• Eucalyptus oil is good for easing muscular aches and pains.桉树油可以很好地缓解肌肉的疼痛。
• The birds rustled in the eucalyptus trees.鸟在桉树弄出沙沙的响声。

10 lumber   

n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动

参考例句：

• The truck was sent to carry lumber.卡车被派出去运木材。
• They slapped together a cabin out of old lumber.他们利用旧木料草草地盖起了一间小屋。

11 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

12 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

13 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

14 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

15 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

17 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

18 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

19 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。