But the debate may also prompt a reconsideration of longstanding assumptions in poverty alleviation. Justin Sandefur at the Center for Global Development told us there’s an “inevitable presumptuousness that comes with philanthropy,” where rich donors and philanthropies are making decisions on behalf of the global poor.
He shared one experiment in which the researchers brought ordinary Tanzanians together and polled them on what the government should do with a potential influx of natural resource money, then polled the same people again after they talked with experts and discussed.
“I think some of us went into that thinking there would be a lot of enthusiasm for cash transfers and for direct distribution of the resources,” Sandefur said. But what they found was that the study participants “through the process of deliberation moved away somewhat from cash towards spending more on social services essentially” — which subverted the researchers’ assumptions about the preferences of recipients.
