Who needs cash?

Imagine you had to leave your home and flee to a different place for safety. Imagine you’ve already spent any savings you had, you’ve already sold your jewelry and spent what that brought in. You reach a safe place and find an empty building to squat in. You were given an emergency kit of food, water and hygiene items but this only lasted you a week. You have to ask for a line of credit in the local shop in order to get some flour to make bread with. You need to buy some basic medicines and some tarpaulin to try and seal off the empty windows in your house.

At this point, what do you need most? Cash. Cash is what you need. We could give you a pre-defined kit of something like cooking equipment and household items, but you may not need everything we would give you and so you would end up selling some of the items at a lower than market value in order to get the cash you need to buy the things your family really needs. We could give you a pre-defined food parcel, but this would not allow you to cater for the specific spices or ingredients that your family likes.

In a place like Iraq, where businesses and shops are the first things to re-open when areas are re-captured, giving people cash in some form is almost always the best option compared to giving actual items. It is a double-whammy of good programming – it gives people choice and dignity, and it supports the local economy. It is also efficient from the donor’s point of view – we don’t have to spend time and money procuring items, storing them in warehouses, paying to truck them to distribution sites etc. And even when we know what people need is warm clothes for winter, how much better it is to do what Tearfund did this year. Instead of giving bags of pre-selected clothes to families, hoping they’d swap them around between themselves to find things that fit their needs (as many agencies do), Tearfund invited a clothes trader to come and set up a mobile shop in a big tent. Then they gave each family a voucher to spend in the shop, and a bag to put their selected items in. How much more dignified to be able to go and browse and choose what you need. Of course, we can’t always work like this, but when we can, we should.

Last week we did our first cash distribution inside Mosul. It was quite a momentous occasion as highly vulnerable families received the equivalent of $400 each to help them purchase the essentials they need to help them get back on their feet following their recent displacement. As we listened to the mortars falling nearby, I was so humbled to see the respect with which my staff treated each individual, with how peacefully everyone waited their turn to receive their cash, and the clear relief when they walked away. People who had lost everything, who are living in such incredibly difficult circumstances now have a tiny bit of control back. Men can once again provide something of what their families need. Mothers can breathe a little easier. It’s not much, and it's not the only way we should be helping, but I’m convinced that it’s so much better than a box of stuff that we selected on their behalf.

All this is why I find it so hard to see the clothing collections going on in the UK at the moment for Iraq. I understand that it’s nice to feel a tangible connection with your giving. I understand that giving your unwanted clothes gives you the impression that you are avoiding waste (both because your clothes are ‘recycled’ and because you imagine that the costs associated with this kind of aid are low). But is it the best for the person you are trying to help? Is it the best for the country where you are sending it? And is it even financially savvy? The cost of trucking items all the way here is phenomenal. Clothes here can be inexpensive, they come from Turkey – they cross just a single border to get here. You have the opportunity to provide dignity to those who so desperately need it, as well as supporting the wider re-building of the Iraq economy by giving your money to agencies like DRC and Tearfund (and many others) who prioritise cash programming as much as possible. 

P.S. For the most part giving is giving. You are not actually doing harm to vulnerable people by sending second hand clothes here. I'm just trying to provoke you in to thinking it through a bit more, and putting the needs of the recipient before your need to feel useful. Not everyone will agree with me, and that's fine :-)