Can cash handouts replace aid? Kenya offers some answers

"My family often went to bed hungry, my children were sent home from school for unpaid fees and I was buried in debt," said Karisa, a father of five. Now he beams at his lush farm blooming with okra, the result of a one-off donation of 110,000 Kenyan shillings (roughly $930 at the time) from a New York-based NGO, GiveDirectly. He used the cash to lease a plot of land with two neighbours in his village of Milore, install an irrigation system and start farming. He built up credit and bought two cows...