Our MOU With GiveDirectly For COVID-19 Unconditional Cash Transfer Program For Youth

The Youth Café recently made and entered into a Memorandum of Understanding agreement with GiveDirectly Inc., thereby forming a partnership between the two organizations. The purpose of this partnership is to contribute to enhanced economic empowerment within identified locations of Nairobi and ultimate eradication of poverty which in turn will positively impact the lives of the beneficiaries and communities.

This program focuses on the disbursement of emergency grants (cash grants) by GiveDirectly to people mainly living in informal settlements in Kenya in which The Youth Café currently works. As a result of this partnership, thousands of youths have been able to benefit from this program where they each received a disbursement of $30 for 4 months.

COVID-19 has affected all people’s lives in ways no other crisis has. Many governments have imposed lockdowns to limit the spread of COVID-19 leading to youths from the informal settlements suddenly being unable to continue earning a living.

So, when you lose your job and you live in the informal settlement what’s next for you? If you are coping well during this time and are able to help someone worse off, don’t you think now is the time to act and help out where you can? This is the time for direct giving- a fast, efficient, and unconditional method to help out people who have been affected.

GiveDirectly is at the forefront of implementing a support project which involves the provision of emergency grants (unconditional cash transfers) to people mainly living in informal settlements in Kenya while measures to restrict the spread of COVID-19 are in force in Kenya. In the midst of a global pandemic which has altered daily life and created urgent needs in communities around the world, GiveDirectly in partnership with other organizations such as The Youth Cafe, Generation Kenya, SHOFCO, MYSA, Shujaaz, Hope Worldwide, Access Afya, Carolina for Kibera, Nairobi County, Youth Bunge, Ghetto Foundation, Ruben Center, AVSI among other organizations have sought to move rapidly to help the affected youths and ensure efficient implementation of this project.

The Youth Café is a not-for-profit youth organization incorporated in Kenya as a company limited by guarantee. As an organization that works with young men and women in Africa and around the world to enable youth empowerment, all its finances go directly to its youth empowerment programs. We target the current youth bulge as an opportunity for development and economic growth and our motivation is to see every young person and youth organization in Africa benefit from The Youth Café towards a sustainable, entrepreneurial, and innovative future by connecting them with new ideas, skills, and people.

We implement a broad range of personal and professional youth development programs spanning life skills, job activations, media advocacy, entrepreneurship, and peace and conflict prevention, among others. Today, we have reached over 1.6 million young men and women with our projects. Imagine you are living in an informal settlement and due to the COVID-19, you lost your job. You then receive funds with no conditions on how to spend the funds. Won’t this be great news for you! Thinking of it, this is really a great idea! The Youth Café in partnership with GiveDirectly Inc., mostly known as GiveDirect has turned this idea into a reality for individuals living in the informal settlements in Nairobi. Young people are a tremendous and essential asset worth investing in.

So what is GiveDirectly organization all about? GiveDirectly is a duly registered organization based in New York, US, and operating in East Africa (and for the purposes hereof, in Kenya), that helps families and individuals living in extreme poverty by making unconditional cash transfers to them. GiveDirectly, as the first and largest nonprofit, aims to reshape international giving by allowing individual donors, foundations, businesses, and institutions like USAID, Google, and Good Ventures among others who value transparency, rigorous evaluation, and respect for the poor, to send money directly to the world’s poorest. It conducts cash transfer programs in multiple countries and has operated in Kenya since 2011.

They are a leading global NGO specialized in delivering digital cash transfers. As an organization, ‘they believe people living in poverty deserve the dignity to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives and what best to enable that choice but through cash.’ The Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs) allow poor households the choice and flexibility of allocating resources to meet the needs they find most pressing. With the economic effects of COVID-19 hitting the youths from the informal settlements hardest and fastest, GiveDirectly has made it their top priority to move quickly to get cash to these youths. The goals of this particular project include: positively impacting the lives of the recipients, provide recipients with vital support during the COVID-19 crisis and protect the most vulnerable in Nairobi by lessening the need to move around to seek work.

How exactly does this project go about? GiveDirectly independently establishes and manages a coordination mechanism for the project. They manage and implement the project, including registration of beneficiaries, eligibility criteria, transfers directly to beneficiaries through mobile money, and follow-up through call center and SMS survey.

We possess information in our database of our members who live in the informal settlements. GiveDirectly seeks to use this data (name, location, contact details, age, and ID number) to successfully execute the Emergency Cash for COVID-19 Crisis. The data that we share with them is handled and adhered to strictly by both organizations in accordance with The , 2019, (Laws of Kenya) and as per both of the organization’s Data Management Policies/ Manuals. As one of GD’s values, ‘Prioritizing recipient preferences over those of donors or even the organization’. GiveDirectly respects ad empowers their beneficiaries to make their own choices, elevating their voices in the global aid debate hence putting the poor in control of how aid money is spent. Through this cash given to the individuals, beneficiaries are able to invest in what they need, instead of relying on aid organizations and donors thousands of miles away to choose for them. Isn’t this what you would prefer?

After we have provided GiveDirectly with the list of vulnerable recipients, checks are made to ensure that the information provided is true and once this is confirmed, the beneficiaries are enrolled in the system. Before COVID-19, GiveDirectly used to host community barazas and went door-to-door to enroll recipients. This method is now completely contactless after the COVID-19. GiveDirectly now has remote call center staff who conduct enrollment surveys through phone calls or text messages. Once a recipient fills the survey and they are found to qualify for the cash, a payment is made.

GiveDirectly uses mobile money to send transfers that cover recipients’ basic needs for a period as per the program. Recipients do receive a text message alert when the funds have arrived on their phones. After recipients receive the cash, there is a follow-up and audit process conducted by GiveDirectly. Each recipient is called to verify they received funds and evaluate recipients’ experience with the program. In case of any potential fraud, GiveDirectly’s audit team follows up and investigates such cases.

As part of this partnership, we had 2 of our mid-level staff responsible for this program delivery within The Youth Café benefit from 2 hours Safeguarding Training session with GiveDirectly. The main aim of the training is to familiarize partner organizations with the cash transfers, how they as an organization can protect the beneficiaries from harm that may be caused by the staff within their organizations, and how to go about such situations. GiveDirectly’s commitment to safeguarding is unwavering and embedded throughout their organization. This training was further cascaded to all The Youth Café’s staff, including volunteers.

At The Youth Café, we believe in supporting and helping youths who have been affected by COVID-19 and in the same spirit move rapidly to help them. As our motto states, we aim to Empower, Amplify, and Connect. Young people are a tremendous and essential asset worth investing in and what better way to assist these youths by giving them the choice to choose for themselves how best to improve their lives through cash during this trying time. We are also working towards starting a program that will empower youths through entrepreneurship opportunities and providing employment opportunities post COVID-19.

Synthia is a Research and Project Management Associate at The Youth Café .

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