I didn’t get the impression from this transcript that Rory Stewart has just heard of cash transfers—is there any part which implied that? It felt to me more like bringing-the-listener-with-him kind of speak to convey a weird but exciting idea.
Reading the transcript cold, maybe it doesn’t give that impression. If you’re willing to listen to the episodes (there’s two of them and the topic comes up a few times intersperced throughout) I’d be interested if your view changes with his joke. (He certainly gives off a tone of surprise). I also think this:
I’ve never seen anything like it in 30 years working in international development
Pretty strongly gives the impression that he hadn’t seen it before.
I would argue his point that ‘giving people cash is probably the most effective single intervention that you can do for a very poor family’ is pretty accurate and I think it implies he understands it maybe isn’t as effective as larger scale interventions (larger than ‘a single intervention for one family’).
Again, I think it’s worth listening to the full context, the impression the listener is given is very much that this is a pancea and better than “charities who are going in doing [..] health programs”.
I’m very happy to be wrong on this so I am very keen to grab onto anything saying the opposite, I just can’t shake the first impression I got from listening.
Thanks! Yes this was just my impression from reading, not listening. I’ll hopefully get round to listening later and see if that updates my impression.
I listened and come away with the same feeling as I commented above- IMO Rory is being a good ambassador for GiveDirectly here!
Also, I was excited about this because I thought Rory Stewart was the new Comms Director at No. 10, which I’ve just realised was an April Fools prank...
Reading the transcript cold, maybe it doesn’t give that impression. If you’re willing to listen to the episodes (there’s two of them and the topic comes up a few times intersperced throughout) I’d be interested if your view changes with his joke. (He certainly gives off a tone of surprise). I also think this:
Pretty strongly gives the impression that he hadn’t seen it before.
Again, I think it’s worth listening to the full context, the impression the listener is given is very much that this is a pancea and better than “charities who are going in doing [..] health programs”.
I’m very happy to be wrong on this so I am very keen to grab onto anything saying the opposite, I just can’t shake the first impression I got from listening.
Thanks! Yes this was just my impression from reading, not listening. I’ll hopefully get round to listening later and see if that updates my impression.
I listened and come away with the same feeling as I commented above- IMO Rory is being a good ambassador for GiveDirectly here!
Also, I was excited about this because I thought Rory Stewart was the new Comms Director at No. 10, which I’ve just realised was an April Fools prank...
Thank you—I will update accordingly.