It's pretty clear that "lending" money on Kiva is not the best way of giving to the poor. You aren't at all really lending to those individuals, but rather donating the interest you could have earned on your deposit to a microlending institution. And microlending institutions can raise their own money from deposits or capital markets, so you would be much better off donating to something more effective, such as buying bednets or deworming pills (see givewell.org's current recommendations, or the Proven Impact Fund).
The potential saving grace for me is Kiva as a development gateway drug. The story and personal connection is powerful. What if Kiva can get people hooked on development, who will then eventually find out more and graduate to doing something with bigger impact? I feel similarly about voluntourism. Would love to see any research on either of these topics.
Does succumbing to Kiva or voluntourism advertising have a causal impact on individual's attitudes and actions towards development, after the selection effect of those individuals being more likely to be interested in development in the first place?
The potential saving grace for me is Kiva as a development gateway drug. The story and personal connection is powerful. What if Kiva can get people hooked on development, who will then eventually find out more and graduate to doing something with bigger impact? I feel similarly about voluntourism. Would love to see any research on either of these topics.
Does succumbing to Kiva or voluntourism advertising have a causal impact on individual's attitudes and actions towards development, after the selection effect of those individuals being more likely to be interested in development in the first place?
7 comments:
Unfortunately I have seen people use similar arguments about sending socks to Japan.
Well lets see some data....
You'll not only need data on whether or not it gets people more interested, but whether or not they are interested + informed enough to make a decent impact. Our initial experiences do much to cement our approach to development. As Cynan hints, if they get interested in development AND come from a sock-sending background, perhaps it would have been better if you had just stayed away in the first place.
There seem to be two relevant "dependent variables" that could be influenced in the short run by participation in Kiva. As you highlight in your post, rising interest could lead to more future engagement (i.e. "get people hooked on dev"). But, on the other hand, the *quality* of the engagement will likely change as well as the quantity. That is, if someone falls into the camp of people for whom Kiva could be a gateway drug, they're not likely immersed in development/aid/etc. worlds already. Their early experiences may be highly formative to their views on how development works, what kind of aid is effective, what the nature of our relationship with poor countries is or should be, etc.
Since you're asking for data, I would point to the study on the impact of Live Aid on public perception of Africa: http://www.eldis.org/vfile/upload/1/document/0708/DOC1830.pdf. I think of organizations like Kiva as being complicit in promoting misperceptions, even down to, at the most basic level, misrepresenting how Kiva loans work. For whatever reason, that distorting effect preoccupies me more than the quantity-of-engagement effect. As a result, I tend to worry that it will be a gateway drug to more perverse forms of engagement rather than more impactful ones...
Just thinking out loud!
thanks for the link!
In a certain large INGO I'm familiar with, a %age of those who sign on and exit as regular donors, get surveyed in some detail on their reasons - including whether they're switching to another dev NGO, or another cause, and why. Judgements could be made on the propensity of impact-seeking behaviour. There's data around alright, I doubt you'll find much current & interesting stuff in published journals though. I'll see what I'm able to relate. My gut feel is that donors change much more based on pursuit of novelty than focused attempts for greater programme quality & impact from their donations.
I think you're probably right. Would be very interesting to see what those people say.
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