When news breaks, you need to understand what matters β and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital.
We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today? More refugees live in cities. Could cash help them rebuild their lives? He and his grandmother walked to the border with Kenya and settled in Nairobi. As a teenager, Mohamed would wake up at 5 am to deliver bread to nearby shops before school, but it barely earned him enough to feed himself and his younger brother, who followed later. He used the money to start a business selling filtered drinking water to local shops, and even hired two employees to deliver it.
Now 22, he earns several times as much as he used to selling bread. In rural African villages and refugee camps, cash assistance has long been improving the lives of people displaced by climate disasters, conflicts, and more.
And unlike the refugees who live in humanitarian camps and receive food rations, and sometimes shelter and medical attention as well, urban refugees rarely receive assistance of any kind.
A study last year by GiveDirectly in Kenya suggests a promising new way to help them. The vast majority used the money to start or grow small businesses, from salons and barber shops to pharmacies and chicken coops. Six months later, 88 percent of recipients reported earning more money than before. And a similar study in a semi-urban settlement in Uganda found that the number of refugee cash recipients there who were able to pay rent and feed their families had tripled, and more people could afford the health care they needed.
