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Is this the most effective development programme in history?” asks Chris Blattman, a political scientist at Columbia University. He adds, “I think it’s a contender.” “这是不是史上最有效的发展项目？”哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)政治科学家克里斯布拉特曼(Chris Blattman)问。他补充道：“我认为这个项目能够参与角逐。” The programme is simple enough to explain: give cash handouts of $50,000 to aspiring Nigerian entrepreneurs. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly — but more about the Nigerian cash drop in due course. It is merely the most eye-catching in a stack of research and policy papers to conclude that an excellent cure for the problem of poverty is simply to give poor people money. 这个项目解释起来非常简单：给有志成为企业家的尼日利亚人发放5万美元的现金。是的，上一句话你没看错——更多关于这笔钱的内容会在后面讲到。这只是一大堆研究论文和政策文件中最引人注目的一部分，即认为解决贫困问题的一个良策是直接给穷人发钱。 That idea seems almost naive. Instinctively, we tend to feel that victims of famines and earthquakes need food and shelter rather than inedible cash. We may feel, also, that cash will be wasted — stolen, spent on drink, frittered away on treats or siphoned off by grasping relatives. Even if the money is well spent, will it generate self-sustaining economic growth? Yet an increasing number of development policy types are reaching the conclusion that cash beats many of the alternatives. | 
