33 ms·

> In Togo, a nation of about 8 million people where the average income is below $2 a day, it took the government less than two weeks to design and launch an all

by shakna 5y ago

> In Togo, a nation of about 8 million people where the average income is below $2 a day, it took the government less than two weeks to design and launch an all-digital system for delivering monthly payments to about a quarter of the adult population. People such as Bamaze, with no tax or payroll records, were identified as in need, enrolled in the program, and paid without any in-person contact. 10 days from inception to rolled out. There was a slight hiccup with fraud, which was then handled almost instantly. That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible, especially in richer nations. The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need. > “It’s a strong belief of mine that just because someone is poor doesn’t mean he’s irresponsible—he’s just poor,” she says. “So if you give him money, there’s no way he’s going to waste it. For me, it’s linked with dignity.” That perspective isn't one you'll find popular in the nations that should be able to deploy programs like these, but don't. Their voters don't see them as helping the poor, and don't see the poor as likely to invest any protective income into survival. So the politician follows the culture of looking down on those with less, and perpetuates the cycle. It's a self-inflicted cultural attack on the most vulnerable part of the population. Who could be helped, in the space of weeks.

Bayart 5y ago
>The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need The key difference is the complete lack of regulation and data policies. The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country.
- hkt 5y ago
  If size of country is a determinant of public sector efficiency, there's an easy answer to many of the supposed problems of the public sector - secession. Alternatively we could accept the role of outsourcing and the effects of the broken social fabric and the system-wide problems that remain unresolved in the anglosphere countries.
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    Or just decentralization.
- shakna 5y ago
  > The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country. The potential for building more advanced fraud protection systems also scales with the nation being discussed. Especially when you consider that the world's largest fraud protection experts are already operating within the borders of most of those richer nations. Why not partner with MasterCard or VISA?
  - hpoe 5y ago
    Having worked with the "fraud prevention" departments of the most advanced nation on earth in cases where they screwed up I can guarantee you they aren't that advanced.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >Why not partner with MasterCard or VISA? Because the problem domain is different for credit card transactions compared to covid stimulus?
    - shakna 5y ago
      The problem domain is identity verification, by and large. Something that we have many, many very large multinational corporations solving on a transactional basis that absolutely dwarfs stimulus' programs needs. Yet, somehow, the stimulus programs still require exorbitant amounts of their budget to verify known persons, and use this as a way to deny access to those who are most vulnerable.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible, especially in richer nations The richer you are the easier it is to justify pissing away resources inefficiently catering to stakeholders way down the totem pole. Compare/contrast pretty much any publicly funded endeavor in the US/Canada/rich western Europe vs similar projects elsewhere. Sure the rich places get 10% more but they pay 90% more to do it.
cycomanic 5y ago
The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. Rudger Bergman goes into a bit of detail on the history of that perception, which he attributes to the opposition against Nixon's UBI (at least in the US). So what we now have in many western nations is a huge bureaucratic body to prevent fraud on social security systems which at the same time significantly increase hurdles to apply for the programs and what can be done with the help. On the other hand, the bureaucratic support to fight tax evasion especially by the super rich, is typically tiny.
- gerbilly 5y ago
  > The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. This is the Just world hypothesis in action.¹ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
  - fmajid 5y ago
    No, it’s Protestantism and the pernicious concept of grace as opposed to good works in Judaism, Catholic/Orthodox Christianity or Islam. If you are poor, you must be cursed by God and therefore deserve everything that happens to you. What’s more, the elect who have grace are entitled to make your life even worse for their benefit.
    - powerslacker 5y ago
      This is incorrect. Your comment references certain points of Calvinist doctrine but grossly misinterprets them.
  - ByThyGrace 5y ago
    Voltaire's "Candide or the Optimist" is a classic literary novella with this subject as backdrop. Short and wonderful, a must read.
    - BizarroLand 5y ago
hkt 5y ago
You're right about the desire to help. I would add that contracts and tendering are unlikely to have been involved, which probably means they built it in house. That helps enormously: I spent some time at the UK's ministry of justice and when they in sourced they built great, high value stuff in an incremental, iterative way which addressed the greatest pain. Rollouts were quick and testing was central. Nobody was padding a contract to inflate their pay or performance ratings, instead preferring to regularly demo to peers and test with users to demonstrate value.
galfarragem 5y ago
> That perspective isn't one you'll find popular in the nations that should be able to deploy programs like these, but don't. Their voters don't see them as helping the poor, and don't see the poor as likely to invest any protective income into survival. That political discourse is easy to explain: while it is certainly helpful to "give the fish" to the starving one, it's less clear when you give the fish to "the idle" one instead of teaching him to fish. The main difference is the meaning of "poor". The meaning of "poor" in Africa is someone that may eat once a day or not even that. In the west, the poverty line is way above that.
- shakna 5y ago
  > The difference is the meaning of "poor". The meaning of "poor" in Africa is someone that may eat once a day or not even that. The company mentioned that found cash programs work, GiveDirectly, works not only on a global scale, but within US borders, with similar results.
  - Aunche 5y ago
    GiveDirectly's studies in developing countries are quite compelling, but I don't believed they've published any studies about the US yet.
    - shakna 5y ago
      Temporarily correct. I am eagerly awaiting the publication of results from "Evaluating one-time cash transfers to U.S. households during the COVID-19 pandemic", which has the trials completed, and analysis underway. However, they have had previous programs of their own that ran in the US, such as their Hurricane Harvey relief programs. (Which haven't turned into research papers).
      - fmajid 5y ago
        Much more important is the new Child Tax Credit ($3000 per year).
- 5y ago
Spooky23 5y ago
One of the (if not “the”) triumphs of the Trump administration was getting payments out to millions of people in a couple of weeks.
amelius 5y ago
> That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible And every time I say on HN that I can do something in a weekend, I get downvoted.
- adventured 5y ago
  This premise can't be done quickly in the US, and it's bordering on comically absurd that anyone here would dare to suggest otherwise. The US bureaucracies, federal and states, and the criss-cross between them, is extraordinarily large, complex and inefficient. The US Federal Government all by itself is a spending machine larger than Europe's biggest economy. To pretend a system like Togo's could be implemented quickly in the US, one would have to pretend the US government system isn't presently constructed as it is. It would be necessary to invent an elaborate fantasy, where you start from a blank slate and have to deal with none of what presently exists.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  And every time you say it, you're almost certainly wrong if it's about anything but a proof of concept. Every single "I can do that in a weekend" post I've ever seen basically ignores all the complexity of software development and would result in a completely useless system except for, at best, the optimal happy path.
Chris2048 5y ago
> The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need. Do you have any inside-information that this is true? Maybe there is a difference in cultural attitudes, but I'm sure there are lots of other differences too. Why is this the most important?

by shakna 5y ago

Bayart 5y ago

>The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need The key difference is the complete lack of regulation and data policies. The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country.

hkt 5y ago
If size of country is a determinant of public sector efficiency, there's an easy answer to many of the supposed problems of the public sector - secession. Alternatively we could accept the role of outsourcing and the effects of the broken social fabric and the system-wide problems that remain unresolved in the anglosphere countries.
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  Or just decentralization.
shakna 5y ago
> The potential for malevolence in a country the size of Togo is limited, but I'd rather not have the same processes in my own country. The potential for building more advanced fraud protection systems also scales with the nation being discussed. Especially when you consider that the world's largest fraud protection experts are already operating within the borders of most of those richer nations. Why not partner with MasterCard or VISA?
- hpoe 5y ago
  Having worked with the "fraud prevention" departments of the most advanced nation on earth in cases where they screwed up I can guarantee you they aren't that advanced.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Why not partner with MasterCard or VISA? Because the problem domain is different for credit card transactions compared to covid stimulus?
  - shakna 5y ago
    The problem domain is identity verification, by and large. Something that we have many, many very large multinational corporations solving on a transactional basis that absolutely dwarfs stimulus' programs needs. Yet, somehow, the stimulus programs still require exorbitant amounts of their budget to verify known persons, and use this as a way to deny access to those who are most vulnerable.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

>That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible, especially in richer nations The richer you are the easier it is to justify pissing away resources inefficiently catering to stakeholders way down the totem pole. Compare/contrast pretty much any publicly funded endeavor in the US/Canada/rich western Europe vs similar projects elsewhere. Sure the rich places get 10% more but they pay 90% more to do it.

cycomanic 5y ago

The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. Rudger Bergman goes into a bit of detail on the history of that perception, which he attributes to the opposition against Nixon's UBI (at least in the US). So what we now have in many western nations is a huge bureaucratic body to prevent fraud on social security systems which at the same time significantly increase hurdles to apply for the programs and what can be done with the help. On the other hand, the bureaucratic support to fight tax evasion especially by the super rich, is typically tiny.

gerbilly 5y ago
> The issue is that in the west, and particular in the US, being poor is considered a character flaw. This is the Just world hypothesis in action.¹ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis
- fmajid 5y ago
  No, it’s Protestantism and the pernicious concept of grace as opposed to good works in Judaism, Catholic/Orthodox Christianity or Islam. If you are poor, you must be cursed by God and therefore deserve everything that happens to you. What’s more, the elect who have grace are entitled to make your life even worse for their benefit.
  - powerslacker 5y ago
    This is incorrect. Your comment references certain points of Calvinist doctrine but grossly misinterprets them.
- ByThyGrace 5y ago
  Voltaire's "Candide or the Optimist" is a classic literary novella with this subject as backdrop. Short and wonderful, a must read.
  - BizarroLand 5y ago

hkt 5y ago

You're right about the desire to help. I would add that contracts and tendering are unlikely to have been involved, which probably means they built it in house. That helps enormously: I spent some time at the UK's ministry of justice and when they in sourced they built great, high value stuff in an incremental, iterative way which addressed the greatest pain. Rollouts were quick and testing was central. Nobody was padding a contract to inflate their pay or performance ratings, instead preferring to regularly demo to peers and test with users to demonstrate value.

galfarragem 5y ago

> That perspective isn't one you'll find popular in the nations that should be able to deploy programs like these, but don't. Their voters don't see them as helping the poor, and don't see the poor as likely to invest any protective income into survival. That political discourse is easy to explain: while it is certainly helpful to "give the fish" to the starving one, it's less clear when you give the fish to "the idle" one instead of teaching him to fish. The main difference is the meaning of "poor". The meaning of "poor" in Africa is someone that may eat once a day or not even that. In the west, the poverty line is way above that.

shakna 5y ago
> The difference is the meaning of "poor". The meaning of "poor" in Africa is someone that may eat once a day or not even that. The company mentioned that found cash programs work, GiveDirectly, works not only on a global scale, but within US borders, with similar results.
- Aunche 5y ago
  GiveDirectly's studies in developing countries are quite compelling, but I don't believed they've published any studies about the US yet.
  - shakna 5y ago
    Temporarily correct. I am eagerly awaiting the publication of results from "Evaluating one-time cash transfers to U.S. households during the COVID-19 pandemic", which has the trials completed, and analysis underway. However, they have had previous programs of their own that ran in the US, such as their Hurricane Harvey relief programs. (Which haven't turned into research papers).
    - fmajid 5y ago
      Much more important is the new Child Tax Credit ($3000 per year).
5y ago

Spooky23 5y ago

One of the (if not “the”) triumphs of the Trump administration was getting payments out to millions of people in a couple of weeks.

amelius 5y ago

> That kind of speed of development is absolutely possible And every time I say on HN that I can do something in a weekend, I get downvoted.

adventured 5y ago
This premise can't be done quickly in the US, and it's bordering on comically absurd that anyone here would dare to suggest otherwise. The US bureaucracies, federal and states, and the criss-cross between them, is extraordinarily large, complex and inefficient. The US Federal Government all by itself is a spending machine larger than Europe's biggest economy. To pretend a system like Togo's could be implemented quickly in the US, one would have to pretend the US government system isn't presently constructed as it is. It would be necessary to invent an elaborate fantasy, where you start from a blank slate and have to deal with none of what presently exists.
RHSeeger 5y ago
And every time you say it, you're almost certainly wrong if it's about anything but a proof of concept. Every single "I can do that in a weekend" post I've ever seen basically ignores all the complexity of software development and would result in a completely useless system except for, at best, the optimal happy path.

Chris2048 5y ago

> The key difference seems to be not the fraud prevention systems, but the desire to help those in need. Do you have any inside-information that this is true? Maybe there is a difference in cultural attitudes, but I'm sure there are lots of other differences too. Why is this the most important?