I read an article a while back about the success of handing out “iron fish” to people in villages. It’s literally a little fish-shaped hunk of iron that people

I read an article a while back about the success of handing out “iron fish” to people in villages. It’s literally a little fish-shaped hunk of iron that people keep in their cooking kettle that slowly leeches iron in their food and helps with lots of anemias. A key observation was that it was basically useless for anything else. It’s not valuable. It’s a small hunk of cutely shaped iron. Recipients largely used it as intended because there wasn’t anything else to do with it, really. Contrast with another agency that passed out mosquito nets to hang over beds. Turns out they made good fishing seine, so most people either took their net to the nearest river to fish with it or sold it to someone else who wanted to. I’m sure the people who got mosquito nets would’ve loved sleeping without being bit by mosquitos. A stable food supply was their more pressing issue though.[0] The humble iron fish addressed its problem by being good for one thing only. [0] Seine fishing quickly devastated the local fish stocks. “Oops, sorry our gift is now causing you to starve.” A critical lesson here: ask the recipients of such a “gift” whether they actually want it and what they’ll use it for. They’re not you. Don’t assume they’ll use it the same way you do.