How debit cards helped Indonesia’s poor get more food

About five years ago, instead of sending rice bags directly to villages for distribution to the poor, the Indonesian government sent debit cards to buy the equivalent amount of food at local neighbourhood shops. Suddenly, millions of Indonesians in the programme started receiving the total amount of food intended for them 81 percent of the time, according to a randomised control study that MIT economists, including Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Actions Lab (J-PAL) co-founder and co-director, Abhijit Banerjee, helped lead.