TRADITIONAL INTERNATIONAL AID programs typically offer some combination of clean water, livestock, textbooks, and nutritional supplements. A new study funded by Google.org and the US Agency for International Development asks whether the poor would benefit more if they were given cash and free to spend the money as they see fit.

A number of studies on unconditional cash transfers are underway, but the government agency's involvement demonstrates a willingness to question whether the status quo is cost effective, says Michael Faye, cofounder and director of the US-based nonprofit GiveDirectly, which distributed the mobile cash in 248 villages in Rwanda, where the study took place.

USAID's involvement had been kept quiet to avoid controversy over using taxpayer funds to give money to people in Africa, reports the New York Times. Daniel Handel, the USAID official who instigated the trial, got the idea after hearing about GiveDirectly on NPR while stationed in Rwanda. Handel is now a senior adviser on aid effectiveness at USAID, a job that was created for him.

Researchers had two goals: compare an established program to combat childhood malnutrition with giving people the equivalent value ($117) in cash, and compare the cash equivalent to a much larger sum, $532.1 After a year, results released Thursday found that found that neither the established program nor its cash equivalent were able to improve child health, but the large cash transfers significantly improved people's health and financial standing.