NAIROBI, Kenya – In 2008, when Mohamed Ali Mohamed was a kid growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, his cousin was shot by the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab. “That made us run away,” he said.
He and his grandmother walked to the border with Kenya and settled in Nairobi. As a teenager, Mohamed would wake up at 5 am to deliver bread to nearby shops before school, but it barely earned him enough to feed himself and his younger brother, who followed later.
Then last year, the evidence-based nonprofit GiveDirectly gave him nearly $1,000 cash, no strings attached. He used the money to start a business selling filtered drinking water to local shops, and even hired two employees to deliver it. Now 22, he earns several times as much as he used to selling bread. The extra income goes to buy food and pay his younger brother’s school fees.
“I thank God, because my brother is now getting an education,” Mohamed told me when I met…