vox--2020-09-11--What Kenya can teach its neighbors — and the US — about improving the lives of the “unbanked”

What Kenya can teach its neighbors — and the US — about improving the lives of the “ unbanked ” Share All sharing options for : What Kenya can teach its neighbors — and the US — about improving the lives of the “ unbanked ” In a rural village in Kenya , a woman sets out to do her food shopping for the day .
She needs cash before she heads to the market , but the nearest bank would be several days ’ walk .
Instead , she takes out her phone and texts a password and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ later , she meets a man with a cellphone and receives cash from him — the withdrawal that she made on her phone .
She heads off , ready to do her errands .
Welcome to the world of mobile money banking .
In much of the world , people don ’ t live near banks or have bank accounts .
In Senegal , for example , only 8 percent of the population has a bank account .
In Uganda , it ’ s 11 percent .
For a long time , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the financial system — unable to straightforwardly send money , save it , buy things without cash , or get loans .
But in the age of the cellphone , it has become possible to access the key functions of a financial system without getting a formal bank account .
First taking off in Kenya in the early 2000s , cellphone-based banking in the country has in many ways surpassed payments systems we have in the US .
Research suggests that the fast spread of these mobile money systems led to significant economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a decade later , it ’ s not always easy to pay for your groceries on your phone in the US , but in parts of Africa , mobile money systems are ubiquitous .
In Uganda , 43 percent of people have a mobile money account .
In Kenya , it ’ s 72 percent .
Mobile money systems are pretty simple .
In a lot of ways , you can think of the apps that are widely used for mobile transactions in some African countries as equivalent to a send-your-friends-money app @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a bank or a credit card , which means anyone who doesn ’ t have one of those is locked out .
Mobile money accounts work sort of like Venmo , but with a key difference : No bank account is required .
To make a deposit or get cash from the app , mobile money systems use human agents , people who hang out at key locations throughout the country — including remote rural areas — with cash and a cellphone .
You can also use mobile money for cashless transactions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services .
Agents function like an ATM : You go up to them and give them cash to get money deposited in your mobile money account , or transfer money out of your account to get cash .
In countries where almost no one has a bank account or a bank branch , agents represent a huge step forward in the availability of cash when you need it and a safe place to deposit it when you don ’ t .
It turns out that this simple system — initially built off of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ apps required — makes a significant difference for poor families .
A study found that if a family in Kenya happened to live closer to a mobile money agent close to the system ’ s launch in 2007 , they ended up much less likely to be living in extreme poverty ( under $ 1.25 a day ) and less likely to be living in poverty ( under $ 2 a day ) .
While poor families ordinarily experience “ consumption shocks ” — having to go without basic needs when their income @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobile money have more stability .
The ability to save money and get transfers from friends and family gives them something to fall back on .
In Kenya , which has led the world in the expansion of these services and where 96 percent of households have a mobile money account , you can find an agent almost anywhere .
But there ’ s plenty of room for mobile money to gain ground among Kenya ’ s neighbors , many of which still have a huge population with no access to mobile money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s success , many people expected that the same rapid uptake and gains in quality of life could be accomplished everywhere .
It hasn ’ t turned out that way .
Figuring out how to replicate Kenya ’ s success should be a higher priority for global development — and can teach us some things about how to expand financial services access in the US , too .
Before cellphones became widespread , people in rural Kenya had very few options to manage money .
Bank accounts were effectively impossible to access : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and they weren ’ t meant to serve rural customers who had very little money .
The main alternative was carrying cash , which left you vulnerable to theft .
Family members who worked in the city wanted to send money home but had to either send it through couriers for high fees or make the long , sometimes hazardous trip themselves .
That ’ s how mobile money accounts first came about .
Mobile money apps don ’ t require a brick-and-mortar bank , but they otherwise end up functioning a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would for an American — meaning your average person in Kenya with such an account now has access to most of the same financial services a person in the US does .
Mobile money got off the ground early in the developing world , where people used texting-based services before smartphones became common .
There were early attempts to set up such systems in the 2000s in South Africa and the Philippines .
But the breakthrough was the extraordinary early success of Kenya ’ s M-Pesa , which actually predates apps like Venmo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for money ; the “ M ” stands for “ mobile.
” ) The project that became M-Pesa started in 2002 when phone companies noticed that they had unintentionally invented something that almost resembled a currency .
Users in Kenya were purchasing and reselling “ airtime ” — phone data , or minutes — transferring it to relatives , and in some cases effectively using it as a savings account by putting most of their wealth into airtime they could resell later .
It was safer than carrying cash around , and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were ubiquitous .
According to Tonny Omwansa ’ s book Money , Real Quick , a product team at Safaricom , the biggest phone company in Kenya and part of Vodafone , developed M-Pesa , a texting-based system for storing and sending money .
Kenya was full of airtime distributors — small business owners who would sell people prepaid airtime .
Some of them took up distributing M-Pesa as well .
For the initial launch , M-Pesa was meant to be used to repay microloans ( very small loans made to extremely low-income @ @ @ @ @ @ @ charities ) .
According to Omwansa , the creators of M-Pesa began seeing other uses — “ businesses using M-Pesa as an overnight safe because banks closed before agent shops , ” “ people journeying between pilot areas , depositing cash at one end , and withdrawing it a few hours later at the other , ” “ people sending airtime purchased by M-Pesa directly to their relatives in villages , ” and other examples .
In other words , people were using it as a substitute for critical financial institutions they didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these instances , an overnight safe , low friction and low-fee transfers of money , saving money for later , and avoiding a long trip with cash .
In communities where basic needs like these were going unmet , M-Pesa took off .
By the end of 2009 , the year Venmo launched in the US , M-Pesa had more than 8 million subscribers in Kenya .
By 2012 , it had 15 million and more than 30,000 agents .
Being able to send money to a family member without needing to make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ savings in a smartphone instead of under a mattress , is easy to take for granted .
For billions of people around the world , however , having alternatives to carrying all your wealth in cash is new .
Mobile money changed that , and the economic effects were profound .
Development economists Tavneet Suri and William Jack looked into such impacts in a series of research papers , including a 2016 Science paper .
By 2016 , they found , M-Pesa was everywhere in Kenya — 96 percent of households used it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the households the researchers surveyed had several M-Pesa agents within walking distance and some did not , mostly by random chance .
That allowed the researchers to look into the question : Did having M-Pesa in a region sooner help families escape poverty ?
They found that it did .
“ [ B ] asic financial services such as the ability to safely store , send , and transact money—taken for granted in most advanced economies , and which in the form of mobile money have reached millions of Kenyans at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the potential to directly boost economic well-being , ” the 2016 paper concludes , estimating that M-Pesa ’ s sudden takeoff had lifted 194,000 households out of poverty .
The actual effects were fairly small — maybe 10 cents a day in additional money .
But even a small effect was enough to lift households over the extreme poverty line .
Researchers found similar effects in other countries .
A 2016 paper by Ggombe Kasim Munyegera and Tomoya Matsumoto looked at households in rural Uganda and found a significant uptick in household @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobile money .
The mechanism in that case was largely remittances — money sent home by family members living and working elsewhere .
Mobile money makes it safer and easier to send money home , and fees are much lower than fees for wire-transfers or postal services — so more money makes it home , and people in rural communities are less likely to go hungry .
Another Ugandan study in 2019 randomized the rollout of mobile money systems and found that mobile money increased remittances and non-farm self-employment ( that is , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , and “ reduced the fraction of households with very low food security from 62.9 to 47.2 percent.
” A 2019 paper by Haseeb Ahmed and Benjamin W. Cowan found that mobile money also increases access to health care .
Since people are more likely to save money when they have a convenient and safe way to do so , they ’ re more likely to have savings as a cushion if a household member gets sick .
Greater ease of sending money also means that they ’ re likelier to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relatives in an emergency .
Overall , the effect is that mobile money makes people likelier to be able to access medical care when they ’ re sick .
Add it all up and there ’ s a case to be made that the global development community needs to focus more attention on mobile money accounts as a poverty alleviation tool .
For decades , Suri and Jack point out , the global development community has dedicated lots of effort and energy to programs like microfinance , which are meant to give poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-term business loans .
The evidence base is pretty disappointing : It ’ s not clear that business loans pull many people out of poverty .
Instead , the benefit it does have seems to be mostly that it gives people access to the financial system .
Thanks to mobile banking , that benefit can be obtained without the overhead and debt burden of microloans .
The effort to get mobile money services into more countries Over the last decade , M-Pesa and competitors have worked to replicate the formula that led to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Asia and Africa .
Today , M-Pesa says it has 42 million active customers and 400,000 agents across seven countries .
M-Pesa ’ s success has inspired others to follow suit .
The Gates Foundation has funded mobile money projects and developed software for mobile money platforms .
Private companies have created M-Pesa competitors .
One such company is Wave , a sleeker low-fee mobile money app .
( Disclosure : I know of it because many of my global-poverty-minded friends have worked there . )
Wave was founded and is run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ programs to unbanked people in other countries .
Unfortunately , replicating that early success has proven difficult .
“ When mobile money succeeded in Kenya , it lifted about a million people out of poverty .
And yet , over 10 years later , most Africans still lack access to affordable ways to save , transfer or borrow the money they need to build businesses or provide for their families , ” Wave ’ s splash page points out .
M-Pesa was exactly what Kenya needed , and it took off there .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and convincing an entire society to adopt a new way of doing financial transactions isn ’ t an easy thing .
In some countries , mobile money has failed to take off , maybe because of a chicken-and-egg problem : Agents need to be widespread for the service to be useful , but putting agents everywhere isn ’ t viable until the service is widespread .
That ’ s the reason mobile money didn ’ t take off in Niger , according to a 2020 paper .
Despite the country having lots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in a better money transfer system , M-Pesa and competitors have failed to get a foothold .
In other countries , mobile money systems have been shut down by the government at the behest of central banks or competitors .
“ In terms of mobile money deployment , every country is different , ” Lincoln Quirk , a co-founder and head of product at Wave , told me .
In Kenya and some neighboring countries , it ’ s overwhelmingly common for people working in the city to send much of their salary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which is a huge driver of mobile money adoption — and not necessarily common everywhere .
And lots of other factors vary , too .
“ Only some kinds of business require rapid cross-country money transfer , only some countries have huge cash availability problems.
” “ In terms of mobile money deployment , every country is different ” That means that , more than a decade after mobile money took Kenya by storm , many of Kenya ’ s neighbors are still in a frustrating position .
“ Kenya and China and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money take off ] are outliers , rather than normative , ” Tim Ogden , director of the Financial Access Initiative at NYU , told me .
Initially , he said , some people imagined that they could straightforwardly transfer Kenya ’ s success to every other country without bank account access .
“ The way we thought about this was we ’ d had no idea mobile money could do this , and it did it in these places , so it can do it everywhere , right ?
” But it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country Wave operates in is Senegal .
In Senegal , only 8 percent of the population has access to banks , and only about 8 percent has a mobile money account .
But that doesn ’ t mean the two are viewed similarly .
“ Most people do not have bank accounts .
They don ’ t trust banks .
They would rather have mobile accounts than deal with banks .
There ’ s a lot of interest [ charged by banks for loans ] .
They ’ re always trying to increase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobile money user in Senegal who sends money through Wave , told me .
Mobile money , on the other hand ?
“ More and more people are actually starting to use it , and everyone knows about the services.
” Indeed , despite being relatively new and relatively small , the sheer volume of transactions on Wave makes up 3 percent of Senegal ’ s GDP , according to Wave .
It seems possible that , in three years , Senegal ’ s trajectory will look like Kenya ’ s .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end in bitter disappointment .
In many countries , initially successful mobile money programs have been brought to a grinding halt by new laws once they got too big , or taxed so heavily that they were unusable for casual transactions .
M-Pesa ’ s seemingly magical success wasn ’ t a product of M-Pesa alone .
It was a combination of the right technology , at the right time , rolled out in the right way , with the right decisions from the Kenyan government to allow the system without applying onerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transaction .
In the US , it ’ s much rarer to be wholly unbanked .
But it ’ s still worth thinking about which lessons we can take away from witnessing the birth of a new , phone-based financial system .
First , there ’ s the conclusion of the many studies of M-Pesa : When people don ’ t have access to banking , getting them that access helps lift them out of poverty .
It makes saving attainable , reduces their risk of being victims of crime , lets them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while sending money home , and can be a key element of a household ’ s rise out of poverty .
Second , there ’ s the idea that the most promising 21st-century technologies are ones that meet users where they are : on their phones , which nearly every American has .
There are already banks in the US that are online-only , trying to take advantage of the change in how we do transactions to avoid the high costs of physical branch locations .
Maybe that ’ s the right approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thinking too small .
Too many people in the US are still unbanked for a variety of reasons : They don ’ t have access to a brick-and-mortar bank , they don ’ t have government ID , they may not have a fixed address .
If we want to get more people access to financial services , maybe we shouldn ’ t be focusing on signing them up for bank accounts at all , but on giving them the flexibility to make payments , save money , and get loans without one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one easy fix to global poverty — there ’ s no such thing — but it is an extraordinarily simple tool that works remarkably well .
And yet , a decade after it first took off , it remains in many places underutilized .
The evidence base for it is significantly stronger than the evidence base for popular financial access interventions like microloans .
And there ’ s a great deal the global development community could do to make it more possible in the countries where it hasn ’ t taken off , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regulation and taxation frameworks to directly dispersing money to people through mobile money systems .
That sort of work isn ’ t flashy , but it lays the groundwork for a world where everyone can save , send , and spend money from their phones — and that , the evidence suggests , can make a really big difference .
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What Kenya can teach its neighbors — and the US — about improving the lives of the “unbanked”
Share All sharing options for: What Kenya can teach its neighbors — and the US — about improving the lives of the “unbanked”
In a rural village in Kenya, a woman sets out to do her food shopping for the day. She needs cash before she heads to the market, but the nearest bank would be several days’ walk. Instead, she takes out her phone and texts a password and a request for money. A few minutes later, she meets a man with a cellphone and receives cash from him — the withdrawal that she made on her phone. She heads off, ready to do her errands.
Welcome to the world of mobile money banking.
In much of the world, people don’t live near banks or have bank accounts. In Senegal, for example, only 8 percent of the population has a bank account. In Uganda, it’s 11 percent. For a long time, that meant those people were locked out of the financial system — unable to straightforwardly send money, save it, buy things without cash, or get loans. But in the age of the cellphone, it has become possible to access the key functions of a financial system without getting a formal bank account.
First taking off in Kenya in the early 2000s, cellphone-based banking in the country has in many ways surpassed payments systems we have in the US. Research suggests that the fast spread of these mobile money systems led to significant economic growth in the areas affected. More than a decade later, it’s not always easy to pay for your groceries on your phone in the US, but in parts of Africa, mobile money systems are ubiquitous. In Uganda, 43 percent of people have a mobile money account. In Kenya, it’s 72 percent.
Mobile money systems are pretty simple. In a lot of ways, you can think of the apps that are widely used for mobile transactions in some African countries as equivalent to a send-your-friends-money app like Venmo. But Venmo requires linking to a bank or a credit card, which means anyone who doesn’t have one of those is locked out.
Mobile money accounts work sort of like Venmo, but with a key difference: No bank account is required. To make a deposit or get cash from the app, mobile money systems use human agents, people who hang out at key locations throughout the country — including remote rural areas — with cash and a cellphone. You can also use mobile money for cashless transactions, including buying groceries or paying for services.
Agents function like an ATM: You go up to them and give them cash to get money deposited in your mobile money account, or transfer money out of your account to get cash. In countries where almost no one has a bank account or a bank branch, agents represent a huge step forward in the availability of cash when you need it and a safe place to deposit it when you don’t.
It turns out that this simple system — initially built off of text messaging, with no smartphones or apps required — makes a significant difference for poor families. A study found that if a family in Kenya happened to live closer to a mobile money agent close to the system’s launch in 2007, they ended up much less likely to be living in extreme poverty (under $1.25 a day) and less likely to be living in poverty (under $2 a day). While poor families ordinarily experience “consumption shocks” — having to go without basic needs when their income falls — poor families with access to mobile money have more stability. The ability to save money and get transfers from friends and family gives them something to fall back on.
In Kenya, which has led the world in the expansion of these services and where 96 percent of households have a mobile money account, you can find an agent almost anywhere.
But there’s plenty of room for mobile money to gain ground among Kenya’s neighbors, many of which still have a huge population with no access to mobile money or conventional banking. After Kenya’s success, many people expected that the same rapid uptake and gains in quality of life could be accomplished everywhere. It hasn’t turned out that way. Figuring out how to replicate Kenya’s success should be a higher priority for global development — and can teach us some things about how to expand financial services access in the US, too.
How mobile money works
Before cellphones became widespread, people in rural Kenya had very few options to manage money. Bank accounts were effectively impossible to access: The nearest banks were far away, and they weren’t meant to serve rural customers who had very little money. The main alternative was carrying cash, which left you vulnerable to theft. Family members who worked in the city wanted to send money home but had to either send it through couriers for high fees or make the long, sometimes hazardous trip themselves.
That’s how mobile money accounts first came about. Mobile money apps don’t require a brick-and-mortar bank, but they otherwise end up functioning a lot like a bank account and debit card would for an American — meaning your average person in Kenya with such an account now has access to most of the same financial services a person in the US does. Mobile money got off the ground early in the developing world, where people used texting-based services before smartphones became common. There were early attempts to set up such systems in the 2000s in South Africa and the Philippines.
But the breakthrough was the extraordinary early success of Kenya’s M-Pesa, which actually predates apps like Venmo. (“Pesa” is Swahili for money; the “M” stands for “mobile.”)
The project that became M-Pesa started in 2002 when phone companies noticed that they had unintentionally invented something that almost resembled a currency. Users in Kenya were purchasing and reselling “airtime” — phone data, or minutes — transferring it to relatives, and in some cases effectively using it as a savings account by putting most of their wealth into airtime they could resell later. It was safer than carrying cash around, and more convenient than a bank because airtime vendors were ubiquitous.
According to Tonny Omwansa’s book Money, Real Quick, a product team at Safaricom, the biggest phone company in Kenya and part of Vodafone, developed M-Pesa, a texting-based system for storing and sending money. Kenya was full of airtime distributors — small-business owners who would sell people prepaid airtime. Some of them took up distributing M-Pesa as well.
For the initial launch, M-Pesa was meant to be used to repay microloans (very small loans made to extremely low-income people, often by NGOs and international charities). According to Omwansa, the creators of M-Pesa began seeing other uses — “businesses using M-Pesa as an overnight safe because banks closed before agent shops,” “people journeying between pilot areas, depositing cash at one end, and withdrawing it a few hours later at the other,” “people sending airtime purchased by M-Pesa directly to their relatives in villages,” and other examples.
In other words, people were using it as a substitute for critical financial institutions they didn’t have access to: In these instances, an overnight safe, low-friction and low-fee transfers of money, saving money for later, and avoiding a long trip with cash.
In communities where basic needs like these were going unmet, M-Pesa took off. By the end of 2009, the year Venmo launched in the US, M-Pesa had more than 8 million subscribers in Kenya. By 2012, it had 15 million and more than 30,000 agents.
How mobile money impacts poor people’s lives
Being able to send money to a family member without needing to make a potentially dangerous trip, or keep savings in a smartphone instead of under a mattress, is easy to take for granted. For billions of people around the world, however, having alternatives to carrying all your wealth in cash is new. Mobile money changed that, and the economic effects were profound.
Development economists Tavneet Suri and William Jack looked into such impacts in a series of research papers, including a 2016 Science paper. By 2016, they found, M-Pesa was everywhere in Kenya — 96 percent of households used it. But from 2008 to 2010, some of the households the researchers surveyed had several M-Pesa agents within walking distance and some did not, mostly by random chance.
That allowed the researchers to look into the question: Did having M-Pesa in a region sooner help families escape poverty? They found that it did.
“[B]asic financial services such as the ability to safely store, send, and transact money—taken for granted in most advanced economies, and which in the form of mobile money have reached millions of Kenyans at unprecedented speed over the past decade—appear to have the potential to directly boost economic well-being,” the 2016 paper concludes, estimating that M-Pesa’s sudden takeoff had lifted 194,000 households out of poverty. The actual effects were fairly small — maybe 10 cents a day in additional money. But even a small effect was enough to lift households over the extreme poverty line.
Researchers found similar effects in other countries. A 2016 paper by Ggombe Kasim Munyegera and Tomoya Matsumoto looked at households in rural Uganda and found a significant uptick in household consumption among households that had access to mobile money. The mechanism in that case was largely remittances — money sent home by family members living and working elsewhere. Mobile money makes it safer and easier to send money home, and fees are much lower than fees for wire-transfers or postal services — so more money makes it home, and people in rural communities are less likely to go hungry.
Another Ugandan study in 2019 randomized the rollout of mobile money systems and found that mobile money increased remittances and non-farm self-employment (that is, the rate of people starting small businesses), and “reduced the fraction of households with very low food security from 62.9 to 47.2 percent.”
A 2019 paper by Haseeb Ahmed and Benjamin W. Cowan found that mobile money also increases access to health care. Since people are more likely to save money when they have a convenient and safe way to do so, they’re more likely to have savings as a cushion if a household member gets sick. Greater ease of sending money also means that they’re likelier to be able to get help from friends and relatives in an emergency. Overall, the effect is that mobile money makes people likelier to be able to access medical care when they’re sick.
Add it all up and there’s a case to be made that the global development community needs to focus more attention on mobile money accounts as a poverty alleviation tool. For decades, Suri and Jack point out, the global development community has dedicated lots of effort and energy to programs like microfinance, which are meant to give poor people access to sophisticated financial instruments like long-term business loans.
The evidence base is pretty disappointing: It’s not clear that business loans pull many people out of poverty. Instead, the benefit it does have seems to be mostly that it gives people access to the financial system. Thanks to mobile banking, that benefit can be obtained without the overhead and debt burden of microloans.
The effort to get mobile money services into more countries
Over the past decade, M-Pesa and competitors have worked to replicate the formula that led to success in Kenya across dozens more countries in Asia and Africa. Today, M-Pesa says it has 42 million active customers and 400,000 agents across seven countries.
M-Pesa’s success has inspired others to follow suit. The Gates Foundation has funded mobile money projects and developed software for mobile money platforms. Private companies have created M-Pesa competitors. One such company is Wave, a sleeker low-fee mobile money app. (Disclosure: I know of it because many of my global-poverty-minded friends have worked there.) Wave was founded and is run by people who want to bring M-Pesa-like programs to unbanked people in other countries.
Unfortunately, replicating that early success has proven difficult. “When mobile money succeeded in Kenya, it lifted about a million people out of poverty. And yet, over 10 years later, most Africans still lack access to affordable ways to save, transfer or borrow the money they need to build businesses or provide for their families,” Wave’s splash page points out.
M-Pesa was exactly what Kenya needed, and it took off there. But no two countries are the same, and convincing an entire society to adopt a new way of doing financial transactions isn’t an easy thing.
In some countries, mobile money has failed to take off, maybe because of a chicken-and-egg problem: Agents need to be widespread for the service to be useful, but putting agents everywhere isn’t viable until the service is widespread. That’s the reason mobile money didn’t take off in Niger, according to a 2020 paper. Despite the country having lots of unbanked people and lots of interest in a better money transfer system, M-Pesa and competitors have failed to get a foothold. In other countries, mobile money systems have been shut down by the government at the behest of central banks or competitors.
“In terms of mobile money deployment, every country is different,” Lincoln Quirk, a co-founder and head of product at Wave, told me. In Kenya and some neighboring countries, it’s overwhelmingly common for people working in the city to send much of their salary back to support their rural family, which is a huge driver of mobile money adoption — and not necessarily common everywhere. And lots of other factors vary, too. “Only some kinds of business require rapid cross-country money transfer, only some countries have huge cash availability problems.”
“In terms of mobile money deployment, every country is different”
That means that, more than a decade after mobile money took Kenya by storm, many of Kenya’s neighbors are still in a frustrating position.
“Kenya and China and Bangladesh [other countries that saw mobile money take off] are outliers, rather than normative,” Tim Ogden, director of the Financial Access Initiative at NYU, told me. Initially, he said, some people imagined that they could straightforwardly transfer Kenya’s success to every other country without bank account access. “The way we thought about this was we’d had no idea mobile money could do this, and it did it in these places, so it can do it everywhere, right?” But it’s not that simple.
One country Wave operates in is Senegal. In Senegal, only 8 percent of the population has access to banks, and only about 8 percent has a mobile money account. But that doesn’t mean the two are viewed similarly.
“Most people do not have bank accounts. They don’t trust banks. They would rather have mobile accounts than deal with banks. There’s a lot of interest [charged by banks for loans]. They’re always trying to increase the fees,” Tariq, a mobile money user in Senegal who sends money through Wave, told me.
Mobile money, on the other hand? “More and more people are actually starting to use it, and everyone knows about the services.” Indeed, despite being relatively new and relatively small, the sheer volume of transactions on Wave makes up 3 percent of Senegal’s GDP, according to Wave.
It seems possible that in three years, Senegal’s trajectory will look like Kenya’s. It’s also possible the effort will end in bitter disappointment. In many countries, initially successful mobile money programs have been brought to a grinding halt by new laws once they got too big, or taxed so heavily that they were unusable for casual transactions.
M-Pesa’s seemingly magical success wasn’t a product of M-Pesa alone. It was a combination of the right technology, at the right time, rolled out in the right way, with the right decisions from the Kenyan government to allow the system without applying onerous regulations or high government fees on every transaction.
In the US, it’s much rarer to be wholly unbanked. But it’s still worth thinking about which lessons we can take away from witnessing the birth of a new, phone-based financial system. First, there’s the conclusion of the many studies of M-Pesa: When people don’t have access to banking, getting them that access helps lift them out of poverty. It makes saving attainable, reduces their risk of being victims of crime, lets them take risks and move around for work while sending money home, and can be a key element of a household’s rise out of poverty.
Second, there’s the idea that the most promising 21st-century technologies are ones that meet users where they are: on their phones, which nearly every American has. There are already banks in the US that are online-only, trying to take advantage of the change in how we do transactions to avoid the high costs of physical branch locations. Maybe that’s the right approach — or maybe it’s still thinking too small.
Too many people in the US are still unbanked for a variety of reasons: They don’t have access to a brick-and-mortar bank, they don’t have government ID, they may not have a fixed address. If we want to get more people access to financial services, maybe we shouldn’t be focusing on signing them up for bank accounts at all, but on giving them the flexibility to make payments, save money, and get loans without one.
Mobile money isn’t the one easy fix to global poverty — there’s no such thing — but it is an extraordinarily simple tool that works remarkably well. And yet, a decade after it first took off, it remains in many places underutilized. The evidence base for it is significantly stronger than the evidence base for popular financial access interventions like microloans.
And there’s a great deal the global development community could do to make it more possible in the countries where it hasn’t taken off, from helping governments develop fair and limited regulation and taxation frameworks to directly dispersing money to people through mobile money systems. That sort of work isn’t flashy, but it lays the groundwork for a world where everyone can save, send, and spend money from their phones — and that, the evidence suggests, can make a really big difference.


vox--2020-09-11--Older voters love Joe Biden

Older voters love Joe Biden

Life in Florida ’ s largest retirement community is getting tense .
The Villages , the sprawling home to more than 100,000 Americans aged 55 and older , is the core of President Donald Trump and the GOP ’ s base in a key swing state .
But lately , flags for former Vice President Joe Biden are flying alongside ones for Trump .
Democratic retirees in the Villages started organizing rival golf cart parades with homemade signs saying “ End the Trumpdemic , ” and some make a point to do their weekly shopping trips at Publix wearing Biden/Harris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over Labor Day weekend drew over 80 people , more than double the size of any previous one , organizers told Vox .
It ’ s a “ statement that we exist , ” said Villages resident and Biden supporter Sara Nir Branscome , 60 .
“ What I ’ m seeing here is , by far , more Biden signs on our lawns , our golf carts.
” This isn ’ t a one-off phenomenon ; polls demonstrate that Biden is showing surprising strength among older voters throughout the country .
Multiple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ running ahead of Trump with those 65 and older by double digits , including in a recent Quinnipiac University poll of Florida .
“ I think it is noteworthy because it ’ s a segment of the electorate we haven ’ t done well with in more than a couple of years , ” Sen. Bob Casey ( D-PA ) told Vox in a recent interview .
The last Democratic nominee to do so well with older voters was Al Gore , who narrowly won voters aged 50-64 and voters over 65 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reliable than younger ones , so it matters if Democrats are gaining ground with the group .
They were pivotal for Trump ’ s 2016 election ; he won seniors by 7 percentage points , and white seniors by even higher margins .
A few months ago , Biden ’ s campaign advisers told Vox that they considered even cutting into Trump ’ s margins with seniors a victory .
“ This is a group that was turning away from Trump even before the pandemic hit , but the pandemic has cemented them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray told Vox .
Murray added that while older voters of color have long been with Biden , “ It ’ s older white voters where we ’ re seeing the swing.
” Why older voters are such a sought-after bloc Older voters are a highly prized demographic in elections for one big reason : They turn out reliably .
“ Because they turn out at such high rates , because they are more likely to vote by mail in this election , and because they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” said longtime Democratic pollster and strategist Celinda Lake .
In the 2016 election , nearly 71 percent of voters aged 65 and older cast a ballot , compared with 46 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 .
That trend held in the 2018 midterms ( even though younger voter participation jumped substantially from the 2014 midterms ) , with 66 percent of voters over the age of 65 turning out , compared with 35.6 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 .
Where older voters live is also important .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ most key 2020 battleground states , but they ’ re particularly important in Florida and Arizona , given the heavy concentration of retirees .
Incidentally , both of these states have been hit especially hard by the summer Covid-19 outbreaks .
“ One striking feature of the battleground is how old it is , it ’ s not just Florida , ” said Dave Wasserman , US House editor at the Cook Political Report .
“ Arizona also has an extraordinary percentage of seniors.
” National and battleground state polls alike show Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some surveys show women driving that trend : A recent CNN poll found Biden with a 20-point lead among women .
If a similar lead among women holds until November , it could be the largest gender gap between two candidates in decades .
“ There ’ s gender gap galore , that feeds everything , ” renowned Iowa pollster Ann Selzer , who recently released a national general election poll with Grinnell College , told Vox .
In Selzer ’ s national poll with Grinnell College , conducted August 26 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over 65 by 17 percentage points ( 56 to 39 percent ) .
Biden had a six-point edge on Trump with women over 65 , earning 49 percent of support compared with Trump ’ s 43 percent .
Other pollsters think the gender gap with older voters isn ’ t as strong , because many of these voters are concerned about the same set of issues : protecting government programs such as Social Security and Medicare , and lowering the cost of prescription drugs .
“ With other voters , you ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and men are worried about jobs , ” said Lake .
“ If you ’ re a senior , you ’ re worried about the same thing.
” Some battleground state polls reflect this dynamic , as well .
Two recent Quinnipiac University surveys found Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points with voters over 65 in Florida , and by 14 percentage points with the same cohort in Pennsylvania .
Murray ’ s late-August Monmouth University poll of Pennsylvania also found Biden leading Trump by double digits with voters 65 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arizona , a traditionally Republican state that is turning bluer due to its diverse population and changing suburbs .
Like Florida , Arizona is also home to a lot of retirees .
The state went for Trump by 3.5 points in 2016 , but Democrats see an opportunity to flip this state at the presidential level , as well as a key Senate seat .
A recent Fox News poll of Arizona found Biden and Trump tied with registered voters over the age of 45 .
Trump led by 4 points among men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 points among women over 45 .
“ Biden always had an advantage with seniors , and seniors always had a problem with Trump , but Covid was really catalytic with it , ” Lake said .
Why seniors are switching to Biden There are several possible reasons for the older voter exodus to Biden , and they can ’ t all be chalked up to the coronavirus pandemic .
Biden was already polling well with the group before the pandemic hit .
While it ’ s true that seniors are especially vulnerable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts told Vox there ’ s much more at play .
Older voters have seen more presidents in action .
The polls could be telling us that many voters over 65 just don ’ t like Trump ’ s extremely unconventional presidency , marked by a daily barrage of tweetstorms and increased political polarization .
“ Part of why they turned away from Trump is there ’ s too much shaking up in Washington , ” Murray said .
Trump isn ’ t getting much traction by painting the more moderate Biden — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ track record in public service — as a vessel for the “ radical left , ” experts say .
While Biden ’ s history of gaffes may provide fodder for the Trump campaign and political pundits alike , older voters may not care about it too much .
“ Biden harkens from an era before pre-programmed politicians , ” Wasserman told Vox .
“ The fact he commits lots of gaffes makes him human in the eyes of a lot of older voters who remember the time when politicians could say what they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of connection seniors may feel with the former vice president , Biden is hammering home issues that elderly voters care about : protecting Social Security and Medicare , lowering prescription drug costs , and setting up a coordinated federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic .
The Biden campaign is also organizing older voters with biweekly senior to senior phone banks , encouraging them to make a plan to vote .
Covid-19 has also materially changed the lives of a lot of seniors .
Older voters can no longer “ fly across the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale .
None of the Villages residents I spoke with recently think America ’ s largest retirement community or the main county it sits in — Sumter County — will flip to Biden this year .
The 300 golf carts in a recent Biden support parade were still less than half of the Villages ’ Trump group .
And some people are still afraid to display Biden signs for the backlash they might get from their neighbors .
A recent op-ed in the local newspaper — “ Reasons I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” — listed alleged harassment because of political beliefs as driving such fears , including name-calling on social media , keyed cars , torn campaign signs , and red paint spilled on a driveway .
“ It can get nasty .
Someone had beer spilled all over their golf cart because they had a Biden sign , ” Branscome told me .
“ When we do our rallies every Saturday and Thursday , we get a lot of fingers .
When I see a 90-year-old woman giving me the finger because I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ m sure she has kids and grandkids ... what are we teaching our future ?
” But even if a flip is unlikely , locals say Democratic organizing in the area has never been stronger .
“ It ’ s like night and day , ” said Chris Stanley , president of the Villages Democratic Club .
“ I have so many people who are north of 75 who call me up and say , ‘ I ’ ve never been a volunteer before , but how can I help ?
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since 2016 have gotten engaged.
” That engaged volunteer base is working to try to flip other counties in Florida , including Pinellas County — an older county that encompasses the city of St. Petersburg and surrounding suburbs where one recent poll showed Biden double-digits ahead of Trump .
Schale , the Florida Democratic strategist who was Obama ’ s 2008 Florida state director , thinks about five or six counties in the state are “ truly up for grabs.
” If Biden can hold a lead with older voters , Schale thinks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s margins in the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando , which would constitute a decent night for Biden on November 3 in Florida .
“ The key is not just running up the score in places like Miami , Sarasota , ” Schale said .
“ Maybe a county Joe Biden should lose by 15 points — maybe he ’ s down seven or eight and there ’ s a large number of undecideds.
” If Biden does win , Branscome says she hopes Republicans and Democrats in the Villages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like they did before Trump was elected .
“ Things really changed because of him , we really miss the days previously , ” Branscome said .
“ We ’ re losing friends over this .
My dream is that when Trump is gone , it will take a while , but all that hatred is going to be gone and we can be friends and do stuff together.
” Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to what is , quite possibly , the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as little as $ 3 .

Life in Florida’s largest retirement community is getting tense.
The Villages, the sprawling home to more than 100,000 Americans aged 55 and older, is the core of President Donald Trump and the GOP’s base in a key swing state. But lately, flags for former Vice President Joe Biden are flying alongside ones for Trump. Democratic retirees in the Villages started organizing rival golf cart parades with homemade signs saying “End the Trumpdemic,” and some make a point to do their weekly shopping trips at Publix wearing Biden/Harris T-shirts or hats. A roadside rally over Labor Day weekend drew over 80 people, more than double the size of any previous one, organizers told Vox.
It’s a “statement that we exist,” said Villages resident and Biden supporter Sara Nir Branscome, 60. “What I’m seeing here is, by far, more Biden signs on our lawns, our golf carts.”
This isn’t a one-off phenomenon; polls demonstrate that Biden is showing surprising strength among older voters throughout the country. Multiple national and state polls have found Biden running ahead of Trump with those 65 and older by double digits, including in a recent Quinnipiac University poll of Florida.
“I think it is noteworthy because it’s a segment of the electorate we haven’t done well with in more than a couple of years,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told Vox in a recent interview.
The last Democratic nominee to do so well with older voters was Al Gore, who narrowly won voters aged 50-64 and voters over 65 in 2000. Older voters are far more reliable than younger ones, so it matters if Democrats are gaining ground with the group. They were pivotal for Trump’s 2016 election; he won seniors by 7 percentage points, and white seniors by even higher margins. A few months ago, Biden’s campaign advisers told Vox that they considered even cutting into Trump’s margins with seniors a victory.
“This is a group that was turning away from Trump even before the pandemic hit, but the pandemic has cemented them against Trump in a way,” Monmouth University polling director Patrick Murray told Vox. Murray added that while older voters of color have long been with Biden, “It’s older white voters where we’re seeing the swing.”
Why older voters are such a sought-after bloc
Older voters are a highly prized demographic in elections for one big reason: They turn out reliably.
“Because they turn out at such high rates, because they are more likely to vote by mail in this election, and because they’re such a big proportion of the electorate,” said longtime Democratic pollster and strategist Celinda Lake.
In the 2016 election, nearly 71 percent of voters aged 65 and older cast a ballot, compared with 46 percent of voters aged 18 to 29. That trend held in the 2018 midterms (even though younger voter participation jumped substantially from the 2014 midterms), with 66 percent of voters over the age of 65 turning out, compared with 35.6 percent of voters aged 18 to 29.
Where older voters live is also important. They’re a crucial constituency in most key 2020 battleground states, but they’re particularly important in Florida and Arizona, given the heavy concentration of retirees. Incidentally, both of these states have been hit especially hard by the summer Covid-19 outbreaks.
“One striking feature of the battleground is how old it is, it’s not just Florida,” said Dave Wasserman, US House editor at the Cook Political Report. “Arizona also has an extraordinary percentage of seniors.”
National and battleground state polls alike show Biden strong with the 65 and older set. Some surveys show women driving that trend: A recent CNN poll found Biden with a 20-point lead among women. If a similar lead among women holds until November, it could be the largest gender gap between two candidates in decades.
“There’s gender gap galore, that feeds everything,” renowned Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, who recently released a national general election poll with Grinnell College, told Vox.
In Selzer’s national poll with Grinnell College, conducted August 26 to 30, Trump led Biden with men over 65 by 17 percentage points (56 to 39 percent). Biden had a six-point edge on Trump with women over 65, earning 49 percent of support compared with Trump’s 43 percent.
Other pollsters think the gender gap with older voters isn’t as strong, because many of these voters are concerned about the same set of issues: protecting government programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. “With other voters, you’ll see women worried about health and education, and men are worried about jobs,” said Lake. “If you’re a senior, you’re worried about the same thing.”
Some battleground state polls reflect this dynamic, as well. Two recent Quinnipiac University surveys found Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points with voters over 65 in Florida, and by 14 percentage points with the same cohort in Pennsylvania. Murray’s late-August Monmouth University poll of Pennsylvania also found Biden leading Trump by double digits with voters 65 and older.
The numbers are tighter in Arizona, a traditionally Republican state that is turning bluer due to its diverse population and changing suburbs. Like Florida, Arizona is also home to a lot of retirees. The state went for Trump by 3.5 points in 2016, but Democrats see an opportunity to flip this state at the presidential level, as well as a key Senate seat.
A recent Fox News poll of Arizona found Biden and Trump tied with registered voters over the age of 45. Trump led by 4 points among men over 45, while Biden led by 3 points among women over 45.
“Biden always had an advantage with seniors, and seniors always had a problem with Trump, but Covid was really catalytic with it,” Lake said.
Why seniors are switching to Biden
There are several possible reasons for the older voter exodus to Biden, and they can’t all be chalked up to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden was already polling well with the group before the pandemic hit. While it’s true that seniors are especially vulnerable to the novel coronavirus, political science experts told Vox there’s much more at play.
Older voters have seen more presidents in action. The polls could be telling us that many voters over 65 just don’t like Trump’s extremely unconventional presidency, marked by a daily barrage of tweetstorms and increased political polarization.
“Part of why they turned away from Trump is there’s too much shaking up in Washington,” Murray said.
Trump isn’t getting much traction by painting the more moderate Biden — who is 77 and has a decades-long track record in public service — as a vessel for the “radical left,” experts say.
While Biden’s history of gaffes may provide fodder for the Trump campaign and political pundits alike, older voters may not care about it too much.
“Biden harkens from an era before pre-programmed politicians,” Wasserman told Vox. “The fact he commits lots of gaffes makes him human in the eyes of a lot of older voters who remember the time when politicians could say what they wanted to say.”
Beyond any sort of connection seniors may feel with the former vice president, Biden is hammering home issues that elderly voters care about: protecting Social Security and Medicare, lowering prescription drug costs, and setting up a coordinated federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Biden campaign is also organizing older voters with biweekly senior to senior phone banks, encouraging them to make a plan to vote.
Covid-19 has also materially changed the lives of a lot of seniors. Older voters can no longer “fly across the country to see their grandkids,” said Florida Democratic strategist Steve Schale.
The Villages is a microcosm
None of the Villages residents I spoke with recently think America’s largest retirement community or the main county it sits in — Sumter County — will flip to Biden this year.
The 300 golf carts in a recent Biden support parade were still less than half of the Villages’ Trump group. And some people are still afraid to display Biden signs for the backlash they might get from their neighbors. A recent op-ed in the local newspaper — “Reasons I am afraid to live in The Villages” — listed alleged harassment because of political beliefs as driving such fears, including name-calling on social media, keyed cars, torn campaign signs, and red paint spilled on a driveway.
“It can get nasty. Someone had beer spilled all over their golf cart because they had a Biden sign,” Branscome told me. “When we do our rallies every Saturday and Thursday, we get a lot of fingers. When I see a 90-year-old woman giving me the finger because I’m wearing a Biden shirt, I’m sure she has kids and grandkids ... what are we teaching our future?”
But even if a flip is unlikely, locals say Democratic organizing in the area has never been stronger.
“It’s like night and day,” said Chris Stanley, president of the Villages Democratic Club. “I have so many people who are north of 75 who call me up and say, ‘I’ve never been a volunteer before, but how can I help?’ Most of our workforce are people who since 2016 have gotten engaged.”
That engaged volunteer base is working to try to flip other counties in Florida, including Pinellas County — an older county that encompasses the city of St. Petersburg and surrounding suburbs where one recent poll showed Biden double-digits ahead of Trump.
Schale, the Florida Democratic strategist who was Obama’s 2008 Florida state director, thinks about five or six counties in the state are “truly up for grabs.” If Biden can hold a lead with older voters, Schale thinks the former vice president can cut into Trump’s margins in the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, which would constitute a decent night for Biden on November 3 in Florida.
“The key is not just running up the score in places like Miami, Sarasota,” Schale said. “Maybe a county Joe Biden should lose by 15 points — maybe he’s down seven or eight and there’s a large number of undecideds.”
If Biden does win, Branscome says she hopes Republicans and Democrats in the Villages can start speaking to each other cordially like they did before Trump was elected.
“Things really changed because of him, we really miss the days previously,” Branscome said. “We’re losing friends over this. My dream is that when Trump is gone, it will take a while, but all that hatred is going to be gone and we can be friends and do stuff together.”
ntribute today from as little as $3.


vox--2020-09-11--“Unprecedented”: What’s behind the California, Oregon, and Washington wildfires

The one word experts keep using to describe the gargantuan ongoing wildfires in the western United States is “ unprecedented.
” California is experiencing some of the largest fires right now .
The 491,000-acre August Complex Fire is now the largest blaze in state history , and statewide , a total of more than 3 million acres have gone up in smoke , a record area for a single year .
Nearby coastal states like Oregon and Washington are also seeing record blazes , some of which are encroaching on major population centers .
In Oregon , more than 500,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , have been forced to evacuate ; more than 15 people have been killed in the West Coast fires .
“ This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our state ’ s history , ” said Oregon Gov .
Kate Brown in a press conference on September 9 .
Washington state has seen dozens of fires that have consumed more than half a million acres .
“ This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered , ” said Washington Gov .
Jay Inslee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The grass is so dry , the temperatures are so hot , and the winds are so heavy ... and these conditions are exacerbated by the changing climate.
” The National Interagency Fire Center reports that across 12 states , 100 large wildfires have burned 4.5 million acres .
Some of the largest blazes burning in the West as of September 11 are in a map below , and the Los Angeles Times has a map of other significant fires .
Wildfires are a natural part of many ecosystems in these western @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grasslands .
But the scale , intensity , speed , location , and timing of the recent infernos stand out .
They are a part of a pattern of growing fire risk , emerging from a confluence of factors exacerbated by humans , spanning from ignitions to urban planning to forest management to climate change .
What makes the 2020 wildfires in the West stand out among recent years with epic blazes With so many fires burning across a wide region , it ’ s important to remember that there is a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ play for a given fire , from the ignition source to what kind of landscape is burning to the local conditions spreading the flames .
However , there are some common factors that tie many of these blazes together and make them exceptional .
The weather and the warming climate : Record heat this summer baked much of the western United States , with states like California experiencing their hottest August on record .
Many cities and counties across the West experienced record or near-record heat throughout the summer and into September .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ heat wave that settled across the region in August and September and drove temperatures well into triple digits .
It has also been extremely dry in California , Oregon , and Washington this summer , with large sections of each state under “ severe drought ” conditions and some areas reaching “ extreme drought.
” That heat and dryness turned grasses , shrubs , and trees into easy tinder , ready to ignite at the slightest spark .
And in some cases , the weather has provided that spark .
The vast majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ignited by human sources — power lines , cigarette butts , machinery , or , in the case of one infamous recent fire , a gender reveal stunt .
But a strange dry lightning storm near the San Francisco Bay Area in August led to more than 11,000 lightning strikes and triggered more than 300 fires in its wake .
The causes of many of the other fires across the region are still being investigated .
The record-breaking weather comports with what scientists expect as the climate changes , and in many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already shifted in ways to worsen fire risk .
“ What you can say is that our fire seasons here in California have on average expanded by 75 days , ” said Lynnette Round , a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection .
“ Our summers are longer which means that conditions are hotter , they ’ re drier , and that makes us more susceptible to wildfires.
” Forecasts across many parts of the West show that conditions are expected to remain hot and dry for the coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , seasonal winds are expected to pick up , increasing the odds of spreading fires .
The timing : Recent extreme weather is a major factor behind why so many fires are burning at the same time .
Different biomes — from coniferous forests to chaparral — are usually primed to burn at different times of the year .
So across the West , fires are typically staggered throughout the season , with the peak of wildfires starting in northern areas midsummer and moving south into the autumn .
But dozens of fires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the West , a rare occurrence , even in fire-prone regions .
“ Having this many large fires break out simultaneously and , in many cases , move through populated areas so quickly all at once is unprecedented in Oregon , ” said Jason Cox , a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Forestry , in an email .
In some jurisdictions , several nearby fires have been grouped into larger “ complexes ” to coordinate firefighting efforts .
The size and speed : One hallmark of the recent blazes has been how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of thousands of acres in just a few hours .
It ’ s a sign of just how much dry fuel was ready to burn .
“ It ’ s the rates of spread that are really impactful and impressive , and also I would say largely due to this trajectory of warming and drying that we ’ re on from climate change , ” said Matthew Hurteau , an associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico who studies wildfires .
Oregon , for example , saw a 72-hour @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explained that in the entire 20th century , Oregon saw just six megafires , defined as blazes spanning more than 100,000 acres .
In the first decades of the 21st century , Oregon has seen 11 , but never more than two megafires in a given year .
“ Now over just a couple days , there are five wildfires of this size burning , ” Cox said .
“ The largest wildfire of the 20th century in Oregon was the first Tillamook Burn in 1933 at 261,000 acres .
We have seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over just a couple days.
” ( By comparison , the Tillamook Burn took more than 10 days . )
Another unusual aspect of the recent wildfires is how much they ’ ve kept their momentum , especially at night .
In California , the Bear Fire , part of the North Complex Fire , burned more than 100,000 acres in 24 hours after igniting .
A substantial amount of this happened through the night , when typically temperatures drop , relative humidity rises , and firefighters make progress .
“ This North @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and we ’ re seeing this in Oregon and Washington too , these really extreme fire behaviors are occurring in the middle of the night , ” said Hurteau .
“ That kind of fire growth , especially at night , that ’ s a climate signal for sure.
” The health toll : More than 15 people have died in the recent wildfires , and the smoke is affecting the health of millions now subjected to some of the dirtiest air in the world .
Such reductions in air quality can have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , increasing the rates of heart attacks , asthma attacks , and strokes .
Around the world , pollution from tiny particles like those from wildfire smoke remains one of the largest health threats to humanity .
But it will take time to see those signals emerge from the current blazes .
The resources strained by the pandemic : These fires are also coming during the Covid-19 pandemic , which has made it harder to recruit fire crews and has forced responders to take additional precautions to limit the spread of the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the year , we had time to develop some best practices , ” said Cox .
“ Specifically , we ’ ve limited access to fire camps , implemented firefighting modules where firefighters stay with a specific team , spread out fire crews and taken other physical distancing measures.
” However , with so many wildfires at the same time , there ’ s less personnel to go around .
“ This recent weather event caused wildfires to grow explosively in Oregon at a time when firefighting resources were stretched very thin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with all three West Coast states fully engaged in fighting fires when these new fires broke out , ” said Cox .
Washington , Oregon , and California also rely on inmates to bolster their firefighting efforts .
But with severe Covid-19 outbreaks in prisons , some inmates were released to relieve overcrowding , while others were sidelined by infections or quarantines .
Some countries have been reluctant to send firefighting help to the US because of the country ’ s poor handling of the pandemic .
California and Oregon have now obtained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal agencies to fight the wildfires .
The wildfire situation is still changing rapidly , but it ’ s clear that 2020 is going to be a year for the record books across much of the West .
And with the current trends in the climate and human activity worsening wildfire risks , it may not hold that record for long .
Help keep Vox free for all Millions turn to Vox each month to understand what ’ s happening in the news , from the coronavirus crisis to a racial reckoning to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
But our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources .
Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers , your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work .
If you have already contributed , thank you .
If you haven ’ t , please consider helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world : Contribute today from as @ @ @ @ @

The one word experts keep using to describe the gargantuan ongoing wildfires in the western United States is “unprecedented.”
California is experiencing some of the largest fires right now. The 755,600-acre August Complex Fire is now the largest blaze in state history, and statewide, a total of more than 3.1 million acres have gone up in smoke, a record area for a single year.
Nearby coastal states like Oregon and Washington are also seeing record blazes, some of which are encroaching on major population centers. In Oregon, more than 40,000 people were forced to evacuate.
Up and down the West Coast, at least 35 people have been killed in the recent fires.
“This is truly the bellwether for climate change on the West Coast,” said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Face the Nation on Sunday. “And this is a wake-up call for all of us that we have got to do everything in our power to tackle climate change.”
Washington state has seen dozens of fires that have consumed more than half a million acres. “This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered,” said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in a September 9 press conference. “The grass is so dry, the temperatures are so hot, and the winds are so heavy ... and these conditions are exacerbated by the changing climate.”
The National Interagency Fire Center reports that across 12 states, 100 large wildfires have burned 4.6 million acres. Some of the largest blazes burning on the coast as of September 15 are in a map below, and the Los Angeles Times has a map of other significant fires in the West.
Wildfires are a natural part of many ecosystems in these western states, serving to rejuvenate forests and grasslands. But the scale, intensity, speed, location, and timing of the recent infernos stand out. They are a part of a pattern of growing fire risk, emerging from a confluence of factors exacerbated by humans, spanning from ignitions to urban planning to forest management to climate change.
What makes the 2020 wildfires in the West stand out among recent years with epic blazes
With so many fires burning across a wide region, it’s important to remember that there is a lot of variability in the specific factors at play for a given fire, from the ignition source to what kind of landscape is burning to the local conditions spreading the flames. However, there are some common factors that tie many of these blazes together and make them exceptional.
The weather and the warming climate: Record heat this summer baked much of the western United States, with states like California experiencing their hottest August on record. Many cities and counties across the West experienced record or near-record heat throughout the summer and into September. The summer was capped with a punishing heat wave that settled across the region in August and September and drove temperatures well into triple digits.
It has also been extremely dry in California, Oregon, and Washington this summer, with large sections of each state under “severe drought” conditions and some areas reaching “extreme drought.”
That heat and dryness turned grasses, shrubs, and trees into easy tinder, ready to ignite at the slightest spark.
And in some cases, the weather has provided that spark. The vast majority of wildfires in the United States are ignited by human sources — power lines, cigarette butts, machinery, or, in the case of one infamous recent fire, a gender reveal stunt. But a strange dry lightning storm near the San Francisco Bay Area in August led to more than 11,000 lightning strikes and triggered more than 300 fires in its wake. The causes of many other fires across the region are still being investigated.
The record-breaking weather comports with what scientists expect as the climate changes, and in many of the burning areas, the climate has already shifted in ways to worsen fire risk.
“What you can say is that our fire seasons here in California have on average expanded by 75 days,” said Lynnette Round, a spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “Our summers are longer which means that conditions are hotter, they’re drier, and that makes us more susceptible to wildfires.”
Forecasts across many parts of the West show that conditions are expected to remain hot and dry for the coming weeks. And as the fall approaches, seasonal winds are expected to pick up, increasing the odds of spreading fires.
The timing: Recent extreme weather is a major factor behind why so many fires are burning at the same time. Different biomes — from coniferous forests to chaparral — are usually primed to burn at different times of the year. So across the West, fires are typically staggered throughout the season, with the peak of wildfires starting in northern areas midsummer and moving south into the autumn.
But dozens of fires are simultaneously burning across huge swaths of the West, a rare occurrence, even in fire-prone regions.
“Having this many large fires break out simultaneously and, in many cases, move through populated areas so quickly all at once is unprecedented in Oregon,” said Jason Cox, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Forestry, in an email.
In some jurisdictions, several nearby fires have been grouped into larger “complexes” to coordinate firefighting efforts.
The size and speed: One hallmark of the recent blazes has been how quickly they gained ground, spreading over hundreds of thousands of acres in just a few hours. It’s a sign of just how much dry fuel was ready to burn.
“It’s the rates of spread that are really impactful and impressive, and also I would say largely due to this trajectory of warming and drying that we’re on from climate change,” said Matthew Hurteau, an associate professor of biology at the University of New Mexico who studies wildfires.
Oregon, for example, saw a 72-hour period where 900,000 acres burned. Cox explained that in the entire 20th century, Oregon saw just six megafires, defined as blazes spanning more than 100,000 acres. In the first decades of the 21st century, Oregon has seen 11, but never more than two megafires in a given year.
“Now over just a couple days, there are five wildfires of this size burning,” Cox said. “The largest wildfire of the 20th century in Oregon was the first Tillamook Burn in 1933 at 261,000 acres. We have seen more than twice that many acres burn over just a couple days.” (By comparison, the Tillamook Burn took more than 10 days.)
Another unusual aspect of the recent wildfires is how much they’ve kept their momentum, especially at night. In California, the Bear Fire, part of the North Complex Fire, burned more than 100,000 acres in 24 hours after igniting. A substantial amount of this happened through the night, when typically temperatures drop, relative humidity rises, and firefighters make progress.
“This North Complex, which is currently burning, and we’re seeing this in Oregon and Washington too, these really extreme fire behaviors are occurring in the middle of the night,” said Hurteau. “That kind of fire growth, especially at night, that’s a climate signal for sure.”
The health toll: At least 35 people have died in the recent wildfires, and the smoke is affecting the health of millions now subjected to some of the dirtiest air in the world.
Per this app, Portland has the worst air quality of any major city in the world right now, and it’s not even close.
In smaller towns across Oregon, the AQI is even worse. pic.twitter.com/lNDBC2bZYX — Tuck Woodstock (@tuckwoodstock) September 11, 2020
Such reductions in air quality can have devastating consequences for respiratory and cardiovascular health, increasing the rates of heart attacks, asthma attacks, and strokes. Around the world, pollution from tiny particles like those from wildfire smoke remains one of the largest health threats to humanity. But it will take time to see those signals emerge from the current blazes.
The resources strained by the pandemic: These fires are also coming during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has made it harder to recruit fire crews and has forced responders to take additional precautions to limit the spread of the virus.
“With the pandemic starting earlier in the year, we had time to develop some best practices,” said Cox. “Specifically, we’ve limited access to fire camps, implemented firefighting modules where firefighters stay with a specific team, spread out fire crews and taken other physical distancing measures.”
However, with so many wildfires at the same time, there’s less personnel to go around.
“This recent weather event caused wildfires to grow explosively in Oregon at a time when firefighting resources were stretched very thin across the entire western United States, with all three West Coast states fully engaged in fighting fires when these new fires broke out,” said Cox.
Washington, Oregon, and California also rely on inmates to bolster their firefighting efforts. But with severe Covid-19 outbreaks in prisons, some inmates were released to relieve overcrowding, while others were sidelined by infections or quarantines. Some countries have been reluctant to send firefighting help to the US because of the country’s poor handling of the pandemic. (California has passed a new law aimed at helping released inmates get firefighting jobs.)
California and Oregon have now obtained federal disaster declarations to get help from federal agencies to fight the wildfires.
The wildfire situation is still changing rapidly, but it’s clear that 2020 is going to be a year for the record books across much of the West. And with the current trends in the climate and human activity worsening wildfire risks, it may not hold that record for long.