Or just giving money, so that people can buy what they need. But this thing you linked seems especially bad, among the many awful "charities".
And potentially sink that money into large, corrupt systems (such as some 3rd world governments) that at best use it inefficiently and at worst make the problem worse...
Which is, I suppose, the point. There is no single solution, a combination of outside groups and internal tools are needed to resolve systemic problems. The can't be fixed exclusively from the outside.
[1]: http://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/measuring-impact-...
C'mon, you really thought I was 'advocating' for each of us to buy a plane ticket and fly into some country, and hand people money to buy cleaning supplies.
Microlending is not giving people cash. It's giving people loans. That microlending has limited/negligible effect has also been well known for some time (as you know as well since you linked one of the studies, but the same organization has a new meta-study over multiple countries also worth looking into). The same organization has much better study results with giving people cash. Every study of cash grants (conditional or unconditional from Oportunidades onwards) I have ever seen is net positive, and most very positive.
Instead, external Capitalists move in to exploit the people and resources while the country stays corrupt not benefiting from the profits, because profits are for the most part siphoned off by external investors. So there isn't much money left over to do actual work in the country. To build its systems and an internal Capitalist elite that will look after the country, its interests, and properly socializing and educating people.
So the countries continue to stay charity cases. Exception of this being countries which already have a class interested in Capitalism that is enabled by other foreign countries, rather than private interests. Like Japan and South Korea.