International: Basic Income Earth Conference 2019 announcement (update)

The structure of the Conference has been updated.

BIEN Civic Forum will be held on the 22^nd of August. On this day, having been called “India Day”, two major plenary discussions will be held: one that focuses on the Indian state of Telangana and its policy initiatives related to basic income, and a second one about the more general debate at the Indian national level.

As for the Thematic Areas for Plenary Sessions, these have been improved and detailed, as follows:

1. Ideological Perspectives and Diverse Worldviews on Basic Income

Exploring different ideological perspectives and worldviews that see an unconditional Basic Income as a desirable component of a more equitable and inclusive society

2. Women’s Care and Unpaid Work: Is Basic Income an essential component of a new paradigm of Equity?

What implications and impact would basic income have on the lives women who constitute more than half of the global population? Can we talk of a sustainable society as long as we steal labor from women? Can an unconditional basic income remedy this structural inequity?

3. Is Basic Income the Foundation of a Caring Economy and Society?

Is it possible to build an economy and a society that is based on values of caring, sharing and partnering rather than power, domination and control? Is an unconditional basic income an essential ingredient of such a society?

4. The Emancipatory Potential: What forms of Freedom and what kind of Community Life does Basic Income promote?

Basic Income experiments across the world have demonstrated repeatedly that an unconditional basic income has a strong emancipatory effect of its recipients.  It loosens the constraints of existence and liberates the mind to seek a life and a community better than what we have now. What implications does this freedom and emancipation have on us and the communities that we dwell in?

5. Basic Income, the Commons and Sovereign Wealth Funds

Our society privileges and celebrates private inheritance, but it equally turns invisible what can be called our public inheritance, and the fact that it is people who own natural resources and the state is just a custodian. This perspective if implemented can radically transform the way we view, manage and account for our natural wealth and endowments.

6. BI Pilots: Opportunities and Limits of Evidence

In both the low-income countries and in high-income countries, there have been basic income pilot studies. While we already have the results of some of the studies, by mid-2019, we are likely to have more results. The Congress will deliberate both the results and also what they can achieve in terms of policy change

7. Basic Income and Political Action: What does it take to transform and idea into policy?

It is one thing to have strong evidence from pilot studies and something else to get the acceptance of the policy makers and persuade them to act on it. There have been some pioneers among politicians and policy-makers across continents who have taken the plunge and implemented different versions unconditional income transfers, inspired by the spirit of the idea of basic income. Do we see them as first steps towards a full UBI? Or as distortions of the idea?

8. Development Aid and Corporate Philanthropy: Is Basic Income a Better Paradigm and Way Forward?

In recent years, there has been a great deal of rethinking about the effectiveness of the current paradigms of giving aid either to countries or to communities. Unconditional Basic Income is increasingly emerging as a radical alternative to conventional notions of giving aid. We witness this shift as much within the UN think-tanks as that of corporate philanthropy.

As for thematic areas for concurrent sessions have been updated and completed:

1. Ideological Perspectives on Basic Income
2. Women’s Care and Unpaid Work: Is Basic Income the new paradigm of Equity?
3. Basic Income in Development Aid Debate: Is there a Paradigm-shift?
4. Religious Perspectives on Basic Income
5. Basic Income as a Foundation of a Caring Economy and Society?
6. What forms of Freedom and What kind of Community Life does Basic Income promote?
7. Basic Income and Blockchain Technology: Are there Synergies?
8. Basic Income, Poverty and Rural Livelihoods
9. Basic Income, the Commons, and Sovereign Wealth Funds: Is Public Inheritance an emerging issue?
10. Basic Income Pilots: Opportunities and Limits
11. Basic Income and Political Action: What does it take to transform an Idea into Policy?
12. Basic Income and Corporate Philanthropy: Is Basic Income a better paradigm and way forward?
13. Basic Income and Children
14. Basic Income and Mental Health
15. Basic Income and Intentional Communities: What does this Experience Teach us?

There will also be a Short Films Exhibition, organized in partnership with Grundeinkommen Television (Gtv), which a is part of the Initiative Grundeinkommen, a pioneering civil society initiative established in 2008. Guidelines for submission:

1. The length of the Film should be below 15 minutes;
2. Your film should be made in 2018 or 2019 and be shown for the first time to a wider audience at the Congress;
3. The film should be in English or with English subtitles;
4. Entries should reach latest by 1st June 2019;
5. A committee appointed by INBI will select the entries for exhibition at the Congress;
6. Two of these selected films will be jointly rewarded INBI Short Film Prize of 500 US Dollars each.

For further information and to submit films, please contact Enno Schmidt, Chair of the Committee. ennoschmidt@me.com.

General registrations can be made here. For paper abstract submission (in MS Word document between 300 and 500 words), please email to: 19biencongress.india@gmail.com.

The Congress is supported by:

LocalHi – travel and logistics

NALSAR University of Law

SEWA Madhya Pradesh

WiseCoLab

Mustardseed Trust

Everyday.earth

OpenDemocracy

CEPS, Center for Ethics, Politics and Society

Gtv, Grundeinkommen Television