Since 2025, BIEN has had the pleasure of collaborating with the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter. Together with our partner, Equal Right, we have submitted inputs on how Basic Income can contribute to the Special Rapporteur’s landmark initiative, Eradication Poverty Beyond Growth, inputs which were endorsed by 62 of BIEN affiliates and partners across 32 countries around the world. Mr. De Schutter’s office subsequently invited BIEN for an additional deep dive in the form of a policy profile on basic income, presenting objectives, design features, implementation steps and expected benefits, challenges and illustrative examples of existing practices and showcasing basic income’s key advantages. T
his policy profile produced jointly between BIEN, EqualRight, University of Bath and the UN Special Rapporteur’s office is now published on the Roadmap’s website [additional link], and represents a reference document on emerging policy proposals towards the eradication of poverty beyond growth. Thanks to this collaborative work, basic income is a policy instrument now part of the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth, which was adopted at the International Labour Organization in Geneva on April 22.
Over this short period, BIEN’s engagement with the office of the UN Special Rapporteur also translated into joint events at two major UN conferences. Mr. De Schutter generously accepted BIEN’s invitation as keynote speaker at the side event organised by Equal Right at the UN Conference for the Financing for Development, held in Seville in July 2025. De Schutter also joined BIEN’s event at the UN Second World Summit on Social Development, which took place in Doha in November 2025.
BIEN highly appreciates this collaboration with the UN Special Rapporteur’s office advancing Basic Income a step further into the policy space of international development. Basic Income can indeed be a game changer at a critical time for global aid and the urgent need for making leaps towards the SDGs. BIEN looks forward to expanding this engagement with Mr. De Schutter’s office toward our shared objective of eradicating poverty.
