by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 23, 2013 | News
Photo Exhibition, Verona
A photo exhibition on Namibia’s basic income experiment has been going on at the Library Frinzi in Verona from April 4th to 29th. On kick-off day, April 4th, there was a brief introduction of both the exhibition and Namibia’s basic income project. The experimentation undertaken in Namibia by BIGNAM (Basic Income Grant-Namibia) aims at granting every man and women a universal and unconditional basic income.
The photo exhibition, which is entitled ‘Basic Income and Right to Life – Signals from Namibia, Images of a Concrete Utopia’, depicts particular moments of daily life of Otjivero – Omitara (Namibia) community.
The exhibition was organized by Simone Michelangelo Muzzioli, a Ph.D student in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Verona, and it has been supported by PhD program in Sociology and Social Research of the University of Verona.
For further information about the exhibition it is possible to contact Simone Muzzioli (PhD student in Sociology and Social Research): simonemichelangelo.muzzioli@univr.it
More info (both in Italian and in English) is also available on line at: https://www.bin-italia.org/informa.php?ID_NEWS=473
Basic Income Network Italia – Associazione BIN Italia
Basic Income Namibia
by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 20, 2013 | News
SEWA model shows cash transfers work
Since 2010, three overlapping pilot schemes have been testing how unconditional cash grants could be expected to work in India. Altogether, over 6,000 individuals have been receiving monthly cash grants, including all men, women and children of nine villages in Madhya Pradesh.
A public conference at which the evaluations of those pilots will be presented will take place at the Indian International Centre Conference Hall, New Delhi, on May 30-31, 2013.
The Minister of Rural Development, Jairam Ramesh, will open the Conference, along with Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chair of the National Planning Commission. The Minister is also the Cabinet Minister in charge of rolling out cash transfers across India. Other very senior government and international agency dignitaries, from the UN, World Bank and so on, will also be participating. Officials from various government departments, academics and social activists are expected to attend, as are representatives of the media.
The largest of the pilots was based on a randomised control trial methodology (RCT). In this, a random sample of 8 villages in Madhya Pradesh was selected, where every man, woman and child received individually a monthly cash benefit each month for 17 months, with the money for each child going to the mother or surrogate mother if she was dead or absent.
To evaluate the impact on health, schooling and so on, 12 other similar villages were drawn as a control group, in which nobody received the transfers. To assess the effects, a series of evaluation surveys were designed, beginning with a baseline census of all households in all 20 villages undertaken just before the launch of the cash payments.
Having done a listing of all households and individuals living in the villages and the baseline census, an Awareness Day was held in each of the 8 villages chosen to receive the cash grants. This involved a mass meeting of villagers, when our local team informed the villagers that they would be receiving the money, that it would be unconditional and paid universally, and that nobody would intervene to say how the money could or should be spent or used.
All recipients were required to open a bank account or a cooperative account within three months of receiving the first payment, which was handed out on formal registration. After that, the money was paid directly into their accounts. Initially, every adult was to receive 200 Rupees per month and every child under the age of 14 was to receive 100. This was later modified to be 300 Rupees and 150 Rupees respectively.
After nine months, an Interim Evaluation Survey (IES) was conducted in all 20 villages, covering all the subjects on which we had hypothesised there would be an impact on status, behaviour and attitudes. The IES covered a random sample of households, and gave a special focus to issues of implementation and “financial inclusion”.
After 12 months, a Final Evaluation Survey (FES) was conducted, which was a full census of all households and individuals in the 20 villages. After the pilot ended, a Post-FES survey was conducted, mainly to obtain personal impressions of the experience and the impact on the disabled, adolescents and the elderly, groups often neglected in such schemes.
A feature of the MPUCT pilot was a design intended to test the following general hypothesis, that cash grants have a series of positive effects but that the presence of a Voice mechanism in the community would make some effects more pronounced. Accordingly, half the villages selected for cash grants had SEWA already established in them, half did not; and the control villages were also split into half having SEWA, half not.
The series of evaluation surveys were complemented by some detailed case studies. And a Community Survey was conducted in the villages at the beginning and end of the experiment.
The other two pilots were smaller-scale. A sample of 450 low-income households in western Delhi were offered the alternative options of either continuing to receive subsidised food and kerosene in the ration shops or switch to receiving cash grants equivalent to the monetary value of those rations.
The third pilot was in a tribal village in Madhya Pradesh. In this case, for 12 months, every man, woman and child received a cash benefit of 300 Rupees, if an adult, and 150 if a child. For comparisons, a similar tribal village was chosen as a control group. As in the larger pilot in Madhya Pradesh, a baseline census was followed by an Interim Evaluation Survey and a Final Evaluation Survey.
The main objective of the evaluations was to determine the effects on such crucial developments as living conditions, including sanitation, health, nutrition, schooling, work, labour and production, consumption, savings and debt, women’s status and decision-making roles, and the effects for socially disadvantaged groups, including scheduled castes and the disabled.
The project has been coordinated by SEWA, the Self-Employed Women’s Association of India, working in collaboration with Professor Guy Standing, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and with others who have made important contributions. The pilots have been funded mostly by UNICEF, New Delhi, which has seen it as a research project that could advance the debate on cash transfers in India and elsewhere.
The Conference will be open to the media. A variety of proponents and opponents of “cash transfers” are being invited, and there will be special sessions on all the crucial subject areas, such as nutrition, health, schooling and economic production.
An Op-Ed piece on the study by Guy Standing appeared in the Hindu newspaper. It is online at: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/sewa-model-shows-cash-transfers-work/article4262718.ece
Further details could be obtained from SEWA (Renana Jhabvala or Sarath Davala) or Professor Guy Standing (guystanding@standingnet.com). Provisional findings could also be provided, if interested.
A short video of initial results can be seen on the following:
by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 15, 2013 | Opinion
A very positive sign that the Unconditional Basic Income proposal is advancing in the Americas is that a “Ley Marco de La Renta Básica”, “Draft Basic Income Framework Law”, was approved by the General Session of the Parlatino, Parlamento Latino Americano [Latin American Parliament], held last November 30th, 2012, in Panama City. After three preparatory meetings of the Commission of Economic Affairs of the Parlatino in Aruba, Curacao and Buenos Aires, with the cooperation of the Representatives Rodrigo Cabezas Morales, from Venezuela, President of the Commission, Maria Soledad Vela Cheroni, from Ecuador, Ricardo Berois, from Uruguay, and myself, during which the proposal was discussed, it was finally presented as a model for all the parliaments of all 23 nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
This Ley Marco de la Renta Basica takes into account what is considered in the Brazilian Law, approved by the National Congress, by all parties, both in the Federal Senate, in 2002, and in the Chamber of Deputies, in 2003, and then sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 8th, 2004: The Citizen’s Basic Income will be introduced step by step, under the Executive criteria, taken into account first those most in need, such as the Bolsa Família Program does.
The Brazilian population in 2013 is around 194 million inhabitants. According to the Bolsa Família Program, all families with a monthly income per capita up to R$ 140.00 can benefit from the program with the following rules:
If the per capita family income is below R$70.00 per month, the initial basic benefit to the family is R$ 70.00. In addition, for all families with income per capita below R$ 140.00 per month, they have the right to receive R$ 32.00, R$ 64.00, R$ 96,00, R$ 128.00 or R$ 160.00 if the family has, respectively, one, two, three, four or more children up to the age 15 years and 11 months, plus R$ 38.00 or R$ 76.00 if the family has one or two adolescents, respectively, from 16 to 18 years of age.
There are some conditionalities: if the mother is pregnant, she must do the pre-natal health exam in the Public Health System of the region where she lives. The children up to six years of age must be taken by their parents to the Health System to take the necessary vaccines, according to the Health Ministry’s calendar. The children aged seven to 15 years and eleven months must be in school at least 85% of the classes. The adolescents aged 16 to 18 must attend at least 75% of the classes in school.
In January 2013 there were 18.491.302 families in Brazil with per capita income up to R$ 140.00 per month that, therefore, would be allowed to get the benefits of the Bolsa Família Program. By March 2013, there were13.872.243 families enrolled in the Bolsa Família Program that is 75% of those who, by law, are entitled to enroll in the program. Since there are around 3.5 people in each family among the relatively poor, we may say that almost one fourth of the Brazilian population of 194 million today benefits from the Bolsa Família Program.
Since June 2011, President Dilma Rousseff has launched the Active Search process through which all levels of government and social organizations of all kinds should help in finding those families with the right to have the Bolsa Família benefit and that have not been identified and enrolled in the program yet. Since March, 2013, all families enrolled in the Bolsa Família program with at least one child up to 15 years and eleven months of age whose monthly family income, plus the Bolsa Família benefits, does not reach the sufficient to provide at least R$ 70.00 per capita, the Federal Government, through the so called Brasil Carinhoso or Brazil Care Program, will provide what is needed to complete the monthly R$ 70.00 per capita to the family. Through this measure the government is trying to guarantee that all Brazilian families, from now on, have at least R$ 70.00 per capita per month.
One day, I hope in the near future, we will be able to make the transition from the Bolsa Família Program towards the Citizen’s Basic Income, not only in Brazil, but in all countries of the three continents of the Americas.
Link to the Draft Basic Income Framework Law approved by the Parlatino:
https://www.usbig.net/papers/Palestra%20USBIG2013_English.doc
by Yannick Vanderborght | Apr 5, 2013 | Research
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Monbiot, George. “Communism, welfare state – what’s the next big idea?”
The Guardian, Monday 1 April 2013
[BIEN – April 2013]
This opinion piece in one of Britain’s leading newspapers, begins, “Most of the world’s people are decent, honest and kind. Most of those who dominate us are inveterate bastards. It decries most recent British policy toward the poor as punitive, “brutal,” and “antisocial.” Looking for new solutions it considers both a land tax and basic income. According to Monboit, basic income “banishes the fear and insecurity now stalking the poorer half of the population. Economic survival becomes a right, not a privilege. … The poor are not forced by desperation into the arms of unscrupulous employers: people will work if conditions are good and pay fair, but will refuse to be treated like mules. It redresses the wild imbalance in bargaining power that the current system exacerbates. It could do more than any other measure to dislodge the emotional legacy of serfdom.”
The article is online at: https://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/01/alternative-to-war-on-britains-poor
