by Citizens' Income Trust | May 23, 2012 | Research
On the 1st March the Namibian Basic Income Grant Coalition published a press release [entitled “The Basic Income Grant (BIG) is Government’s Responsibility”] relating to the recent two year Citizen’s Income pilot project in two Namibian villages (reported in the Citizen’s Income Newsletter, issue 2 for 2009): ‘Despite the positive results, the Namibian government has still not committed itself to the introduction of a BIG [Basic Income Grant: Citizen’s Income] in Namibia. Instead, senior government leaders have raised concerns that the grant would make people lazy and dependent on hand-outs. Such perceptions are rooted in prejudices rather than being based on the evidence provided by Otjivero! We wish to point out that the BIG Coalition arranged for many Namibians, including Members of Parliament (MPs), to visit Otjivero and to witness the developments there first-hand. The honourable MPs were free to assess the impact of the BIG themselves and they were impressed with the results achieved in Otjivero. However, they preferred to express their views in private instead of speaking out publicly in support of a national BIG.’
https://bignam.org/Publications/Press_release_March_2012_to_Government.pdf.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Feb 18, 2012 | News
The 14th Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) will take place on September 14 to 16, 2012 in Munich, Germany. The website is online at: https://www.bien2012.de/en
Call for Papers, Proposals, and Events
Deadline for submissions, April 15, 2012
The debate about an unconditional basic income has attracted public attention in a number of countries in recent years. Financial, debt, and ecological crises are causing growing numbers of people to look for political alternatives to the existing economy and the way income is distributed within it. With the debate entering this crucial phase, the 2012 BIEN Congress will discuss possible pathways and barriers towards establishing and implementing Basic Income. This year, the Network Basic Income Germany (Netzwerk Grundeinkommen Deutschland) is organizing the conference.
We propose that the conference focuses on the following questions:
- What could a specific roadmap to Basic Income look like, nationally and internationally? What contribution could pilot projects make towards the implementation of Basic Income? Which reforms would need to be prioritized? What barriers need to be overcome, and how?
- Is there evidence for broader public support for a basic income? What are current Basic Income debates and social movements focusing on? What political and civil society alliances are possible and potentially productive?
- How do Basic Income debates relate to the current financial and debt crisis? Could a Basic Income contribute to combating the effects of this crisis and prevent future crises? What criteria would the concept of Basic Income have to meet to make such a contribution?
- How does Basic Income relate to the ecological crisis? How could it contribute to an alternative, more sustainable economy and way of life? Which conceptual design would be most appropriate from that perspective?
- Which versions of Basic Income are viable (with respect to the ecological, social and economic crises), affordable, and politically feasible?
- What is the normative justification for Basic Income, and what goals does it aim to achieve? How do these goals respond to current economic, environmental and social problems?
The conference aims to present an opportunity for an open, interdisciplinary discussion of the problems and questions surrounding Basic Income. The above questions are not intended to set strict boundaries, but to facilitate open and thematically wide-ranging discussions.
We invite all interested groups and individuals, both advocates and critics of Basic Income, to submit abstracts for presentations, workshops, and posters. Subject to constraints on space, film-screenings and readings will also be possible. Proposals of up to 400 words should be submitted in German or English by 15 April 2012 at https://www.bien2012.de/en.
The conference program will be compiled from all submissions by 15th May 2012. All those who have made a submission will receive a message shortly afterwards. If you have any questions please contact us at callforpapers@bien2012.de.
Further information on the conference fee, accommodation and travel can be found at the website.
Kind Regards,
Academic Advisory Group for the 14th BIEN Congress:
Prof. Dr. Claus Offe, Dr. Milena Büchs, Dr. Ingmar Kumpmann, Dorothee Schulte-Basta, Ronald Blaschke
Berlin, 3. Februar 2012
by Citizens' Income Trust | Jan 30, 2012 | Opinion
This interview with Guy Standing first appeared in The Times of India, Crest edition, 9th July 2011, and we are grateful for permission to reprint it. For the original interview, please see www.timescrest.com/opinion/social-insurance-is-not-for-the-indian-open-economy-of-21st-century-5775. The interview was conducted by Rukmini Shrinivasan
You have become a strong advocate of cash transfers. Why so?
From my point of view, cash transfers are an essential pillar of a comprehensive social protection system. Social insurance was for an industrial society; it’s not for the Indian open economy of the 21st century. You can’t have unemployment insurance – it doesn’t reach the poor. You can’t have a means-tested system because we’ve seen the problems with it. So, you’re going to need to have some basic income transfer. The technology to do it is rapidly emerging – in some respects, India is becoming a world leader in this – and rolling this out within the next few years is certainly within the capabilities of the Indian state, if there was a will to do so.
I think cash transfers should be seen as whether they’re good or bad in themselves. They should not be discussed as an alternative to any specific policy. I do not think it is fair or correct to see this debate around cash transfers as a substitute for something else such as the public distribution system (PDS). I may have my criticisms of the PDS but they are separate from the reasons why I think cash transfers are good.
That may apply to cash transfers in general, but a general income cash transfer is not on the policy table in India right now. The only cash transfers that are being discussed within the government are those that replace subsidies.
I agree, but then there should be a proper debate. Clearly, there are chronic inefficiencies in the existing subsidy system. It goes right across the board, and anybody who defends that system is just charging against a volume of evidence that says it is chronically inefficient and inequitable and it is not solving poverty. The Prime Minister knows that, Sonia Gandhi knows that. If we know that there are very good reasons why a scheme doesn’t work, then it is intellectually reprehensible to continue in that direction.
But many of the problems in the PDS can be traced to targeting. The state of Tamil Nadu, which has a universal PDS, has both the best record of reaching beneficiaries and the lowest leakages. Why then are cash transfers the natural direction in which you look, rather than universalisation of the PDS?
I don’t know enough about Tamil Nadu, so I’m not going to say anything. Sure, you could universalise if that’s what works. But, I don’t think that’s an argument against cash transfers.
Even if it’s a targeted or conditional cash transfer, as is currently being proposed in India?
I really hope that the conditionality issue can be defeated; I think that’s the wrong way for India to go. One just imagines the scope for corruption and inefficiency; the mind boggles. I also hope that the simplicity and transparency of cash transfers will be appreciated for what it is. I hope that policy makers will look at food security as just a small part of overall security. We saw food security improve dramatically in a universal cash transfer pilot programme in Namibian villages as a result of not handing out food, but people having cash by which they could buy seeds and grow things.
You and the BIEN repeatedly talk of a universal income transfer. However, when this is operationalised by countries like Brazil, they do impose conditions and targeting. Isn’t it disingenuous to continue to talk of a universal income transfer when countries take up only a targeted version?
The whole of my professional career, I have advocated universalised and unconditional social protection and cash transfers. You are right that in Brazil, it was not only targeted in trying to reach just the poor, but it was also selected in trying to reach just women. It was not universal and it was conditional. The realisation was that the conditionality – sending kids to schools and attending clinics – was merely helping to legitimise the cash transfers among the middle class. But in 2004, Brazil passed a law committing the government to implement a universal, unconditional cash transfer for the whole population. The objective has been to roll it out and the number of beneficiaries has risen from 11 million to 60 million and the conditionality is being faded out. I foresee that something like that could happen in India.
What was the impact of the basic income cash transfer pilot in Namibia that you were a part of?
Child school attendance went up dramatically, use of medical clinics went up. Those with HIV/ AIDS started to take ARTs (Antiretroviral Therapy drugs) because they’d been able to buy the right sort of food with the cash. Women’s economic status improved, and the economic crime rate went down. Income distribution improved. This is very relevant in India because with your existing handout of goods and even with NREGA, you don’t alter the structure of local economies; in fact, you almost rigidify them. If you provide an equal amount of cash to all members of a community, you are automatically giving proportionately more to the poor. If you do that, you release the constraints that are on the lower income groups – they can pay off their debts, they can take risks, and they can buy things that they need for petty production.
Are there pilot schemes going on in India?
Social protection policy develops best when it builds on pilots, because pilot schemes allow institutional learning. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The scheme that may evolve in the Indian context may be unique – we don’t know yet. But what would be sensible is if there were calm, collected, quiet pilot schemes that were tried out with good principles, were professionally advised, developed, and implemented – without fanfare, without misrepresentation. I’m afraid that at the moment, the political polemic is making sensible piloting harder. Too many people are posturing and are keen to disrupt sensible, well-meant pilots being conducted. It is not in the interests of anybody that pilots be disrupted or prevented. The Delhi situation seems to have fallen into that trap and I think it’s very sad.
The Delhi Pilot
The Delhi government, in 2010, appointed the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the India Development Foundation to conduct a pilot study into cash transfers as a possible alternative to the Public Distribution System (PDS). The pilot, which began in January 2011, will run for one year in West Delhi’s Raghubir Nagar slum.
100 households volunteered for cash transfers and will receive Rs 1,000 per month but will have no access to the ration shop. Another 100 volunteer families will only get a bank account and will continue to use the ration shop. The third volunteer group of 150 families will neither receive cash nor a bank account and will have to use the ration shop. The last group is of 150 families who did not want cash transfers and will not receive it. All cash transfers will be made in the name of the woman of the family.
The pilot will study the consumption, expenditure, and nutrition of the four groups and compare them against each other to determine the impact of cash transfers, and will submit its findings to the government.
However, the pilot programme has faced serious opposition from NGOs opposed to cash transfers. Members of these groups distributed pamphlets in the slum warning that participating in the pilot would lead to ration shops shutting down, and disrupted public meetings held by SEWA in the area. The pilot continues. RS
by Yannick Vanderborght | Dec 5, 2011 | Opinion
Thomas Paine and many other libertarians concerned with fundamental human rights, dreamt of the day when no one would suffer from want and basic income security should be garanteed to all. The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) promotes the idea among all countries. In Brazil, Senator Eduardo M. Suplicy has been the champion for the basic income, here called “Renda Básica de Cidadania – RBC” or citizen’s basic income.
Brazil developed gradually, since 1994, programs do help the poor. The Lula government united social programs that were dispersed and created the “Bolsa Família Program”, a system of conditional transfer of money linked to school attendance and vaccination. The family income has to be below a defined amount to qualify for the benefits. The program has been a great success. Nevertheless conditionalities require a large bureaucracy to monitor beneficiaries. Senator Suplicy introduced a bill to create an unconditional basic income for all and President Lula sanctioned the law in 2004.
Suplicy’s efforts triggered initiatives by ReCivitas (1). This small organization tried to start a pilot experiment in Paranapiacaba, based on withdrawals from a fund belonging to all, without success. Then ReCivitas started a mini-pilot experiment, using money from donors, to pay a RBC to almost 90 people in a rural “bairro” in São Paulo state. That experiment is doing well and has been described in BIEN’s Newsflash 65, november 2011.
The encounter of Suplicy and the mayor of Santo Antonio do Pinhal, a small city (~7,000 people) at the Mantiqueira mountains in São Paulo, started another effort to bring the idea to a real test. Volunteers explained the idea in meetings at schools, churches, and community spaces. In 2009 the town deputies sanctioned a law, presented by the mayor, that created a town’s fund to be fed by 6% of the city’s earnings. The rest was supposed to be provided by donors. The experiment was analysed by NEPP (2) a organization that is part of UNICAMP (3) and funded by CAF (4). A group of volunteers provided data about the town and stats were recorded, without any clear recommendation. Simultaneously Anthony Baert, from the Economics School of Louvain, Belgium, joined NEPP, had access to the same data, and published his own study (see BIEN’s Newsflash 65) of the known basic income experiments around the world, with an analysis of the existing proposal for Santo Antonio do Pinhal (5). His conclusion stated:
“based on this research, we make recommendations for the implantation of the Citizen’s Basic Income in Santo Antônio do Pinhal (Brazil). We conclude that it is not viable on the short and medium term and we suggest instead to first launch a five-year pilot project.”
We have been aware of the enormous difficulties to implement a fund-based solution to RBC for Santo Antonio do Pinhal. A Basic Income Grant (BIG) Bank is providing the resources at Quatinga Velho representing around 90 persons (see BIEN’s Newsflash 65). Anyone can imagine the difficulties to implement a funding through regular withdrawals from financial investments even for a small city. Above all, we believe that RBC is a basic right and should not depend on donations of any type, although welcome. This right must be provided by the federal government.
As a large proportion of the poor receive already from Bolsa Família, the transition to RBC is a thorny problem considering all that has been invested so far. Also the costs to switch to the universal and unconditional system of RBC right away, would seen dounting.
We believe that the solution to gradually implement the RBC, as President Lula’s 2004 sanctioned law demands, is to define a future date, say January 1, 2013. All children born in Brazil since that day will be registered as recipients of a monthly value (say R$ 50.00 or R$ 100,00) delivered to his mother or legal guardian.
Less than 2-4 billion reais would be used at the first year in Brazil. For Santo Antonio do Pinhal, 60,000 reais would pay the first year, below the 90,000 reais that the law already sanctioned, and reserved annualy for the RBC fund. Bureaucracy involved would be minimal, there will be no conflict with the Bolsa Família program, the implementation will be progressive, viable, manageable and definitive. The RBC gradually will substitute for the Bolsa Família program.
Sustainability at its core is to manage resources wisely. We side with the great Julian L. Simon (6): the most important natural resource is human creativity. Educated and creative human beings are the scarce and precious “material” we need. They will turn natural materials (ores, oil, land, sea, waters, space, etc) and existing knowledge and technologies (history, humanities, biology, physics, chemistry, etc) into valuable and life enhancing assets. Possibly the most important task is to garantee that the coming generations will receive full support in terms of education and health. This is not possible without a measure of income security that the RBC could provide. We must start right away – the pressures of an increasingly old population will tax the young of the future in unprecedented ways. Caring for them is caring for the future of people and environment.
1 ReCivitas – Instituto pela Revitalização da Cidadania – www.recivitas.org.br
2 NEPP – Núcleo de Estudos de Políticas Públicas
3 UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas
4 CAF – Confederação Andina de Fomento
5 Anthony Baert – https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/sites/default/files/TD54.pdf
6 Julian L. Simon – The ultimate resource 2 – 1996 – Princeton University Press
Marina Pasetto Nobrega and Francisco G. Nobrega
maripnobrega@gmail.com or francisco.nobrega@gmail.com
Santo Antonio do Pinhal, Novembro de 2011
by Yannick Vanderborght | Nov 23, 2011 | Research
BAERT, Anthony (2011), ‘Experiências de transferência de renda universal e recomendações para o projeto de Renda Básica de Cidadania em Santo Antônio do Pinhal’…
This timely paper is aimed at contributing to the understanding of the concrete implementation of the Citizen’s Basic Income. Firstly, the author (A. Baert from Louvain University, Belgium) describes the concrete functioning of the three experiences of universal income transfer that have been conducted in the world until today: the Alaska Permanent Fund, the pilot project of the BIG Coalition in Otjivero-Omitara (Namibia) and the pilot project of the NGO ReCivitas in Quatinga Velho (Brazil). For each, Baert distinguishes four aspects of their functioning (institutional structure, funding, eligibility and payment) and analyzes their sustainability. Secondly, on the basis of this comparative research, the author makes recommendations for the implementation of a Citizen’s Basic Income in Santo Antonio do Pinhal (Brazil). Baert concludes that it is not viable on the short and medium term, and he suggests to launch a five-year pilot project instead.
Full references:
BAERT, Anthony (2011), ‘Experiências de transferência de renda universal e recomendações para o projeto de Renda Básica de Cidadania em Santo Antônio do Pinhal’, Center for Studies on Inequality and Development (https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/), Discussion Paper No. 54 – September 2011, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. The paper is available at: https://www.proac.uff.br/cede/sites/default/files/TD54.pdf
