The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research has released its final report on the first county to experiment with GI during the pandemic. This report is also the first in a series entitled, “The American Guaranteed Income Studies.” The Center will be releasing will be releasing full mixed-methods findings across a range of sites in the coming months under this series.
In August 2020 the Dutch NGO INclusion started a basic income pilot in the village Welle in Nebbi District in Uganda, together with Ugandan partner AFARD. All 350+ people of the village, adults as well as children, have received a basic income amounting to the equivalent of 15 euros, currently 60.000 Ugandan shilling, for the past three years. Now, the first major study by researchers of the University of Groningen of the project shows very positive results.
The midline evaluation report analyses the results 2,5 years into the project, comparing the situation during the baseline study before the start of the project, and the latest measurement in December 2022. The report is written by PhD Elisa van Dongen under the supervision of Professor Dr. Robert Lensink and Associate Professor Annika Mueller.
This basic income pilot of INclusion has some unique features. To begin with the intended duration of seven years. Most basic income experiments and projects only run for one or two years. Secondly, children receive the same basic income as adults, whereas usually children are excluded or receive less. Because of this, the amount a family receives is relatively large, amounting to 80% of the international poverty line. Thirdly, 10% of the basic income is not given to people individually but to the village as a whole. Because a generally accepted characteristic of basic income is that it is individual, these 10% do not count as basic income. But it is unconditional, and the village fund enables the community to invest in public facilities that benefit everyone.
The study took a broad look at the project results. Some of the findings:
extreme poverty diminished from 55 to 10 percent
food security improved considerably
much better access to clean drinking due to a water well that was the first investment from the village fund
the percentage of children going to primary school increased from 70 to 87 percent
the number of days missed at school or work due to illness decreased by 75 percent
60 percent of the families built a new, better house
the basic income was also used to buy and hire more land for farming
the percentage of households owning cattle increased from 9 to 49 percent
ownership of solar panels rose from 19 to 74 percent
Not surprisingly, the study also found that the residents of Welle experience much less stress than before and are more optimistic about their future.
Not included in the report but also an important outcome of the project is the fact that before the project started many people in Welle earned a small income by producing charcoal. This has ceased altogether. Although this might count as a negative result just looking at economic figures – a decrease in economic activity – in reality it is very positive. Not just because it was hard and ill paid work, but also because a lot of trees were cut for the charcoal production. Since the start of the project the number of trees around the village, and greenery and biodiversity in general, has improved visibly.
The UBI Piloters Network is proud to announce its launch in collaboration with the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), the University of Bath, and the University of Freiburg’s Institute for Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS). The network unites researchers, policymakers, activists, and civil society actors interested or engaging in trialling Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). Read More
The UBI Piloters Network brings together researchers, policymakers, activists, and civil society actors interested or engaged in trialling Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). The space is convened by the University of Bath, the University of Freiburg’s Institute for Basic Income Studies, and the Basic Income Earth Network. We aim to create connection across the UBI piloting field, to build new collaborations, share key learnings, and establish best practice. Sign up to our newsletter here and read on to learn more.
Research, policy, and activist interest in UBI has exploded in recent years, and this has led to a huge rise in the number of global UBI pilots. Yet for all this amazing growth, until now, no global platform has existed for sharing UBI pilot findings, creating community across the piloting field, or supporting researchers to engage effectively with policymaker audiences. The UBI Piloters Network aims to remedy these issues by building and curating the world’s first global network of UBI piloters, taking inspiration from the work of the Basic Income Earth Network and US UBI Community of Practice.
Launched in Summer 2023, The UBI Piloters Network curates a monthly newsletter that brings together updates from across the piloting community, featuring updates on recent research, policy developments, potential gatherings, publications, and opportunities for collaboration.
The Network also hosts an online seminar series for piloters to share recent findings and discuss emerging developments. It will host a hybrid Winter School on ‘How To Build A Pilot’, and convene the world’s first ever conference of UBI piloters – hosted in Germany in Summer 2024.
If you have ideas for how to expand this work and make it more relevant to you and the UBI piloting community, please do get in touch! We want this to work for the community it aims to serve.
Please also share the Network with piloters far and wide!
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Our Partners
The UBI Piloters Network is a collaboration between the University of Bath (in particular the UBI piloting WorkFREE research team), the Freiburg Institute of Basic Income Studies (FRIBIS – especially the UBI Experiments Team), and the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). Seed funding has come from Bath, FRIBIS, and the European Research Council.
The University of Bath is a leading centre of UBI research in the UK and is in the process of building a UK UBI Beacon to nurture the next generation of UBI scholars, activists, and engaged policymakers. At Bath, WorkFREE brings together scholars, activists and civil society institutions from India and the UK to pilot ‘UBI+’ in four informal settlements in inner-city Hyderabad, India. UBI+ combines universal basic income (UBI) and needs-focused, participatory community organising in order to support people to increase their power to meet their needs. The two-year pilot seeks to answer a wide range of questions, including ‘What impact does UBI+ have on people’s freedom from exploitation?’ and ‘Can UBI+ support the green transition?’.
FRIBIS is an interdisciplinary network at the University of Freiburg dedicated to research on Universal Basic Income. By bringing together researchers and civil society actors from all over the world, we aim to provide a sound, well-researched foundation for the public and political discourse on Basic Income. In this way, it wants to contribute to transformation towards a more just and sustainable society.
BIEN is a global network of UBI activists and researchers. Drawing on its unique Basic Income expertise built over decades of work, BIEN strives to be a globally trusted, go-to source of information and analysis around Basic Income. BIEN builds connective tissue between people and institutions working on Basic Income, be these activists, campaigners, researchers, governments or civil society organisations. And BIEN aims to catalyse local and global debate and work to push the boundaries of what is possible, all in the direction of a more just, caring society.
The ERC is a major Europe Union research funding agency at the heart of research and innovation across the continent.
Share Your Stories and Contact Us
If you have UBI Piloting New to share, other relevant material to go out in the Newsletter, ideas you want to run buy us, or plans to pitch, please get in touch with us here: piloters@basicincome.org
To access the proposal and press coverage, click here.
“At a glance:
This report outlines a proposal for a basic income micro-pilot. This proposal is the result of two years of community consultation in Central Jarrow and the Grange area of East Finchley.
Grange Big Local in East Finchley and Big Local Central Jarrow have led two years of community consultation to design a basic income pilot in their areas.
Community consultation, supported by Basic Income Conversation and Northumbria University, found substantial support for basic income pilots. A combination of door-knocking, workshops, roundtables and surveys found that the majority of respondents felt both that it was a good idea in principle and that it would be good to run pilots in their local areas.
The pilot would also recruit a control group. This group would not receive basic income payments but would do questionnaires, focus groups and interviews as part of the pilot evaluation to understand the difference in experience between people receiving a basic income and people not. The people in this group would be paid for their time.
Validated evaluation measures for the pilot would be drawn from the Northumbria University team’s existing protocol resource. This process would involve co-production with communities. We therefore do not propose a specific research protocol for evaluation of impacts of the basic income pilots at this stage, but the existing protocol resource provides clear indications of robust methods. A mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods that have been validated and received ethical approval at universities is recommended.
All outputs should be produced in consultation with community members, with reports designed to be as accessible as possible. It may be advisable to include design costs for easy-read versions of reports. Coauthorship should be offered to community members providing substantive input. All formal community involvement should be remunerated at Northumbria University research assistance rates (currently £17.19 per hour though in equivalent vouchers where appropriate for DWP purposes) or on the basis of in-kind support.”
