by Karl Widerquist | May 1, 2014 | Research
Thabileng Mothabi
ABSTRACT: Despite the numerous false starts, sovereign wealth funds are particularly relevant to Southern Africa as resource-funded SWFs present a potentially viable strategy for the funding and implementation of a Basic Income Grant (BIG) at a SADC level. A BIG is best understood as an unconditional and universal cash transfer or grant available to all residents, thereby purposely avoiding means-testing with its implicit stigmatizing notion of ‘deserving’ poor.
Thabileng Mothabi, “Sovereign Wealth Fund: Key to SADC Basic Income Grant.” Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute, March 7, 2014.
by Karl Widerquist | Feb 13, 2014 | News
SADC BIG Coalition
[Karl Widerquist]
Representatives from 20 organizations across 10 southern African countries have initiated a campaign for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) across the entire Southern African Development Community (SADC). The campaign got officially under way at a two-day “Campaign Strategy Workshop” in Johannesburg on November 18 and 19, 2013. The SADC is an inter-governmental organization comprised of 15 southern African nations. One motivation for an SADC-wide BIG is that although the region has extremely valuable resource extraction industries, it also has great poverty. A BIG will ensure that every person in southern Africa receives a share in the region’s mineral wealth.
The SADC-wide BIG Campaign Workshop had four goals: First, it finalized a draft Campaign Strategy. Second, it discussed the principles of the SADC BIG Coalition. Third, it provided a form to present the economic research on the cost, affordability and financing of the SADC-wide BIG. Fourth, the workshop nominated the SADC BIG Coalition Steering Committee and discussed its functions. The Workshop summed up the coalition’s goal as, “To ensure the roll-out of a universal SADC BIG to all SADC citizens including refugees, economic migrants and asylum seekers by 2020.”
For more information on the workshop see this link. :
For more information on the coming campaign, and for several reports on BIG in the SADC, go to this link.
For a report (in PDF form) on the Campaign Strategy Workshop click here.
by Yannick Vanderborght | Dec 10, 2013 | Research
This document reports on a conference that was hosted by Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) and the Ecumenical Service on Southern Africa (KASA) in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was held on 25 and 26 April 2013 at the Economic Rights Programme. The conference was aimed to develop an innovative and comprehensive case for the introduction of a universal cash transfer in the form of a Basic Income Grant for the entire Southern African Development Community (SADC). The grant will be funded by a tax on extractive activities, such as mining and drilling.
Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute, “Report on SADC-wide Basic Income Grant: Alternatives to financing SADC-wide Basic Income Grant,” KASA, June 11, 2013.
