Impact of Basic Income- Basic Income schemes in 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa evaluated by World Bank

Social Justice Ireland welcomes the publication by The World Bank of a report on Basic Income schemes in 28 Sub-Saharan countries.  Entitled The Cash Dividend: The rise of cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Marito Garcia and Charity M. T. Moore concludes that many positive outcomes can already be identified as flowing from these cash transfer programmes. 

The report states: 'Much can already be learned from Sub-Saharan Africa's experience with cash transfer programs. Evaluations of unconditional programs have found significant impacts on household food consumption (for instance, Miller, Tsoka, and Mchinji Evaluation Team 2007 for Malawi's Social Cash Transfer Program; Soares and Teixeira 2010 for Mozambique's Food Subsidy Program); nonfood consumption (for instance, RHVP 2009 for Zambia's Social Cash Transfer); and children's nutrition and education (including Agüero, Carter, and Woolard 2007 and Williams 2007 for South Africa's Child Support Grant). A recent experimental evaluation found that a program for adolescent girls conditioned on their school attendance improved enrollment, attendance, and test scores in Malawi. Unconditional transfers in the same program decreased early marriage and pregnancy among girls who had already dropped out of school.' (p.8).

What is a Basic Income

A basic income is an income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement. It is a form of minimum income guarantee that differs from those that now exist in various European countries in three important ways:

• it is being paid to individuals rather than households;
• it is paid irrespective of any income from other sources;
• it is paid without requiring the performance of any work or the willingness to accept a job if offered.

Liberty and equality, efficiency and community, common ownership of the Earth and equal sharing in the benefits of technical progress, the flexibility of the labour market and the dignity of the poor, the fight against inhumane working conditions, against the desertification of the countryside and against interregional inequalities, the viability of cooperatives and the promotion of adult education, autonomy from bosses, husbands and bureaucrats, have all been invoked in its favour.

But it is the inability to tackle unemployment with conventional means that has led in the last decade or so to the idea being taken seriously throughout Europe by a growing number of scholars and organizations. Social policy and economic policy can no longer be conceived separately, and basic income is increasingly viewed as the only viable way of reconciling two of their respective central objectives: poverty relief and full employment.

There is a wide variety of proposals around. They differ according to the amounts involved, the source of funding, the nature and size of the reductions in other transfers, and along many other dimensions. As far as short-term proposals are concerned, however, the current discussion is focusing increasingly on so-called partial basic income schemes which would not be full substitutes for present guaranteed income schemes but would provide a low - and slowly increasing - basis to which other incomes, including the remaining social security benefits and means-tested guaranteed income supplements, could be added.

Many prominent European social scientists have now come out in favour of basic income - among them two Nobel laureates in economics. In a few countries some major politicians, including from parties in government, are also beginning to stick theImpact Basic Income would have on poverty in Ireland - Government's Green Paper conclusionir necks out in support of it. At the same time, the relevant literature - on the economic, ethical, political and legal aspects - is gradually expanding and those promoting the idea, or just interested in it, in various European countries and across the world have started organizing into an active network.

Impact Basic Income would have on poverty in Ireland - Government's Green Paper conclusion

Basic Income
"...the Basic Income system studied would have a substantial impact on the distribution of income in Ireland in that, compared with conventional options, it would on average improve the incomes of 70% of households in the bottom four income deciles ...and raise more than half of those who would be below the 40% poverty line under conventional options above this line." 
Irish Government's Green Paper on Basic Income 4

The Full Report The Cash Dividend: The rise of cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa can be accesse below