KENYA: FROM UNCONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS TOWARDS UNCONDITIONAL BASIC INCOME, a Randomized Controlled Trial to Come
In a recent IMPAKTER interview, as part of a series exploring the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Ian Bassin (Chief Operating Officer, Domestic, of GiveDirectly), explains how his organization is moving from unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) towards unconditional basic income (UBI) in Kenya. GiveDirectly traditionally provides UCTs to the extremely poor, operating in Kenya and Uganda. “We started our program in Kenya because they had a very robust mobile money payment system there, and that’s the means by which we transfer cash to poor households”, Bassin says. The primary goal of GiveDirectly is to help demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of cash transfers. The research done so far shows that giving money to poor people works. “Poverty in its simplest terms is a lack of money and resources. It is not a lack of capacity or ability”, Bassin notes. “If we’re not doing more with our dollar than the poor could do for themselves, we should probably just be giving them the dollar.” Recipients of UCTs don’t spend the cash transfer on vice consumption, like alcohol or tobacco, nor does the transfer discourage people from working, Bassin explains. He refers to a recent World Bank Study that has shown UCTs are in fact more likely to reduce than to increase the consumption of vice goods. continues... http://basicincome.org/news/2016/11/kenya-unconditional-cash-transfers-towards-unconditional-basic-income-randomized-controlled-trial-come/
