New Delhi (NVI): Implementing a temporary universal basic income for the world’s poorest 2.7 billion people could help ease the toll of the pandemic by enabling such people to remain at home and be safe, according to a new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report.
“A temporary basic income would give them the means to buy food and pay for health and education expenses,” the UNDP said in its report.
The report, ‘Temporary Basic Income: Protecting Poor and Vulnerable People in Developing Countries’, estimates that it would cost from USD 199 billion per month to provide a time-bound, guaranteed basic income to the 2.7 billion people living below or just above the poverty line in 132 developing countries.
The report concludes that the measure is feasible and urgently needed, with the pandemic now spreading at a rate of more than 1.5 million new cases per week, particularly in developing countries, where seven out of ten workers make a living through informal markets and cannot earn money if they are at home.
The UNDP has carried out assessments on the socio-economic effects of COVID-19 in more than 60 countries in the past few months and the evidence shows that workers who are not covered by social protection cannot stay at home without an income, UNDP report said.
The UNDP said that it (TBI) is also financially within reach: a six-month Temporary Basic Income, for example, would require just 12 percent of the total financial response to COVID-19 expected in 2020, or the equivalent of one-third of what developing countries owe in external debt payments in 2020.
UNDP administrator Achim Steiner said unprecedented times call for unprecedented social and economic measures.
“Introducing a Temporary Basic Income for the world’s poorest people has emerged as one option. This might have seemed impossible just a few months ago,” he said.
He further said, “Bailouts and recovery plans cannot only focus on big markets and big business. A Temporary Basic Income might enable governments to give people in lockdown a financial lifeline, inject cash back into local economies to help keep small businesses afloat, and slow the devastating spread of COVID-19.”
However, a temporary basic income is not a silver bullet solution to the economic hardship the pandemic has brought, the UNDP said, urging countries to protect jobs, expand support to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and use digital solutions to identify and access people who are excluded.
One of the way for countries to pay for a temporary basic income would be to repurpose the funds they would use this year to service their debt while developing and emerging economies will spend USD 3.1 trillion in debt repayment this year, according to the report
A comprehensive debt standstill for all developing countries, as called for by the UN Secretary-General, would allow countries to temporarily repurpose these funds into emergency measures to combat the effects of the COVID-19 crisis.
Therefore, several countries have already taken steps to introduce temporary basic incomes. In addition to this, Spain recently approved a monthly budget of 250 million euros (about 290 million dollars) to top up the incomes of 850,000 vulnerable families and 2.3 million individuals up to a minimum threshold.
COVID-19 has exacerbated existing global and national inequalities and has created new disparities that are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest, as per the report.
With up to 100 million more people being pushed into extreme poverty in 2020, 1.4 billion children affected by school closures, and record-level unemployment and loss of livelihoods, UNDP predicts that global human development is on course to decline this year for the first time since the concept was introduced, it said.
-RJV/ARK
