Basic Income Grant

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Omitara Railway Station (2012)

Basic Income Grant ( BIG ), in German basic income grant was a social project in Namibia , which every citizen a partial basic income should be. For each person, an unconditional payment of at least 100 N $ per month  (this corresponds - as of January 2016 - around 6 euros) is provided up to retirement age (60 years). The financing came from donations.

On December 14, 2015, President Hage Geingob announced that as part of the eradication of poverty by 2025, BIG would be introduced in a slightly different form in April 2016. On April 5, 2016, President Geingob introduced the Harambee Welfare Program in his State of the Union Address . This underlined the end of the BIG project (ended in 2013), which is to be replaced by a conditional income grant (for example , a basic income linked to conditions ).

With the establishment of the Namibian Ministry for Poverty Reduction and Social Welfare in March 2015, the project received new approval. Minister Zephania Kameeta unreservedly spoke out in favor of a basic income in July 2015. President Hage Geingob, who had previously been a proponent of BIG for years, had previously expressed criticism.

history

The Basic Income Grant was first proposed in September 2003 by the official Namibian Tax Consortium (Namtax) commission. It is supported by the BIG coalition, a broad alliance of church and development aid organizations. The Namibian government approved the implementation of the project for the municipality of Otjivero, although it was made clear that it had no intention of introducing a BIG nationwide.

In January 2008, a two-year pilot project started in the Namibian community of 1,000 inhabitants Otjivero-Omitara , 100 km east of the capital Windhoek. All residents, from infants to retirees, received the monthly amount of N $ 100 unconditionally. Their living conditions were measured and compared every six months. The project management promised a significant improvement in living conditions through the payments.

After the official end of the project in December 2009, a reduced amount (80 N $, approx. 8 euros) was paid from January 2010. This payment was initially promised until 2011, but was eventually continued until March 2012. The BIG coalition of churches, trade unions and non-governmental organizations that supported the BIG project in Namibia suffered a setback with the politically motivated resignation of the National Trade Union Federation (NUNW) in 2010. The NUNW saw the project as the wrong way to solve the economic problems of individuals. Even the government did not give up its negative stance under the impression of the pilot project. With Hage Geingobs , an avowed supporter of the introduction of a comprehensive BIG 2012 was appointed Prime Minister of Namibia. In March 2012 the regular payment of a basic income in Otjivero-Omitara was stopped. Since then there have only been sporadic payments. However, the union rejoined the coalition two months later.

At the World Congress of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) held in Munich in September 2012 , Dirk Haarmann reported on developments in Otjivero and the introduction of a nationwide unconditional basic income.

The BIG project was discontinued on February 10, 2013.

Ways to Fund a Nationwide BIG

Three possible financing options are currently under discussion. The VAT is to be increased by 6.5%. A redesign of the tax system is also under discussion. The income tax is to be increased progressively so that the costs would have to be borne primarily by the high-income residents. A third source of funding is to be tapped through the complete restructuring of the state spending budget.

According to calculations by proponents of the basic income, the nationwide introduction of the BIG would cost the Namibian state between two and four percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). The International Monetary Fund (IMF), however, speaks of over five percent. If the expenditure exceeds five percent of GDP, the project is deemed not to be feasible. The IMF's numbers have been questioned by the BIG coalition.

Establishment of a Basic Income Grant in Namibia

The main aim of the Basic Income Grant is to combat the problem of poverty and the unequal distribution of income . The Gini coefficient , which measures the inequality of income distribution, is still very high in Namibia, but has improved after the country gained independence. In 1993, three years after independence, it was 0.74, then fell slightly to 0.70 and, according to the last available survey in 2009/2010, is 0.58. This means that Namibia continues to belong to a group of countries with very high income inequality. Two thirds of the population live below the poverty line. The BIG is intended to promote personal initiative. People who previously made use of social assistance were “punished” for taking up paid work by withdrawing this subsidy. In addition, positive effects on the persistently high unemployment are expected. Many people are too poor to even be able to apply for a job (lack of mobility, lack of suitable clothing, no postal address, ...). The discussion also refers to the connection between AIDS and poverty. The AIDS infection rate is highest among the poorest. The BIG aims to curb the spread of AIDS.

The proposals in Namibia take up the discussion that has been going on in South Africa for a long time.

The BIG coalition

The BIG coalition is a broad alliance of churches and development aid organizations that was formed in April 2005. The aim is to fight poverty in Namibia by establishing an unconditional basic income. The alliance includes the Namibian Church Council, the umbrella organization of non-governmental organizations (Nangof), the umbrella association of AIDS organizations (Nanaso), the national trade union association (NUNW) (until 2010), the legal citizen advice service LAC and the Labor Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) on. The headquarters of the campaign is the Department for Social Development (DfSD) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Republic of Namibia (ELCRN). Claudia Haarmann and Dirk Haarmann are responsible for managing the project .

The pilot project in Otjivero-Omitara

Financing and costs of the project

The pilot project started in January 2008 for the payment of a basic income was carried out in the town of Otjivero-Omitara. The project was called the “pilot project” by the initiators because they hoped to extend the project to the whole country. The project should prove the administrative feasibility and the poverty-reducing effects of the BIG. The costs of the project were borne by the Protestant churches of the Rhineland and Westphalia, the German Ministry for Development and Cooperation, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and individual donors from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Namibia. It is not known to what extent these groups of donors contributed financially to the project. Information about the costs of the pilot project varies widely. Verified figures on this were not published. However, in a newspaper article, the project managers stated the total costs of the pilot project to be N $ 3 million (approx. EUR 300,000). Estimates from outside the project, on the other hand, come to much higher sums, around a total cost of N $ 15 million (approx. 1.5 million euros). The differences in the figures and estimates are likely to be partly due to a different definition of “project costs”.

Modalities for the payment of the BIG

The city is representative of the economic problems in many places in Namibia. The places Omitara and Otjivero are 100 km east of Windhoek . The 940 residents of Omitara at the start of the project received N $ 100 a month for two years. Prisoners were also entitled to this payment. People over the age of 60 did not receive any payments because their livelihoods are covered by the right to a statutory minimum pension. The payment was made via a chip card on which the personal data (name, photo, fingerprints, registration number, payment transactions made) of each resident were stored. The payment of the money could be delayed up to six months. In the first months of the project, the money was distributed centrally on one day, with minor disputes occurring.

Evaluation of the project results

A semi-annual cycle of evaluations was originally planned for the project. After the inventory, which was carried out at the end of 2007, four surveys were planned. But only two took place. The first report, published in September 2008, records the developments of the first six months in Otjivero under the influence of the BIG. The second research report, which appeared in mid-2009, covers the whole of 2008. This documentation report also includes photos from the village of Otjivero from before, during and after the time of the pilot project. Contrary to the original announcement, no further surveys and impact studies were carried out.

Effects of the BIG

Co-initiator Herbert Jauch from the Labor Resource and Research Institute reports in an interview in the journal Publik-Forum that after two years, practically no child in the village is undernourished. Before the introduction of the Basic Income Grant, almost half of the children were affected. Around 90 percent of children now finish primary school, compared to 40 percent previously. The public clinic in Otjivero is now used four times as much. According to reports, more entrepreneurial activities were initiated by the BIG. It is crucial that people can buy initial equipment for the company and that there is sufficient purchasing power in the village to buy the products. According to police statistics, cases of poaching and wood theft have decreased by 60 percent. To prevent the money from being drunk, the villagers have set up a committee to advise each other on how to handle the money. It was agreed that the local pubs would be closed on the day of payment. And the BIG for the children is usually only paid to women. Overall, the conclusion is drawn that the balance of power in the village has changed: the position of women has improved and the villagers have become more self-confident about the surrounding white farmers. The negative impact was that as a result people moved to Otjivero from other parts of the country (mostly relatives who are not entitled to the income).

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The above-mentioned beneficial effects of the BIG can, however, be questioned due to methodological deficiencies in the project and in the evaluation.

  1. There are only two evaluation reports, one for the first six months and one for the first twelve months. All alleged favorable developments and tendencies in Otjivero are derived from these reports. The two further evaluations originally planned by the project in 2009 would have been methodologically necessary, but were not carried out.
  2. Project leaders and scientific advisors are all well-known proponents of a basic income. Neutral experts, employees of the Namibian state social administration or social scientists from the University of Namibia were not involved in the implementation and evaluation of the project.
  3. No control group “without BIG” was defined with which the results in Otjivero could have been compared. This procedure, which is self-evident among experts, is recognized in principle by the project managers, but then rejected, with the argument that this is "ethically problematic".
  4. People outside the project do not have access to the data obtained by the project. This restriction, unusual in an international comparison, was justified differently by the project managers. Some of the applicants were told that the BIG in Otjivero was about people and not about an academic exercise. In some cases the fear was expressed that the project data could be misused by opponents of a BIG. In a newspaper article, the project managers justified the refusal to access their database with the following argument: "The Otjivero citizens were promised confidentiality of their personal information."

The IMF rejected the project in 2012 for reasons of principle. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), on the other hand, described the project in Namibia as a “best-practiced model in development”.

In addition, the model project can apparently motivate rich nations to donate to pay out the UBI, even if this is not enough for an entire state. At the end of 2012, the Cologne-based Basic Income Initiative was able to book a further 6,479 euros for Otjivero.

The situation of the people in Otjivero in mid-2012

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

In mid-2012, shortly after the end of the regular monthly payments of the (reduced) BIG, the economic and social situation in Otjivero is apparently not very favorable. Clemens von Alten, a journalist for the German-language Allgemeine Zeitung , reported in May 2012 about a conversation with the village elder of Otjivero, Ernst Gariseb. He said: "For two decades we have been sitting here without work, development or prospects." The journalist's conclusion is: "Despite the support from the BIG, there is no noticeable development in Otjivero."

As far as the material situation in Otjivero is concerned, Markus Wolff comes to a similarly unfavorable result in an extensive article for GEO magazine . On the positive side, however, he sees the possibility that the BIG can strengthen individual giving skills, which is of great importance for the Damara living in Otjivero , because it ensures them social participation and recognition. Wolff follows a thesis of the Tübingen ethnologist Sabine Klocke-Daffa.

literature

Web links

 Wikinews: Namibia: Basic Income Secures Food  - News

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Geingob makes more promises. The Namibian, December 15, 2015
  2. ^ State of the Nation Address 2016. Office of the President of the Republic of Namibia, April 5, 2016, p. 23.
  3. ↑ Wish for BIG: The troubles of the plain have started. Allgemeine Zeitung, July 8, 2015 ( Memento from July 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ President sees BIG with skepticism. Allgemeine Zeitung, July 3, 2015 ( Memento from July 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Newspaper article in AZ Namibia
  6. ↑ Basic income until the end of 2011 . Allgemeine Zeitung, July 13, 2010
  7. ↑ NUNW leaves BIG Coalition , Allgemeine Zeitung, July 8, 2010
  8. ↑ a b c BIEN-2012-Congress, Piloting Basic Income in Namibia - Critical reflections on the process , report by Claudia and Dirk Haarmann, 2012. (PDF; 161 kB)
  9. ↑ a b c BIEN-Congress-2012, report by Dirk Haarmann from the BIGNAM project in Namibia , 2012, video on You Toube.
  10. ^ BIEN-2012-Congress, overview of the congress program , Dirk Haarmann, Workshop 02
  11. ↑ 11.2.2013 Nachrichten am Morgen ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), Hitradio Namibia, based on a report from the Allgemeine Zeitung, February 11, 2013, accessed on February 11, 2013
  12. ↑ English-language information brochure of the BIG coalition (PDF; 1.3 MB)
  13. ↑ Evangelical Church of Westphalia (ed.): Written report by the President on the activities of the church leadership as well as on the significant events for the church , p. 18
  14. ↑ Presentation of the pilot project ( Memento from October 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ LIPortal - the country information portal economy & development. In: liportal.de. Retrieved October 22, 2018 .
  16. ↑ This group also includes Botswana, Brazil, China, South Africa and Turkey.
  17. ↑ a b Birgit Pfeiffer: Namibia. Basic income pilot project started. A two-year practical test to show that BIG can reduce poverty ( memento from December 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) , in: afrika süd - Zeitschrift zum Südlichen afrika, 2/2008.
  18. ↑ Claudia and Dirk Haarmann, Hilma Mote, Herbert Jauch: The BIG debate in context: Facts and fiction about Otjivero , in: New Era, July 15, 2011.
  19. ^ R. Osterkamp, BIG in Namibia - a sobering chapter of German development aid , in: Allgemeine Zeitung, May 6, 2011.
  20. ↑ Haarmann et al. a .: [“Towards a Basic Income Grant for All”. Basic Income Grant Pilot Project. Assessment Report, September 2008]
  21. ↑ Haarmann, Haarmann, Jauch, Mote, Basic Income Grant Coalition, The decisive difference: The basic income in Namibia , Basic Income Grant Pilot Project, research report, April 2009 ( PDF ( Memento from January 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
  22. ↑ Publik-Forum No. 8/2010 , p. 22 f. (not freely available)
  23. ^ Haarmann et al .: Towards a Basic Income Grant for All , Assessment Report, September 2008, page 20.
  24. ^ C. Haarmann, D. Haarmann, H. Mote, H. Jauch: The BIG debate in context: Facts and fiction about Otjivero , in: New Era, July 15, 2011.
  25. ↑ Henrik Wittenberg, Fundraising Campaign Cologne Initiative Basic Income, January 2, 2013.
  26. ^ Both quotations from: Allgemeine Zeitung (www.az.com.na) from May 7, 2012.
  27. ↑ Issue 10, 2012, pp. 82–92.
  28. ↑ Is BIG big enough? Basic Income Grant in Namibia. To anthropological inquiry , Tübingen 2012. [1]