The final part of a three-part podcast on India’s quest for universal basic income (UBI) with Sarath Davala, chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). It covers the pilots that have been run so far and, importantly, asks what they tell about the potential of such schemes in India and perhaps in other developing countries.
This part talks to knowledge producers and policy makers about:
• Knowledge gaps. What is missing in data on UBI and, importantly, on its place in the post-COVID reset?
• Policy. What key messages need amplification in the policy debates?

Takeaways
• The convergence of crises – welfare, employment, and climate – demands a substantive rethinking of the current systems.
• The entire policy space needs to be put to a stress test so as to understand the performance in crisis of individual instruments and the system as a whole.
• Contextual differences in developed and developing countries need to be better understood in debates on UBI, yet the need to rethink pertains to all.
• A critical mass of UBI pilots is forming at sub-national levels – both in developed and developing countries, working out the issues and building the conditions for scale-up.
• UBI is not a patchwork solution to fix the current cracks in social protection; it has to be treated as part of a system-wide response to emerging needs.

on this subject: UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab