After the appearance of the coronavirus, has the universal basic income ceased to be a utopia?

The director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Kanni Wignaraja, spoke to UN News and began by explaining why the idea of a universal basic income (in which governments give a minimum amount of money to all citizens, depending on employment status or income) is beginning to take hold. "The spread of COVID-19 has deeply shaken economies and people are beginning to question existing economic models: this pandemic has triggered current levels of injustice and inequality around the world. So bolder ideas are needed, including some that were left out before," she says.

In the UN we say that when this kind of situation occurs and hits us and there is no minimum income level, people are literally left with no options. Without the means to survive, they are much more likely to succumb to hunger or other diseases, long before COVID-19 catches up with them.
Millions of people are currently unemployed. A huge proportion of them work in the shadow sector, without contracts, health coverage or any kind of job security. This situation is compounded by displaced persons, refugees and undocumented migrants who have never been part of any formal system. That is why it is essential for the United Nations Development Programme to revive the debate on universal basic income, and to make it an essential part of the fiscal stimulus packages that countries are planning.

What kind of response is it getting from governments in the Asia-Pacific region?

Quite a bit more than we've had in the past. For the first time, we also have much more data that allows us to identify the most vulnerable people. We ask very specific questions about the kind of social security packages that cover people today, and we have found that, in Asia and the Pacific, about 60 per cent of people have no social protection at all, and certainly cannot afford some of the options that exist today. The dollars invested in ensuring that people have some kind of safety net are much cheaper than the huge investments now needed to rescue entire economies or pay for fossil fuel subsidies.

But universal basic income is too expensive, isn't it?

Most countries in Asia and the Pacific do not have a high internal or external debt, and we do not want to increase that burden because it will only serve to cause greater problems for several generations. But in most countries in this region the ratio of taxes to GDP is very low and most government revenue comes from indirect or regressive taxes. In other words, it is mainly the poor who are being taxed disproportionately, and this has to change. "Tax termites" eat up a country's tax revenues: nations allow tax havens and exemptions. In addition, they provide large subsidies for fossil fuels. This places a heavy burden on public resources. In addition, developing countries lose more than $1 trillion each year to illicit financial operations, not to mention domestic corruption and inefficiency. We need to stop this financial bleeding. Fixing any one of these issues would free up enough money to pay for the universal basic income, which is not forever, but it is now given the social and economic impacts of COVID-19.

How can the countries of Asia and the Pacific recover sustainably and reduce inequality?

One of the fundamental reasons why most coronaviruses jump so quickly from animal species to humans is that we have not taken care of our environment: we have destroyed so much natural habitat that disease transmissions from animals to humans seem inevitable. For example, it was encouraging to see that in the recent elections held in the Republic of Korea during the coronavirus pandemic, the winning party included as an election promise the achievement of a low-carbon economy and the attainment of neutral emissions by 2050. The overwhelming support for this platform shows that voters - and I hope this will be the case worldwide - are starting to connect the dots. Not only do they see this as an economic and health crisis, but they also recognise its link to a climate and environmental crisis. That is why we in the United Nations are stressing the importance of economic, social and environmental sustainability and the need to bring people and the planet together and invest in both. This is not an unattainable dream that is too costly to make a reality. The cost of living on fossil fuels and with diseases like COVID-19 is much more expensive, not only in the long term, but even in the short term.

Several countries in Asia fear millions of job losses due to the pandemic. Can universal basic income save the region?

Universal basic income is not the solution to the region's economic problems, but it will save people from falling into the abyss. There is a growing employment crisis in the region and the economies need to grow to take that into account. Despite some exceptions, many countries in Asia have a very young and growing population, and more and more people are entering the labour market. Their education levels are improving and they are willing to cooperate. But that labour market is not expanding fast enough, and this time more green and secure jobs must be created. In addition, the closer interconnection of the world's economies is creating new problems. For example, Bangladesh had very few cases of COVID-19 a couple of months ago, but over a million people were laid off in the garment industry.

This situation was formed when, at the beginning of the pandemic and after production was stopped in China, the supply chain broke down and essential parts such as buttons and zippers could not be sent to Bangladeshi factories. The dismissed Bangladeshi workers received, at best, a week's salary and no social protection. In many cases, they are now living on the streets. Another example occurred in countries that are heavily dependent on tourism, such as the Maldives, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. The economies of these nations were severely affected when international tourist travel was disrupted. In addition, this crisis raises several issues regarding the economies' resilience. For example, how much must be grown and produced locally to remain safe in these situations? While we remain globally interconnected, we learn the hard way that global supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link: when that link is broken, entire economies can collapse.