Met old friend Rahul Nainwal who is running a “Universal Basic Income” pilot in rural India for a poor village. This concept is controversial but interesting as it says people should have freedom to choose to better their lives and don’t always need development sector to make those choices for them.
The pilot also is completely not related to the typical techno utopian linkage on the universal basic income. It’s more align to those works on behavioural economics and the poor outlined by such books like the Poor Economics from MIT Poverty Action Lab people.
It’s an experiment to see if it would work. Wish to help him in his next phase of the pilot in more villages and may be testing it in Nepal as well perhaps. Rural is also an Ashoka Fellow.
Every time I meet him, he is always one step ahead of me hahaha…..
Check out the video that might challenge what people typically think of development financing and the poor.
The website and how you can learn more and participate!
Xmergence 