The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a regional organism of the United Nations Secretariat has declared itself in favour of a new regime of welfare and social protection that includes the gradual, progressive and sustained establishment of universal basic income in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.

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On May 12th, its executive secretary, Alicia Bárcena, presented the 3rd Special Report COVID-19: the social challenge in times of covid-19, which reads:

To address the socioeconomic impact of the crisis, ECLAC proposes that governments guarantee temporary cash transfers to meet basic needs and support household consumption, which will be crucial to achieving a sound, relatively rapid recovery (p. 14)

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The Proposal however, is not limited to this emergency programme which would involve at least one cash transfer, equivalent to a poverty line, for 1/3 of the population, but rather:

From a long-term perspective, ECLAC reiterates that these transfers need to be ongoing, should reach beyond those living in poverty and cover broad strata of the population that are highly vulnerable to falling into poverty, such as the low-income non-poor and the lower-middle income strata. This would make it possible to move towards a universal basic income that could be implemented gradually over a period suited to each country’s situation. (p.15)

ECLAC has held the position now for 10 years that the current dominant development style needs to be replaced, as it has brought low economic growth, high social inequality and accelerated environmental destruction. It has been 10 years since ECLAC highlighted that this should be the hour of equality in Latin America and the Caribbean, and as such has been working on developing and deepening far reaching initiatives and proposals aimed towards building a new style of development centred around a core of equality and sustainability.

This is the perspective that corresponds to the proposals for progressive structural change, equality pacts and the initiative for a great environmental push. Through all these years ECLAC has insisted on and reiterated the need for social policies that are universal and with a focus on rights. In this decade there have been different mentions of the importance of guaranteeing income, of the possibilities of basic income as an emancipation mechanism and the possibility of implementing basic income for women as a tool for building their economic autonomy. Now, ECLAC is declaring the need for universal basic income and rates it, beyond the emergency and the short-term, as a strategic objective.

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