The Policy Nerd, by UNESCO

This is a 3-part podcast on Data for Good. It debates new data landscapes, power dynamics in data, inequities, and concrete solutions to redress some of them.

The expert today is Gry Hasselbalch. Her expertise is in data equity, and power in data. She served as a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI, and a member of the Danish government’s first Data Ethics Expert Group.

The hosts are UNESCO’s John Crowley and Iulia Sevciuc.

Part 1: Power in and of data

The new data systems we witness forming follow, unsurprisingly, the existing power dynamics. They drive current inequities even further. They also give rise to new groups of haves and have nots. This part discusses it all – power, commons, (re)distribution, privacy divide and so much more. (Pay attention to the bit on data reporting as a hands-on response to some of the concerns.)

Part 2: Data and governance

The COVID-19 crisis did not create (but it did expose) limitations in capacities and regulations of the new data systems. This part talks about how the governments need to master the balancing act of being permissive enough for data to thrive while providing a guarantee against misuse. It also debates the capacities the governments need to not only regulate, but effectively bank on new data in the very act of governance.

Part 3: Data and policy

This part focuses on data as both an area of knowledge and of policy action. We need more data on data (i.e., what are the knowledge gaps), and we discuss what areas require increased policy attention (i.e., what needs to be done fast as to prevent the skewing of the new data systems).

This podcast is part of the high-level podcast series, which introduces listeners to the world’s leading figures as they discuss how we can rebuild in a fairer and a smarter way after COVID-19.

Our guest in this episode is Professor Bambang Brodjonegoro, the Minister of Research and Technology of Indonesia. He has formerly served as both the country’s Minister of National Development Planning and the Minister of Finance.

The host is Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s Assistant Director General for Social and Human Sciences.

Together we connect the dots between post-COVID recovery, the place of knowledge in it, and the ways to make it inclusive. We go into:

· If/how this moment of disruption could be leveraged to reset in a smarter way and make a stride towards knowledge economies;

· How equity is to be in-built into our new patterns of development to avoid driving inequality even further; and

· Ways to invest in knowledge systems so that they stay agile and provide solutions to the current (and other looming) crises.

This is a 3-part podcast on the Californian guaranteed income experiment. It goes deep into the trial, probing it from all angles and extracting lessons for the rest.

The experts are Stacia West and Amy Castro Baker. Their expertise is in basic income, unconditional cash transfers, women’s poverty, and wealth inequality. They are the independent co-evaluators of the guaranteed income trial in Stockton, California. Their roles and the data these evaluators bring are key to this discussion.

The hosts are UNESCO’s John Crowley and Iulia Sevciuc.

PART 1: Trial

This part is concerned with the Californian pilot itself. It delves into its design, results, and performance before and (importantly) in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis.

PART 2: Financing

Financing is key to any talk on basic income. This part looks into how the Californian trial and the upcoming 14 US pilots are financed. Importantly, it debates how traditional (e.g., oil and natural resource-derived funding, reallocation of existing funds) and innovative (e.g., carbon price-and-dividend, data-driven funding, dividends from marketing socially-owned data) sources could be combined to finance longer-term and to-scale basic income schemes.

PART3: Data and policy

The key concern of the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab is connecting knowledge and data to policy on the ground. This part flags what we know, what we lack in data, and what deserves increased attention in policy debates on basic income.

This is a 2-part podcast on the Australia's Coronavirus Supplement– an unconditional transfer trial meant to help contain the socio-economic damage brought about by COVID-19.

Our expert is Elise Klein, Senior Lecturer of Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. Amongst her areas of expertise are social security, unconditionality, and women’s economic security. Her recent research focused on the Australian experiment and the impact on its recipients.

The host is John Crowley, UNESCO's Chief of Research, Policy and Foresight. 

PART 1: Australia’s Coronavirus Supplement

This first part looks into the design, unconditionality, links to Basic Income and impacts, including gendered, of the Supplement. It also delves into the lessons coming out of the experiment that others could draw on.

PART 2: Data for/in Policy

This part focuses on data and its use in policy – what are the gaps, how it is used, what researchers should be digging deeper into, and what policy makers should be paying higher attention to.

The COVID-19 turmoil came with more universal and arguably more progressive social policy interventions across developing and advanced economies. For example, never before have solutions such as Universal Basic Income been entertained so seriously in policy debates, and indeed experimented with at such a scale.

This podcast is on universalism and social policy in the context of the current crisis. It debates:

· Whether the shift towards more universalist solutions will survive the immediate COVID-19 crisis and is viable in the longer run;

· What are the concrete policies that might take root and is UBI one of them;

· How the COVID-19 crisis altered the public conceptualization of risk, disadvantage, and need for policies to protect against/manage such; and

· How, by pushing so many more into disadvantage and exposing risks, COVID-19 might have lifted some of the stigmatization and shame attached to need and disadvantage  – an issue that has traditionally affected the social policy practice.

The expert is Robert Walker, Professor Emeritus of the University of Oxford and current Professor of Social Policy at the Beijing Normal University.

The host is John Crowley, UNESCO's chief of Research, Policy, and Foresight.

 This is a 3-part podcast to connect the dots between carbon price-and-dividend and universal basic income. We spot the emerging ideas and ask how we should be equity-weighting green policies.

PART 1 tackles carbon price-and-dividend

· Carbon tax and its (much feared) regressive aspects.

· Ways to equity-weight carbon tax and the role of carbon dividends.

PART 2 links carbon dividend to universal basic income

· Use of carbon dividends as universal basic income.

· Key pitfalls of solely relying on carbon dividends to fund substantive and sustained basic income scheme.

· Ideas for hybrid financing basic income – carbon dividends and beyond.

PART 3 is on knowledge and policy

· Knowledge that needs amplification in public debates on carbon price-and-dividend and inclusive reset.

· Emerging policy ideas that decision makers need to pay closer attention to.

The expert is Anders Fremstad, Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Colorado State University. His expertise is in the political economy of the environment, especially the sharing economy and the climate crisis. Anders has written on the distributional impact of carbon pricing policies, carbon dividends, and the connections between the latter with universal basic income.

The host is John Crowley, UNESCO's Chief of Research, Policy and Foresight.

This is a 3-part podcast on universal basic income and its potential to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 crisis. The talk is concrete:

· Does basic income actually hold the promise of greater equity in this reset and what is the broader policy mix we need to be thinking about;

· Why should carbon tax be entertained as a financing option and what are the other sources that could fund to-scale/long-term basic income schemes; and

· How solid is the data we hold on basic income and what signals should policy makers be listening to.

The expert is Ioana Marinescu, Assistant Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and faculty research fellow at the US National Bureau of Economic Research. Her expertise is in universal basic income, unemployment insurance, and the politics of carbon tax, all of which are key to this debate.

The host is John Crowley, UNESCO's Chief of Research, Policy and Foresight.

This episode is concerned with social protection and its place in the post-COVID reset.

We dissect this into issues of:

· Social protection gaps – how these need fixing to counter the immediate effects of the crisis, as well as to set countries on a more inclusive pattern in the long run;

· Women during the crisis – how they fell through the cracks and what is the place of gender in recovery policies;

· Digital and informal economy – how COVID-19 sped up the discussion on the social protection for such; and

· Universal basic income – is it feasible and/or desirable in this recovery?

The expert today is Monika Queisser, OECD’s Head of Social Policy, and is an expert on pension reform within the organization.

The host is John Crowley, UNESCO's Chief of Research, Policy and Foresight.