The Policy Nerd, by UNESCO

Latest Episodes:

India's quest for basic income Nov 04, 2021

Show notes

This is a 3-part podcast on India’s quest for basic income. It discusses the basic income 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.
The expert is Sarath Davala, Chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), and co-founder for India Network for Basic Income. He served as the research director for the Madhya Pradesh basic income pilot.
The host is UNESCO’s Iulia Sevciuc.

PART 1: Trials
This part is concerned with concrete basic income pilots coming from India. It goes deeper into the Madhya Pradesh trial, covering the design features, results, and interaction with the existing social protection system.
PART 2: Scale up
This part goes beyond individual pilots to bigger questions on the future of basic income. It discusses the paths to basic income’s scale up in India, potential in other developing countries, and use in development and crisis contexts.
PART 3: Knowledge and policy
This final part talks to knowledge and policy actors about data gaps and, importantly, messages that need amplification in policy debates on basic income

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Data is an instrument – are we using it right? Sep 08, 2021

Show notes

This is a 3-part podcast concerned with data and knowledge-based decision-making.
The guest is World Bank’s Arianna Legovini. Her expertise – critical to this discussion – is in improving the impact of research on development practice and policy.
The hosts are UNESCO’s John Crowley and Iulia Sevciuc.
PART 1: Data and governance
Data is an instrument in and of governance. As any tool, data is as good as those handling (in this case, reading) it. So how good are we? Part 1 goes into new data landscape, the new skills it demands of us, and the public sector’s capacity to steer it all.
PART 2: Data and COVID-19
This second part is about data in crisis. It looks into how the pandemic changed the world of data and how it transformed the ways in which we use data for decision-making – in emergency contexts and beyond.
PART 3: Pointers
Part 3 looks into data as an area of knowledge and an area of policy action. It addresses research communities to point out what knowledge gaps need closing and it talks to policymakers about emerging ideas/practices on data that deserve a closer look.

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Partner on data, make it work for good Jun 29, 2021

Show notes

This is a 3-part podcast on new data and, particularly, if and how the private and the public sectors should be working together to advance its use for public good.
The expert is World Bank’s Holly Krambeck. She founded the Development Data Partnership – a coalition between international organizations and the private sector to further responsible use of third-party data in international development.
The hosts are UNESCO’s John Crowley and Iulia Sevciuc.
PART 1: Worries and priorities
This part diagnoses key barriers to using new data in policy and governance. It also debates who are the winners and the losers in a system where the demand, from the public sector and beyond, for new data is so high yet the supply is limited to a handful of private companies.
PART 2: Solutions – big and small
This is a deep look into the big picture changes (regulations and systems) and operational solutions (nascent and in-testing) that hold the promise of boosting use of new data in our collective decision making. Concrete models are provided.
PART 3: Pointers
The last part flags key knowledge gaps the researchers need to close and lessons learned policy makers need to hear so as to move the needle towards more effective use of data for and in public good.

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Treat data like you treat infants – signals and empathy are key May 25, 2021

Show notes

This is a 2-part podcast on data culture – how the private sector built such from within and if/how the public sector should follow.
The guest today is James Ingram, CEO of Splashlight and Telmar, and co-founder of LiiV. His business is rooted in data and his expertise lies in the ways data fuels growth. He is also invested, intellectually and philanthropically, in advancing the field of digital anthropology.
The host is John Crowley, UNESCO’s Chief of Research, Policy and Foresight.
PART 1: Data culture
The private sector has seen massive investments in their new data capacity, labelling data as assets and building data culture within companies to amplify its power. Other sectors lag behind. This part looks into:
· Data culture – why it matters and what is there to learn from the private sector;
· Frontiers of data – how the data agnostic to people is old news and how we should focus on data about people (i.e., understand the why and the how on top of the what);
· Empathy in data – how societies are to be treated like infants in neonatal care, with governments reading the data for signals of distress and rooting it all in empathy; and
· Digital lives – why understanding citizens’ digital lives is as big of a key to governance as understanding their physical ones.
PART 2: Data and action
The key concern of the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab is distilling recommendations and pointing to action that needs to be taken. This part talks:
· Knowledge gaps – what we know and what we lack in knowledge on data;
· Policy use – what deserves increased attention in decision making on data and how the public sector should be building data cultures from within; and
· Private sector – how business should be working with the worlds of knowledge and public policy to advance the ways we engage with data and use it for common good.

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Data equity – there is no hiding May 11, 2021

Show notes

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).

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Science fiction for turbulent times - future histories to inspire alterative policy thinking May 03, 2021

Show notes

Kim Stanley Robinson, an award-winning science fiction writer best known for the Mars Trilogy and Ministry of the Future, explores how science fiction shapes science representations in society and argues that understanding “totality” is essential in turbulent times. He explains how speculative futures are one of the few spaces to create cognitive maps to make sense of the complexity of global systems shaped by widening inequality and climate pressures. Robinson stresses that science fiction is not a prediction but constructs plausible future histories that allow us to contemplate what could happen, what we want to avoid, and what better trajectories look like. He argues that fiction can model stepwise transitions - not as policy prescriptions, but as narrative explorations of what social and economic alternatives might entail.

Find out more in his conversation with Clare Stark.
The facts, ideas and opinions expressed in these podcasts are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO or any of its partners and stakeholders and do not commit nor imply any responsibility thereof. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout these episodes do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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Invest in knowledge, use it to rebuild Apr 28, 2021

Show notes

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.

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California trials basic income, other 14 pilots are in sight Apr 22, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Coronavirus Supplement, the Australian way of income support in crisis Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Is ‘victim-blaming’ a thing in social policy Feb 09, 2021

Show notes

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.

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