In Otjivero, a dusty village in central Namibia, everyone knows where to buy freshly baked bread. Just head to the metal shack where Frida Nembwaya, mother of seven, has opened a bakery. She calls her business “Good Life After Struggle,” which pretty well sums up her story.

Struggle is commonplace in Namibia, where more than half the 2.1 million inhabitants live on less than $2 per day. Once part of South Africa, Namibia has the most unequal income distribution in the world. It’s a place of “sheer hunger next to incredible wealth,” according to Bishop Zephaniah Kameeta, a longtime political activist.

For Nembwaya and nearly 1,000 others in her village, life took a turn for the better two years ago when Otjivero became the pilot site to test an aid concept known as basic income grants (BIG). The program gives every villager — from birth to age 60 — a monthly stipend equal to $13. (Older villagers already qualify for government pensions.) Money for the pilot comes from a coalition of churches, labor groups, and aid organizations eager to find out whether a rising tide can truly lift all boats.

BIG may sound like old-fashioned welfare, but it’s actually the world’s first universal cash transfer program. Unlike other stipends, this money comes with no preconditions. Everybody in the village gets the same amount of money and there are no strings attached for how the money can be spent. That sets BIG apart from other welfare programs. Brazil’s Bolsa Família, for example, provides stipends to low-income families, but the money comes with expectations about school attendance and health care.

Benefits from BIG have been far-reaching. Sharp improvements have been documented in everything from child nutrition and school attendance to economic activity. Crime is down, health care has improved, and fewer women are bartering sex for food.

Herbert Jauch, head of research and education at Namibia’s Labour Resource and Research Institute, points out that villagers’ income has increased by more than the amount of the handouts. “People are now able to engage in more productive activities, which has fostered local economic growth.” New enterprises include a dressmaker and brickmaking operation, along with Nembwaya’s bakery.

Nonetheless, some remain skeptical. Prime Minister Nahas Angula has said that giving money to rich and poor people alike makes “a joke out of the poor,” according to reports in The Namibian. He favors targeted assistance rather than universal aid.

One of the unanticipated outcomes of the project has been an increase in community empowerment. Villagers set up their own 18-member council to offer advice on how to spend money wisely. Eager to curb spending on alcohol, the council convinced pubs to close on the day that monthly stipends are issued.

The coalition’s next step is to get political backing for a national BIG. Jauch estimates a national rollout “would cost about 5 percent of the national budget and lift about 30 percent of the population out of poverty.” Some of the cost would be recaptured through taxes on higher-income individuals and offset by growth in local economic development.

Read more stories by Suzie Boss.