Over the next 10 to 15 years, thousands of people in Kenya who normally survive on less than $1 a day will receive unconditional income on a regular basis.

On April 14, the co-founders of the nonprofit GiveDirectly, Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus, announced in an article for Slate their $30 million plan to help alleviate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Known as universal basic income, the idea rests on the premise that people should get a regular income even if they don't work. It's cash, paid for by the taxpayers, that helps people cover basic expenses like food, clothing, and shelter.

Launching sometime later this year, the experiment in Kenya will try to put these theories to the ultimate test in the longest-running basic income experiment to date. Approximately 6,000 people will receive regular small monthly payments via a phone-base system GiveDirectly has used in past experiments.

The only criteria is that recipients must live in their given village full-time, although those that leave will still receive payment.

A typical cell phone that will enable basic income payments. GiveDirectly To cement the system's legitimacy, Faye and Niehaus stress the importance of staying rigorous, which is why it will last 10 to 15 years — two to four times longer than most basic income studies in the past. The duo will also partner with MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee, who will run the experiment.

"We already know quite a bit about the beneficial effects of giving people money for a few years; the key question is how the knowledge that your livelihood is secured for more than a decade affects your behavior now," they write. "Do you take more risk? Get more schooling? Look for a better job?"

It could be the case that past experiments, while still successful on paper, had too short a time limit for people to feel secure over the long term. Knowing they have nothing to worry about could motivate them to become more enterprising ahead of time.

The final goal, they write, will be to make it truly universal. Instead of picking individual people from random groups within a region, the researchers want to pick an entire community. That'll let them see how basic income affects people individually as well communities as a whole.

Basic income has grown in popularity globally in the last year.

Switzerland announced a plan to hold a referendum in June of this year, and other basic income experiments are set to start in the Netherlands, Finland, and Canada sometime in 2017. New Zealand and the United States might not be far behind.

As Faye and Niehaus explain, basic income is an "ostensibly unorthodox" way to keep people financially secure. A common kneejerk response is to criticize basic income because it will promote laziness. But study after study has shown that's not the case. If anything, people work harder when they know they have a safety net protecting them.

Initially, GiveDirectly is putting up $10 million to match the first $10 million donated by others.

Ultimately, they hope to generate a $30 million basic income pool. While that may seem like a pricey experiment, it would actually cost closer to $1 billion if conducted in America, Faye and Niehaus write. Kenya has a lower cost of living, so the experiment can be cheaper.

Faye says he doesn't believe anything will get lost in translation if such an experiment came to the US.

"Cash transfers have been tested across the world," he tells Tech Insider, "and while the exact uses of the funds may differ, the point remains: the poor can be trusted to spend the funds wisely."