Overview of the Plan

The Plan for a Sustainable, Supplementary Income for All (SIFA Plan) proposes a supplementary economy for all people that is financed by a newly created digital currency backed by marketable sustainable goods and services. This Plan was originally conceived by the Dutch visionary, social activist, economic innovator and artist Pieter Kooistra, who explained it in two books, the second of which was financed by the Dutch Government. The Plan was endorsed by economist and 1969 Nobel Prize winner, Jan Tinbergen. Implementation of the Plan will allow the present world economic system to evolve gradually and peacefully towards an inclusive sustainable global economy for the benefit of all, in harmony with Nature.

The Plan for a Supplementary Income for All embraces the following:

  • A sustainable supplementary global economy in parallel with what exists now which generates a gradually increasing supplementary income for all;
  • A supplementary income for every woman, man and child that each can use to purchase those sustainable goods and services that are closest to their hearts.
  • Discussion and decision making groups linked from local to global levels, where the understanding of each person gradually increases as to what constitutes sustainability and what cannot be considered sustainable in a certain year. These are ways for people to clarify in their own hearts what they themselves might wish to purchase that year from their supplementary income and what they might purchase as a community to empower all living there.
  • A SIFA Administration Agency for the Supplementary Income for All (SIFA.) It provides:
    • Two development workers for each approximately 1000 people, one from the local area that understands the local culture, one from the same language background that is not from that area so as to decrease the likelihood of coercion. (Their trainings can be supplied from a variety of sources.)
    • A means for people to lodge complaints where coercion exists;
    • A worldwide digital marketplace which each woman, man and child has an account where their annual digital income is housed; and where demand and supply for goods and services for that year are housed. (The digital income not used disappears if not used in any specific year.)
    • Money exchange services that allow the digital SIFA currency to be exchanged so that suppliers can buy components from the existing economies; and development workers and SIFA Agency employees can exchange their income for their respective national currencies.

Characteristics of a Supplementary Economy

This economy has two characteristics, not shared with any current economy and would be made possible by modern computer technology and census-taking infrastructures that could be developed with the support of the U.N.:

  1. Knowledge of exactly what is needed and what can be supplied through the supplementary economy, and
  2. Every human being in the world would eventually have an account, which would be linked through a computer network. As of this writing, in mid-2021, approximately 50% of all households worldwide own a computer, and most countries have libraries or posts where computers can be accessed by people who do not own a computer.