California officials representing some of the world’s wealthiest cities traveled this week to one of Africa’s poorest towns to study universal basic income, a solution to poverty they hope to expand across the globe.

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Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell and State Assemblyman Matt Haney of San Francisco, both Democrats, were on Wednesday in Kisumu County, Kenya, where residents have received $25 a month for the past five years as part of the world’s largest guaranteed income project.

The trip was organized by GiveDirectly, a non-profit organization that partners with the charitable divisions of companies such as Google and the NBA to provide direct money to those living in poverty.

Basic income programs provide for people in need with no strings attached. Proponents of universal income are pushing for the practice to be broadened, pointing to early research showing it is more effective at alleviating poverty than some existing safety net programs that are subject to government-imposed rules and bureaucratic delays in service delivery.

Haney and Mitchell were interviewed by phone by The Times during a two-hour off-road drive in rural Kenya to a universal income village. The irony of the international trip did not go unnoticed by California officials, who represent one of the largest economies in the world.

But both, who have spearheaded local basic income efforts in California, spoke of similarities between the experiences of poverty despite geography.

“People who use these programs at home use them to invest in education or job certification or to pay off debt. Here the same sentiment means they can buy three goats or build a house,” Haney said Wednesday. “But it’s very similar in many ways and confirms our belief in this model that when you give people money and choice, they’re elevating themselves and their families and their communities.”

Haney said he paid for his flight with campaign funds, and Mitchell said her flight was paid for by mayors on a guaranteed income. Mitchell used money from her Los Angeles County Supervisor’s office account to pay for her chief of staff’s travel expenses.

Give Directly paid for their lodging.

Although California is home to enormous wealth, more than a quarter of Californians live in or near poverty. Haney and Mitchell both represent cities with the most millionaires and billionaires while experiencing homelessness and housing crises that reflect California’s gaping wealth gap.

“What has become crystal clear to me on this journey is that poverty is poverty regardless of the continent,” Mitchell said.

The logistics of running a program in California would likely be vastly different from the Kenyan program, based on many economic and cultural factors, but officials said they were coming up with ideas. They pointed to a mobile money banking system that villagers use so that cash deposits under the program are instant

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struggle to access their benefits in a timely manner, Mitchell said, and being eligible for one program could cut off your service to another because of income rules.

“Cash outperforms some of the other critical services that we prioritize in government. We create this cliff effect: if people do what we ask of them, like go to school or get a raise, we cut them out of the social safety net,” said Mitchell, a former state legislator. “My dream is that we rethink the way we manage these programs and create a culture shift and cut back some of the red tape.”

Last year, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom launched the nation’s first state-funded guaranteed income program, offering grants to cities interested in testing direct cash services.

A Los Angeles County program donates $1,000 per month to 1,000 residents living in eligible neighborhoods for 36 months. Another provincial program will give $1,000 a month for two years to 200 young adults who were in foster care.

Existing programs in California are limited and early in the process, but have received support from the legislature with a Democratic majority. A caucus dedicated to ending poverty in California was announced in the state legislature last month, involving Michael Tubbs, a Newsom adviser, in policy discussions.

Tubbs was also on the trip to Kenya, and

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where he led a guaranteed income program that has been announced nationally. He is the founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and an organization called End Poverty in California and was not afraid to criticize his fellow Democrats for not doing more for poverty reduction.

“Poverty is not a reflection of intellect, aptitude or potential, it is really a failure at the policy and system level,” Tubbs said Wednesday from Kenya. “It was important to come to another continent to gain perspective because it really elevates the issue to a global human rights issue and also reminds us that we are not alone and we don’t have to have all the answers to try .”