Temporary basic income payments could stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic by allowing the world’s poorest people to stay at home, according to a new report from the United Nations Development Programme.

A six-month guaranteed handout for 2.7 billion living below or just above the poverty line in 132 developing countries would cost around $199 billion per month. Russia, for example, could lift 48 million people to the country’s “vulnerability threshold” for $5.3 billion per month — roughly 0.12% of GDP. India would need $18.4 billion to do the same for 658 million people.

Money for such efforts could come from a variety of sources, the agency said, including the reallocation of external debt service payments.

The Group of 20 leading economies has offered a Debt Service Suspension Initiative to the world’s poorest nations that runs through December. So far, 42 countries have requested help under the plan, and $5.3 billion in repayments has been suspended.

“Unprecedented times call for unprecedented social and economic measures,” Achim Steiner, the UNDP’s administrator said in a statement. “A temporary basic income might enable governments to give people in lockdown a financial lifeline, inject cash back into local economies to help keep small businesses afloat, and slow the devastating spread of Covid-19.”

The plan would require 12% of the expected total financial response to pandemic in 2020, which is equivalent to one-third of what developing countries owe in external debt payments this year, the UNDP said.

The program could also be funded by energy subsidies, after a decline in oil prices, and through emergency cash transfers.

It is particularly necessary in developing nations, where nine out of ten workers have informal employment and can’t earn money if they are at home, the agency said.