Zaatari refugee camp is currently home to some 80,000 Syrian refugees - in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, on March 5, 2017. Xinhua/Press Association. All rights reserved.Before Christmas, the Danish development agency Danida launched ‘Hack the Future of Development Aid’, a report exploring the potential of blockchain technology to disrupt foreign aid. The Danida report paints a bright picture of what blockchain, the digital ledger that records encrypted peer-to-peer transactions, can contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
In line with blockchain’s foremost advocates, the report suggests that crypto aid money, the corollary of Bitcoin for aid transfers, can speed up aid delivery by circumventing intermediaries between donors and beneficiaries. Land titles, insurance policies, and proof of identity can all be turned into code in the blockchain, rendering paper archives and corrupt governments obsolete. Land titles, insurance policies, and proof of identity can all be turned into code in the blockchain, rendering paper archives and corrupt governments obsolete.
Danida is not alone in betting on digital technology to innovate aid delivery. Last year the World Food Programme piloted Building Blocks, a cash transfer programme for Syrian refugees in Jordan that made use of an Ethereum blockchain and biometric authentication. In Bermuda, Brazil, Georgia, and Sweden national and municipal land registries are currently experimenting with blockchains to make property transfers and land titles more secure and efficient. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto recently advocated for the introduction of a global land registry using blockchain. ID2020, a public-private consortium that includes Microsoft, will soon implement its first digital identity projects in a bid to provide undocumented persons with a legally recognized identity.
