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Blockchain: what is it and what does it mean for development?
In a permissioned blockchain, the ledger sits within a permissioned network with peers connected for a common purpose, again without a central administrator. This technology is useful for supply chain management, identity management, data storage, financial inclusion and other uses. Basically, blockchain combines several existing technologies such as cryptography, distributed databases, consensus algorithms, and decentralised processing.
Blockchain also have control to allow participants within their ledger. The consensus component in blockchain can determine whether the blockchain is public or private. As defined, the public blockchain network is an open ledger where anyone can join, whereas a private blockchain requires an invitation and validation by another network. Blockchain cuts down third-party involvement, which in turn cuts down on fees and charges when moving money, which is why blockchain is currently mostly used for financial transactions.
It can speed up money transfers, reducing the risk of fraud and of being hacked. In humanitarian response, blockchain has the potential to be used for information management, coordination of aid delivery, management of crowdfunding, tracking supply chain, cash-transfer programming and boosting humanitarian financing. The technology can provide solutions to existing challenges in humanitarian assistance such as transparency and accountability.
Blockchain also can allow organisations to gather large quantities of data about vulnerable populations by using the distributed database component. To maintain data privacy of these populations, organisations can use private blockchain to allow only certain networks to gain access to the data. Blockchain technology is relatively new and many humanitarian practitioners are unfamiliar or quite sceptical with this system and technology in the field, although this is beginning to change. Blockchain is currently being used in humanitarian response through cash-transfer programs, meaning money is delivered directly to recipients without involvement from a bank or other financial services.
Their decision to use blockchain is driven by the need for complementary methods for financing, including direct distribution to recipients in the hope of reducing corruption. They distribute electronic cash using blockchain that can be redeemed at participating markets. Disberse has already been successful in a development project with UK-based charity, Positive Women, which was able to reduce its transfer fees and trace the flow of funds to a project in Swaziland.
The partnership is hoped to allow funding to become more efficient, effective and transparency which drives accountability to both taxpayers and those affected by crises. The means humanitarian response in the region requires large scale distribution of goods and cash-based programs in short periods of time. As discussed at the recent Humanitarian Blockchain Summit, there is immense potential to use blockchain for executing smart contracts.
Smart contracts can help to anticipate the numbers of people affected from potential disaster, how many people will be displaced, and calculate how many goods and services need to be delivered.
Blockchain can be useful in the provision of humanitarian relief, connecting suppliers of clean drinking water with helicopter pilots and scheduling deliveries at specific locations within certain timeframes.
Through smart contracts, the organisation can determine which offer is the best one based on community needs, triggering acceptance of the offer and setting in motion the delivery. Blockchain can also support the creation of digital ID for refugees, asylum seekers, and other vulnerable groups in the Asia and Pacific region, who often do not own legal document or have lost them during their journeys.
In the next stage, the digital ID can be utilised by refugees and asylum seekers as a payment system. This project aims to empower refugees through IT Skill training and matching with digital jobs in receiving countries, as well as skill building in the transition countries until they move to their final destination. The event was also supported by Cluj-Napoca City Hall. For editors. DevelopmentAid is a leading, innovative membership organization providing comprehensive information services for the international developmental sector.
By providing a nexus of funding opportunities, expertise and carefully curated data, the organization specializes in connecting donors, agencies, consultancy firms, NGOs and individual consultants working for international development. Ministry of Economic Development and Technology Slovenia. University "Ioan Slavici" in Timisoara. Under Development Office. Teleport HQ. Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development.
Cluj-Napoca City Hall. Keep track of international events in the development sector. Stay visible, make connections and find partners!
The technology can provide solutions to existing challenges in humanitarian assistance such as transparency and accountability. To maintain development privacy of these populations, organisations can use private blockchain to allow only certain networks to gain access to the data. However, the possibility of creating an immutable ID record may be both a promise as well development a aid, as contracts are automatically executed, this might initially lead to very rigid processes without the human margin of appreciation so often necessary in volatile emergency scenarios. Blockchain with Aid Data analytics, development aid blockchain, such models could provide for more efficient and less political funding instruments. How could it be blockchain in the sector?
Conclusion
A reference framework such as this should support stakeholders blockchain this sector to make more informed decisions based on best practices and needs for improvement, development aid blockchain. If the UK Government has to distribute billions of pounds in humanitarian foreign aid, it may as well be through a system that benefits the UK tech blockchain at such scale as to blockchain it a development phenomenon. Furthermore, the authors argue that there are discussions to be had regarding the practical and ethical considerations in relation to Blockchain in the following fields: Development mining, aid emergence of an Internet aid values as opposed to the current Internet of information, supply chains, innovation in governance, sharing economy, and financial inclusion. So, behind all the hype and jargon about blockchain use in humanitarian response, how does it work exactly? In addition, full transparency in the supply chain might not always be desirable, specifically in aid of political conflicts. Development is already being used to fight corruption, improve land tenure and property rights, create secure digital identities, tackle gender inequality, and more.
Blockchain for social impact in aid and development
One of the challenges facing any company attempting meaningful engagement in this space is understanding the tertiary nature of the environment. Blockchain aid be useful in the development of humanitarian relief, connecting suppliers of clean drinking water with helicopter pilots and scheduling deliveries at specific locations within certain timeframes. Aid on the utility of Blockchain technology are very mixed. Blockchain is resource-intensive by its development distributing a common digital ledger across a network requires many servers, computers and people. One of the factors is blockchain gap between funding and the environmental aid. To maintain data privacy of these populations, organisations can use private blockchain to allow only certain networks to blockchain access to the data. Blockchain allows users to create and spread information across a large network of computers, which its proponents say lends it both blockchain and development.
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Its French office has also launched an operation dubbed Game Chaingers for blockchain , which challenges tech geeks and gaming enthusiasts to install on their computers software aimed at creating Ethereum, a virtual currency, to help Syrian children. Blockchain allows users to create and spread information across a large network of computers, which its proponents say lends it both transparency and security.
And the applications for the technology are multiplying quickly. Aid donors could, for example, trace their contributions as they spread across an organization. The platform Disberse, supported by a network of 42 humanitarian groups, already road-tested this application by tracking money sent by a British association to four schools in Swaziland. In theory, the technique can reduce transaction costs, fight corruption by making everything transparent, and allow a better record of where food aid is directed, or make sure that medicines are not counterfeited.
Those in charge of programs that directly send money to people in need also see it as a way of more easily controlling the disbursement of funds or avoiding use of financial intermediaries such as banks, which might also take a cut. Sloan's organization has already field-tested a pilot project in Jordan's Azraq refugee camp, where Syrian refugees can use iris-identification technology at a cash register to buy food and supplies.
The program is currently private and used only by the WFP, making it more of a database project than a real blockchain. But Sloan said it could serve as a "tool to bring different partners and organizations together to collaborate and make the industry much more effective.
Besides the technical constraints, such as the need for an internet connection, blockchain poses some basic questions about governance and data protection. How to ensure, for example, that key information about refugees is not hacked by dictatorial regimes?
Who authenticates the data? Which countries accept virtual portfolios? Her group recently teamed up with tech giants Microsoft and Accenture for the ID Alliance, working on a virtual identity model to help refugees. In fragile states, and dealing with people facing great hardship, "there could be some scary implications if we don't do it responsibly," she said. Explore further. Your feedback will go directly to Science X editors.
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The content is provided for information purposes only. To find an extraterrestrial civilization, pollution could be the solution, NASA study suggests 24 minutes ago. Aug 01, What do they mean when they say something is so many light years away Aug 01, The speakers discussed a wide range of topics including decentralized data, smart contracts, health records storage, digital identity, social credits, international remittances, self-sovereign identity and showcased blockchain-based projects tackling common international development issues such as international aid transparency and traceability, climate change induced poverty, data loss and data theft, political corruption and others.
Today, I had the opportunity to share some use cases of distributed technologies, which gives people a better understanding of what can be achieved through them. In Cluj there are many companies and IT people, IT experts are interested in learning more about blockchain and DLT and identifying projects in which blockchain can be applied.
It gives the public authorities the chance to be transparent and to regain the trust of citizens in their way of doing things. The event was also supported by Cluj-Napoca City Hall. For editors. DevelopmentAid is a leading, innovative membership organization providing comprehensive information services for the international developmental sector. By providing a nexus of funding opportunities, expertise and carefully curated data, the organization specializes in connecting donors, agencies, consultancy firms, NGOs and individual consultants working for international development.
Ministry of Economic Development and Technology Slovenia. University "Ioan Slavici" in Timisoara. Under Development Office. Teleport HQ.
Hack the future of development aid
Maybe more. The Fintech Times spoke with multiple companies at Blockchain Week conference, and raised this issue. The response was that the technology is already there. The other benefit of the UK taking a leading role in development of a humanitarian foreign aid blockchain would of course be the added benefit of the UK becoming a world leader in this cutting edge technology.
If the UK Government has to distribute billions of pounds in humanitarian foreign aid, it may as well be through a system that benefits the UK tech sector at such scale as to make it a global phenomenon. At the same time as exploring this problem, we were, out of the blue, contacted by a startup company and invited to attend their presentation. The purpose of the presentation? To demonstrate their pilot projects for the distribution of tokenised aid through a blockchain.
As a product, Disberse is a fund management platform that uses blockchain technology to enable the flow and delivery of development and humanitarian aid, with core principles of transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Accordingly, Disberse enables Governments, Donors and NGOs to track the flow of funds throughout the chain, from donor to beneficiary, whilst simultaneously generating complete and immutable data for reporting, auditing and compliance trails. In the opinion of this newspaper built in auditing is absolutely key for any successful alternative to the multi-layered money filter that currently extracts the majority of value from almost every aid delivery project. One of the challenges facing any company attempting meaningful engagement in this space is understanding the tertiary nature of the environment.
Commercial Business. Deep Technology. In purely practical terms, being able to speak the language of all three, understand the culture of all three, and deliver the outcomes in all three, requires a founding team and executive board with expertise in all three, a triumvirate of competencies. This is one reason why, again, in the opinion of this newspaper, Disberse has what it takes to actually succeed, commercially, technologically, and in delivery of stated aims.
They also have a collection of advisors and facilitators supporting their expansion. The intention is for Disberse technology to be utilised for any development and humanitarian projects that involve the transfer of funds between two or more stakeholders, including Humanitarian Crisis Response, Development Consortium Delivery, Social Cash Transfers, Results Based Finance and Microfinance.
The anticipated outcomes being reduction in mismanagement and misappropriation of funds, enhanced trust and collaboration between donors, partners and beneficiaries, complete auditable trails, and other money transfer related efficiencies.
The Disberse pilot initiatives begin in Q1 of and run for 3 to 6 months. The diversity of these three projects with their three funding sources is a solid base upon which to develop and scale this exciting three-headed company. The diagram below, provided by Disberse, outlines the transactional process:. Technology like Disberse is making it possible to have a new version of donating, which operates differently.
It illustrates a peeling away of layers — empowering people on the ground to determine how that money is spent. The reality is that fraud does happen — anything that can help with that is incredibly exciting for us. As a donor you need to know where that money is going.
Not what does the international development sector want to give them. Another working prototype of this conceptulaised system for distributing aid is Hull Coin. Live and operational, Hull Coin is, as the name suggests, a hyper local version of the proposed foreign aid blockchain, FAB. Like HullCoin the credits have no intrinsic cash value and act as an indicator, logged onto the blockchain, that work has been undertaken or a contract has been delivered, releasing payment upon proof of work.
In practice, the security of the HC ecosystem provides grant and aid distributors with a number of benefits including the eradication of fraud, a transparency on what funds are where in the supply chain and an efficient payment infrastructure that can transfer funds globally and securely.
One significant similarity and difference between Hull Coin and the system proposed by Disberse is as follows:. These actions can include volunteering, community services, essentially rewarding certain behaviors with a token. The token holds the information of what the action was, eg, mowing a lawn, and the reward for doing so, eg 1HullCoin. This HullCoin, stored in a digital wallet, and can be spent anywhere that accepts Hull Coin.
Consider this in the context of Overseas aid. This potentially delivers a complimentary solution compared to being told which delivery outcomes they are required to do in order to compete a highly complex and inefficient top down supply chain. This is, when you think about it, extraordinary in the implications. To convert action into money. To directly create new money, rather than have money transferred to them. This has to be the ultimate aim of overseas humanitarian aid, the empowerment of the recipients, not the dependence of them.
However, Bitcoin, rather than rewarding humanitarian actions, rewards ever increasingly complicated and ultimately worthless computations of no inherent value. Emerging markets are THE place to introduce emerging technologies. In already developed countries and markets, emerging technologies are all about creating efficiencies. Polishing the wheel. Nothings broken, it just could work better, less friction, it could be nicer to use. In developed markets, those frameworks already exist, both as tech and as regulation.
Existing efficient infrastructures can actually slow down implementation of new more effective technology. This makes it much easier to introduce new frameworks, especially when supported by regulators who want it to succeed. In addition, emerging markets usually all have the same problems. Land registration is a problem in one. The same goes for identity verification, access to banking systems, and so on. The upshot is that a solution tested and validated in one region or country can them be implemented into other geographical locations with essentially the same benefit.
It only gets easier. Even the fact that the tech and developer skills need to be imported to begin with gives rise to the opportunity for overseas tech and dev schools being established specifically to support the expanding tech infrastructures being implemented. This in turn digitises the economy and the people skills and labour market, literally providing the absolute win of aid leading to independence through economic regeneration.
Schools, universities, healthcare, once a delivery framework is established for finance, the rest will follow. Powered by the technologies from the very cutting edge of the UK tech sectors. The event was also supported by Cluj-Napoca City Hall. For editors. DevelopmentAid is a leading, innovative membership organization providing comprehensive information services for the international developmental sector.
By providing a nexus of funding opportunities, expertise and carefully curated data, the organization specializes in connecting donors, agencies, consultancy firms, NGOs and individual consultants working for international development. Ministry of Economic Development and Technology Slovenia. University "Ioan Slavici" in Timisoara. Under Development Office. Teleport HQ. Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development. Cluj-Napoca City Hall. Keep track of international events in the development sector.
Stay visible, make connections and find partners!