The plight of refugees from Syria, Yemen and certain African countries has been in the spotlight since 2015. As thousands flow into Europe and neighbouring Arab countries like Jordan, the issues of identification and obtaining persons’ histories place a huge burden on the migrant recipient state, apart from the usual provision of food and shelter.
In early 2017 a blockchain based programme called Building Blocks in partnership with the World Food Programme helps to distribute cash for food to over 100,000 refugees in Jordan. It is anticipated that by the end of this year, all 500,000 Syrians displaced in Jordan will be covered by this programme.
How is this blockchain based venture implemented?
At the checkout counter of a supermarket located in the refugee camp, the individual’s food bill is tallied, and paid via eye retina scan. A moment later, an image of the refugee’s eye flashes on the cashier’s screen. Receipts reading “EyePay” and “World Food Programme Building Blocks” across the top are handed over. By letting a machine scan the iris, the refugee’s identity is confirmed and stored on a traditional United Nations database, and queried by a family account kept on a variant of the Ethereum blockchain by the World Food Programme (WFP).
Building Blocks was created out of a need to reduce the cost of food distribution. For the WFP, which transferred over $1.3 billion in cash for food benefits in 2017 (about 30 percent of its total aid), transaction and other bank fees are money that could have gone to millions of meals. Early results of the blockchain programme touted a 98% reduction in such fees.
So what future plans does the blockchain project have?
WFP Executive and Building Blocks Project Head,Houman Haddad, envisions tackling a larger, central problem in any humanitarian crisis: how do you get people without government identity documents or a bank account into a financial and legal system where those things are prerequisites to getting a job and living a secure life? His team aims to create a personalised digital wallet containing information on the individual’s camp transaction history, government ID, education records and access to financial accounts all linked on a blockchain based system. With this wallet, readjustment to life outside the camp for refugees should be realised as they can apply for jobs, receive salaries and obtain bank loans. The ultimate goal is a system in which the user owns and totally controls the digital wallet.
It is still early days yet for this technology to be fully adopted by all UN agencies, but it seems quite promising for the Building Blocks team.
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