HiveOnline describes its blockchain program as follows: Aid for disaster relief and longer-term development programs face a huge logistical and reputational challenge. Typical aid donation scenarios involve a donation in one currency, which is converted to a second currency by a global NGO, then another currency in-country and possibly further conversions as global distributors are used. Aid is also traditionally subject to significant “leakage”, with funds and goods diverted to corrupt officials or, commonly, local people selling goods on the open market.
Donations to aid funds typically lose around 30% to multiple [foreign exchange] and transaction charges and poor terms from banks, while administration is high, and as it is very hard to trace funds. Aid payouts often take place in challenging circumstances; recipients of aid are likely to be displaced, lacking access to formal identity or traditional financial services. Reducing interim stages such as merchants responsible for distribution, and ensuring end recipients benefit directly from the aid, is critical to reducing leakage.
Blockchain offers an opportunity to add transparency and confidence to donation pipelines, by creating an end to end audit trail of each transaction together with non-traditional identification techniques to ensure the correct recipients are benefitting, even if they lack formal identity or bank accounts. Self-executing contracts offer the opportunity to automate much of the administration….[A] hybrid solution where a technology platform, enabled by blockchain and automatically executing contracts, supports traditional actors in the aid lifecycle by reducing administration and increasing transparency captures pre-determined recipients of aid, [and] provide[s] full transparency of financial interactions and the criteria validating the flow of value end to end, together with a reputation management system that evaluates the quality of performance. The measurement and reputation system is combined with authentication such as biometrics, which can be managed outside traditional know your customer (KYC) scenarios, while the underlying cryptocurrency provides full traceability of transactions via blockchain technology. Recipients can “cash out” the aid by triggering the self-executing contracts.
For an end recipient, this may be in the form of food provided by a merchant, which is, for example, validated by biometric identity recognition while the contracts measure pre-set criteria. This reduces ambiguity and the risk of fraud and provides confidence for donors and NGOs alike. The system manages the transfer of value, which can be created based on input of [US dollars] (for example) and released as local currency, minimizing exchange risk and providing full traceability for every transaction.
Keywords: Preventing Injustice and Corruption, Blockchain for human rights, HiveOnLine