Blockchain for Humanitarian Assistance
Duration: 00:19:54
Speaker: Houman Haddad
Type: Talk
Expertise: Beginner
Event: Devcon
Date: Jul 2026
In the past few years the humanitarian community has been increasingly adopting Cash-Based Transfers as the means to provide assistance to beneficiaries. With CBT instead of, for example, receiving in-kind food, beneficiaries receive the means to purchase their own food in the form of pre-paid bank cards, mobile money, vouchers, and bank notes. In order to enable CBT, organizations rely on financial service intermediaries that bring with them costs, risks, reduced beneficiary privacy, accountability concerns, and delays. WFP is piloting an Ethereum based blockchain project called ‘Building Blocks’ to address these issues and reduce duplication and fragmentation in the system by fostering interagency collaboration around a neutral blockchain platform.
