THE UNBLOCKED CASH PROJECT
Accelerating Cash and Voucher Assistance through the UnBlocked Cash Project
This project showcases The UnBlocked Cash Project, and focuses on generating positive social change among some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities in the world. This is achieved through the pioneering of a decentralised model to address the global challenge of delivering international aid to disaster-affected women and men in ways that are more efficient, transparent and sustainable, utilising Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
This innovation places disaster affected people and their communities at the centre of decision making related to their cash-based entitlements and addresses the global challenge of linking institutions and individuals directly to those they want to support in ways that do not compromise transparency and accountability. This use case is built upon a successful collaboration between Oxfam- a global leader in delivering humanitarian assistance and Sempo - a mission-driven Fintech start-up working at the intersection between humanitarian aid, technology and financial services.
Together, Oxfam and Sempo have demonstrated the first successful trial demonstrating community co-development of a blockchain solution to deliver localised, cash-based disaster assistance in the Pacific region. Our main objective is now to scale the ‘UnBlocked Cash’ project across the Pacific Region and globally, to replicate and test this use case in meeting the needs of underserved and remote communities and to explore the potential to scale in comparable contexts, globally.
The UnBlocked Cash project builds upon the global commitment to deliver more humanitarian and development programs in the form of cash, voucher, and market-based approaches. UnBlocked Cash offers an opportunity to improve the efficiency of how aid is delivered without compromising transparency and sustainability and by integrating digital financial inclusion and utilisation of of decentralised networks for a more collaborative economy at the community level.
UnBlocked Cash represents an open-ended, open source, decentralised payment platform that allows local communities to engage directly in shaping the technology to suit their own needs, and own and operate the process of delivering payments – whether or not the world’s humanitarian agencies are present. This is a high-impact pathway to decentralised localisation and sustainability, enabled by DLT.
The Phase II pilot of the UnBlocked Cash project is currently ongoing in Vanuatu, now targeting 5,000 individuals and over 100 community vendors. The Phase I pilot was highly successful, has been presented at some of the world’s largest global blockchain conferences, and has garnered international media attention.
UnBlocked Cash Phase II has now harnessed partnerships across 9 local and international civil society, government and private sector partners. Delivery times have been reduced by 96%, and transaction costs are 60% lower compared to past programmes. 7 communities across 4 administrative areas will be targeted across the island using a consortium approach – delivering concurrently across multiple locations, via a network of local partners and dozens of small market vendors.
We will now demonstrate the speed and capacities of the use of the Sempo platform at scale, utilising the transparency imbued by the technology to enable a harmonised, single payment rail , where all are able to view live, anonymised and categorised expenditure data, instantly. Phase II is a gateway moment – to demonstrate a truly localised cash transfer model that is a go-to solution for remote locations similar to Vanuatu, where the need for inclusion and local voices in the delivery process is critical, but not addressed in the existing humanitarian paradigm.
The UnBlocked Cash Project is the world’s first example of cryptocurrency-enabled disaster assistance to communities in remote regions. It is also an outstanding representation of innovation in the Pacific region.
We have proven that we can build open, digital and financial infrastructure where traditional infrastructure and delivery systems are absent, and exclude many, and that we can do so in a fully inclusive, accountable and innovative manner.
We face a moment in time where there exists a growing community of voices calling for the delivery of assistance to be more accessible and localised – it should not remain the domain of a select few. In the Pacific region, we live the impacts of climate change. We need action.
We have replaced dwindling global resources with a high-capacity solution that has stress-tested blockchain tech to its outer limits – and thus placed it within the hands of those whom our humanitarian model is meant to serve.
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