How do you run operations in the remote areas where there is no electricity, technology, running water and even banking infrastructure? How do you get to transfer wealth to the people from such areas? How do you even ensure that the aid you are transferring will reach the needy without the middlemen grabbing it and using it for their own interests?
This is the reality that hits a donor who has well intentions of helping out the needy. Will the donor, together with his/her humanitarian field workers walk around with sacks full of money taking them to the destinations? Blockchain provides efficient solutions to all these challenges.
Come to think of it, you as donor, with just a click of a button and your aid is transferred directly to your intended destination from anywhere in the world at any time of the day. Worried about middlemen, well those too are eliminated. Your humanitarian field men do not have to carry sacks of money through towns, military checkpoints, jungles, war zones or areas hit by natural calamities with the risk of being attacked or kidnapped and all the aid in form of money being stolen.
Cryptocurrencies such as World Causecoin, bitcoin and many others have some features that will work perfectly well to ease the work of donors from all over the world without any limitations.
1. They are public or transparent, that is, one can counter-check if the operations involving certain transactions happened as they intended them to happen from any point in around the globe.
2. They are immutable, meaning, transactions that are carried out through the Blockchain technology cannot be altered by anyone in any way whatsoever.
3. They are decentralized, that is to say, nobody owns Blockchain therefore nobody can change how they operate. Not the government, not the corporations, nobody can claim they have power over Blockchain.
So if the donors transfer their aid inform of cryptocurrencies they can be rest assured that their aid will reach the intended destination and be of help to the recipients.
How do we as individuals or nations utilize the Blockchain technology to our advantage and change the livelihoods of our people and in turn enable our economies to take a new positive dimension? One may ask, as most of the African countries face high inflation rates. This is the major reason why our citizens from different nations within Africa and even some parts of the world are poor. As Anne Connelly says in her TEDx talk, people from these nations are not poor because they lack money, it is simply because their money does not have any value. Their remuneration is not enough to satisfy their needs, as prices of commodities that comprise of basic needs, rise from time to time. Blockchain provides a solution to this. It is (Blockchain) a store of value that cannot be inflated away by poor monetary policies. Cryptocurrency cannot be affected by a countries inflation rates to a point where it no longer has value. Cryptocurrency give us the freedom to choose a currency that is not affected or controlled by the government policies.
Most humanitarian operations are found in areas that are affected by war and natural calamities. In war zones you will find thousands of refugees who have fled from their homes with the aim of protecting their families. When you visit several refugee camps you will find refugees who have been in these camps for months or years because they cannot provide the necessary documents to prove of their identities or even where they have come from. Blockchain provides a way that we can own an identity other that which is provided by the government or corporations. Instead of having an identity in government database that is susceptible to loss of data or alterations, we can create one on Blockchain directly, where only you can grant access to that kind of information. It would be easy to trace somebody’s identity and even their originality in case of such calamities. This kind of data storage would grant refugees freedom to seek asylum and keep their families safe.
How can we provide medical attention to persons living in the refugees’ camps and also in the remote areas? How can we ensure that we offer effective and efficient medical care? Different humanitarian operations or organizations will visit these camps or the remote area with the aim of offering medical services, and they might set up different medical camps along the migrant routes. Patients who use different medical camps might find this quite challenging. It is medical care, we just ensure we give them the best and their health conditions are in perfect shape. So where does the challenge come in? You might ask. These medical camps are very disconnected and with no record of previous medical attentions it is quite difficult to receive the best medical services not forgetting, different medical camps are likely to give different medical care. This is where the Blockchain comes in. Blockchain can be used to link up medical records to a decentralized ID. Meaning one can effectively access and provide their medical information to different doctors, ensuring the patient is provided with a much better continuity of treatment.
For example, this is seen in Kenya where the Kenyan government is attempting to adopt the Blockchain technology into the health system. The Blockchain will provide a platform of storing a patient data which can be used by any doctor from any hospital at any part of the country. This will be of great benefit especially for hospitals in rural areas or in areas that have been hit by natural calamities. Retrieving a patient’s information will be made easy
Blockchain technology can also be used to safeguard an individual property or provide evidence of property ownership. In areas that are majorly hit by natural calamities such as floods, earthquake, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes citizens are likely to lose their property and find themselves displaced. It becomes quite difficult to go back and reclaim ones piece of land to reconstruct. In such areas you’ll even find that there are delays with infrastructure operations. With misplaced title deeds or loss of data that proves ownership it becomes quite difficult to reclaim a certain property. In Kenya issues of land owners being displaced is quite common. Reason being compromised government officials can easily tamper with stored information that proves that land belongs to a specific person. The same corrupt individuals can use cartels to create duplicates of title deeds. With Blockchain, as mentioned earlier, data stored cannot be tampered in any way whatsoever. Data cannot be stolen or duplicated. This helps land owners to be less susceptible to corruption and cannot be pushed out of their properties.
Kenya has already put in place ways to use Blockchain to counteract this kind of problem. The Kenya National Land Commission has introduced a Blockchain network that provides transparency in land ownership. Frauds like duplication of title deeds will no longer be a problem and forcing people out of their land will be a forgotten story.
Blockchain also provides a platform for people to air out their views and opinions concerning corrupt governments without fear of being attacked by the government. Instead of people gathering in public squares physically, Blockchain provides digital public squares for the citizens to air their opinions without endangering themselves. In the past governments would shut down the internet when people used social media for this purpose, but with Blockchain, clearly nobody can control it, giving the citizens freedom to air their views without any form of interference or manipulation.
Governments that have a lot to lose are tightening the knots and avoiding the Blockchain technology operations within their countries. They however should embrace the new form disruptive technology and leverage it to transform the economy of their countries. By doing this they will change the narrative which most African government and financial institutions have termed the technology as uncontrollable and unpredictable to a Utilitarian technology that would enable them to compete favourably with other developed nations.
