- Crypto humanitarian aid initiatives are supporting a shift towards greater transparency and traceability in aid and donor agency work and supply chains.
- CCI is spotlighting six companies helping this shift and how platforms are emerging to support both donors and recipients.
- For more information about the following stories, as well as further similar use cases, visit the Impact Base.
Innovative crypto solutions for humanitarian aid and agencies
The Center for a Digital Future’s Impact Base is a repository of case studies detailing how crypto and blockchain are being used in real-world applications.
Among some of the most innovative solutions are those being pursued in the aid sector. Here, activity roughly divides into improving the transparency of aid delivery, accepting aid donations, and improving inclusion, both in terms of digital and financial access. The Crypto Council is breaking down some of the companies activating this digital shift and supporting donors and recipients.
Crypto and blockchains are improving financial inclusion
The World Bank estimates that 1.4 billion people are unbanked. Among the most vulnerable are women, the unemployed and minority groups. Crypto and blockchain applications are seeking to change this dynamic, offering previously unseen levels of access to financing for some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities.
In Colombia, fintech Quipu, which uses AI to credit score and provide loans to informal micro-businesses, partnered with Mercy Corps Ventures to pilot DeFi lending providing direct loans to small businesses.
No collateral is required to qualify for a loan, and Quipu partnered with people to people (P2P) payments marketplace, El Dorado, to deliver loans in fiat currency. Token rewards helped incentivize timely loan repayment and supported new borrower referrals. The company generates revenue through loan interest payments.
Since launching in 2022, Quipu’s customer base has grown to more than 5,000 customers. Of these, more than 60% are women, and 90% are blacklisted by credit bureaus. In 2024, Quipu received the Ignite Award for the scheme, which was recognized for its innovation and impact.
In a similar scheme, Mercy Corps Ventures partnered with Kenyan land management company, Cinch, to offer credit products for smallholder farmers. Although 2.5 billion people depend on smallholder farming for their livelihoods, 70% of their demand for financing goes unmet. Traditional financial institutions deem lending to these individuals as expensive, unprofitable and risky.
Historically, Cinch has provided a closed-loop payroll, meaning that it uses a centralized database to unify payroll, time and attendance data of its employees, which divide into landowners, laborers and full-time employees.
This scheme saw Cinch team up with Celo, Kotani Pay and Moola Market to pilot the use of a DeFi solution to enable fast credit at affordable rates while at the same time reducing the administrative burden for borrowers – the closed-loop system creates a lot of administration and limits the ability to scale up operations.
Users deposited funds with Moola’s DeFi lending protocol. Cinch then deposited funds to employees’ Kotani Pay wallet addresses. Borrowers could then request sums of money by simply dialling Kotani Pay’s US dollar code, after which the money was deposited into their wallet. Employees could either repay the amount or Cinch would pay off the outstanding balance via the employee’s wages.
Like those who have access to bank accounts the world over, the unbanked often want to save money. In 2022, Mercy Corps Ventures partnered with Cameroon-based investment platform, Ejara, to offer a savings product. In this case, it was a fully compliant, licensed, tokenized, fractionalized government bond saving plan.
Participants were offered the opportunity to invest as little as $1.53 and earn up to 5% interest per annum. Using blockchain and smart contracts, assets can be split infinitely, allowing Ejara to buy, fractionalize and sell bonds at much lower prices than historically offered. Customers could either access their funds through an app or via trained local agents. The money could be withdrawn at any time, but the accrued interest would be lower, incentivizing longer-term saving and better financial planning.
The scheme reached more than 11,000 people, 46% of whom said that this was the first time they’d had access to saving tools.
Humanitarian Agencies and Aid Agencies Accept Crypto
Digital assets represent a growing market for giving, but either donating crypto, or donating cash, which can then be transferred into digital assets, requires support.Â
Givepact is a platform through which donor contributions can be made. It supports more than 50 tokens, including major ones like Bitcoin, Ether and USDC, and provides documentation and receipts for all transactions. Donors receive a Proof of Donation nonfungible token, while Givepact sends 95% of the donation to the recipient, keeps 4% and 1% goes to the Givepact DAO Treasury, of which every donor is granted access (and given a vote).
Endaoment is an on-chain, smart contract-powered donation and grant-making platform built on the Ethereum network. It supports various types of donations – traditional contributions, such as stocks or fiat, as well as donor-advised funds such as long-term capital gains assets. These go to qualified non-profits and international organizations.
To date, Endaoment has facilitated $81.27 million in donations and $45.61 million in grants. It has helped increase the number of charitable organizations that accept crypto and digital assets through its partnership with GlobalGiving. It has also partnered with analytics platform, Etherscan, to increase the transparency and accountability of donations made through the organization. It charges a 0.5% on incoming donations, and a 1% on outgoing funds.
Using blockchain and crypto for Humanitarian aid delivery
During 2022 and 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) worked with the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC) to pilot Stellar Aid Assist. The programme delivered direct cash assistance to Ukrainians who had been displaced as a result of the war with Russia.
The agency used Stellar’s blockchain system and delivered funds directly to recipient digital wallets via smartphones. Funds were then cashed out at MoneyGram locations. Stellar calculated that there were no transaction fees until the aid agency hit 100,000 transactions. The pilot received Best Impact Project Award during Paris Blockchain Week 2023.
Transparency is of high priority to aid agencies, and where it’s lacking, can result in delivery delays. Here crypto and blockchain are particularly useful, offering a new level of transparency to the process along with fund traceability.
Benefiting from this have been the operations of humanitarian agency, Care International, which in 2022, partnered with Binance Charity Foundation to deliver cash and vouchers to COVID-affected communities in Western Kenya.
The project saw e-vouchers transferred from Care to 50 Village Saving and Loans Association members, each of which used the Binance BUSD stablecoin. Trusted local traders were then used as points where e-vouchers could be redeemed. The project saw Care deliver e-vouchers to 1,217 association members.
Digital tools are vital to transparent, modern aid delivery. AIDONIC uses AI, blockchain and digital payments to introduce transparency and visibility to non-profit organization’s aid delivery. Its data management platform and end-to-end payments infrastructure offers real-time, transparent monitoring and tracking.
Other tools it offers include project planning and monitoring, reporting tools and supply chain management and delivery tracking tools. Furthermore, AIDONIC’s aid management platform is GDPR-compliant. During 2022, it processed more than $500,000 in crypto humanitarian aid funds through its platform. The company has either been a finalist for or won several awards, including the Europas’ Social Innovation Tech Award.
Innovation and creative thinking mark out the crypto and blockchain-based schemes, platforms and pilots that are shaping modern aid agency and charitable work. As the number of success stories rises, and more individuals and firms opt to use crypto for donations, use cases will become established practice, and the tools offered, ever-more necessary to operational success and efficiency.
