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Blockchain is gaining speed in the humanitarian sector. The technology is still in its early days, yet more than half of social-good blockchain initiatives are estimated to impact beneficiaries by the end of this year, according to a Stanford University report published in April.
These concepts have the potential to impact countless people. The report, which analyzed 193 organizations, initiatives, and projects that are leveraging blockchain to drive social impact, identified 20 percent of them as providing a solution that would not otherwise have been possible without blockchain, and 86 percent as providing material improvements over existing solutions.Still, the road for blockchain integration in philanthropy and international development is not an easy one. Development organizations, nonprofits, and governments tend to be risk averse and slow to adopt innovative and disruptive technology. And there remain a slew of unanswered questions about the potential negative implications.
“Another significant barrier to wide-scale adoption is that introducing a new technology does not solve for the local economic and political forces that often impede the effectiveness and transparency of aid or philanthropic initiatives,” adds the report. “In order for blockchain to be a transformative solution, collaboration and open dialogue is required across borders and sectors to develop a sustainable and scalable solution.”
A growing number of donors are paying attention. In just the past few months, both the United Kingdom Department for International Development and Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released reports on the opportunities for blockchain in international development. The United States Agency for International Development also released a primer two months ago on how
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