Oxfam Ireland awarded grant to develop Blockchain tech

By Kieran Smith

Blockchain promises to bring greater transparency and efficiency to charitable giving by cutting delivery times and tracking funds to ensure they are not funneled off by corrupt powers.

 Oxfam Ireland secured a grant of  €1 million from the European Commission to fund the second phase of a blockchain-based aid project known as UnBlocked Cash. 

Oxfam Ireland beat 24 other projects from a total of 178 applications to win the funds from the European Innovation Council as part of a competition called Blockchains for Social Good.

Oxfam Ireland awarded grant to develop Blockchain tech, UnBlocked Cash

The project promises to use the Ethereum blockchain to cut delivery times for aid by 96% and cut transaction costs by 60% as part of the second phase of an aid project focused on the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu, 

In the first phase of the project in June 2019, Oxfam International spent a month using MakerDAO’s stablecoin to help alleviate poverty by supplying 200 residents on the island of Efate with payment cards loaded with around 4,000 vatu ($50) in DAI.

The cards could be used for payment at a network of over 30 schools and shops across the region. 

In the second phase, the scheme will be scaled up to include more than 5,000 participants and 100 vendors across the Pacific region.

This enables  payments at specified vendors along with cheap cross border transactions in Vanuatu and potentially elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean:

“Future plans seek to address the needs of over 2.7 million disaster-exposed and vulnerable people across the Pacific Region, as well as expanding use across the Oxfam Confederation, which reached 22.3 million people, across 90 countries, in 2018 alone,” said Oxfam Ireland Director Niamh Carty in a statement. 

The use of ethereum in such a scheme is another milestone for the broader adoption of blockchain for charitable giving.

This follows several ethereum-based projects run by prestigious organisations including UNICEF and the United Nations.

This comes along with a recent spate of donations from the crypto community to fund the fight against COVID-19, mostly facilitated by Binance, Stellar, and the Giving Block.

Elsewhere in Ireland, the Dublin start-up AID:Tech claims to have been the first company to deliver international aid with blockchain during the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015.

About the Author

Kieran Smith is a writer contributing to The Guardian,  OneZero, and Brave New Coin among other publications. He provides content strategy and copywriting services for cryptocurrency companies at Bitcopy.

https://twitter.com/bitcopy960

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