according to The Trump administration plans to circulate among State Department staff and reviewed by Wired, renamed the U.S. International Humanitarian Aid (IHA) and brought it directly under the Secretary of State. Which politics is this document Report firstnoted that as part of its restructuring, the agency will “leverage blockchain technology” as part of its procurement process.
“All distributions will also be secured and tracked through blockchain technology to fundamentally improve security, transparency and traceability,” the memo reads. “This approach will encourage innovation and efficiency among implementation partners and allow for more flexible, responsive programming to focus on tangible impacts rather than simply completing activities and inputs.”
The memorandum has not clearly stated what this means – for example, if it covers cash transfers in some form of cryptocurrency or stable cash transfers, or simply means using a blockchain ledger to track auxiliary assistance spending.
The memorandum is at a time when U.S.A.I.D. staff members are trying to understand their future. The agency is an early target of the so-called Ministry of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is actually led by CENCITHIONARE ELON MUSK. Shortly after President Trump took office, the State Department Give employees of the entire organization an administrative leave,,,,, Cut the labor forceand to stop paying part of the global partner organizations, Including those who work in lifesaving. Since then Federal judge issued preliminary injunction Oppose the removal of the agency, but the memorandum seems to indicate that the government plans to continue its mission to cut the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sharply and fold it completely into the State Department.
The blockchain plan also caught staff off guard.
Few blockchain-based projects can be implemented Large-scale use in the humanitarian sector. Linda Raftree, an advisor to help humanitarian organizations adopt new technologies, said there is a reason – mergers of blockchain technologies are often unnecessary.
“For a problem that doesn’t have problems, it feels like a fake technical solution,” she said. “I don’t think we can find instances of people using blockchains that can’t use existing tools.”
Giulio Coppi, a senior humanitarian official who has now studied nonprofit humanitarian access to blockchain in humanitarian work, said blockchain technology is sometimes effective and can be used by other tool organizations, such as existing payment systems or other database tools, without obvious advantages. “There is no evidence that it is cheaper or better,” he said. “It is manifested in a tech solutionist approach that proves over and over again to have no substantial impact on reality.”
However, there are some successful examples of using blockchain technology in the humanitarian sector. In 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) A little pilot ran away Provide cash assistance to Ukrainians displaced in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Other pilots have Tested in Kenya Kenya Red Cross. The ICRC, working with the Kenyan team, also contributes to development Humanitarian Token Solutions (HTS).
