Improving cash and voucher-based humanitarian assistance operations with blockchain technology

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School of Business | Bachelor's thesis
Electronic archive copy is available locally at the Harald Herlin Learning Centre. The staff of Aalto University has access to the electronic bachelor's theses by logging into Aaltodoc with their personal Aalto user ID. Read more about the availability of the bachelor's theses.

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Date

2021

Department

Tieto- ja palvelujohtamisen laitos

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Mcode

Degree programme

Tieto- ja palvelujohtaminen

Language

en

Pages

27 + 7

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Abstract

An increasing number of man-made and natural disasters, most recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to a growing need for humanitarian aid. To alleviate the suffering of millions of people around the world, humanitarian organizations must continuously develop more effective and efficient practices and innovations. In the past decade cash and voucher-based approaches have become an alternative solution to traditional in-kind help, meaning that instead of transporting finished goods to the affected area, beneficiaries are provided with cash. Blockchain technology is another innovation whose potential has been explored in recent years. The technology that was initially associated only with cryptocurrencies can now possibly create significantly faster, cheaper, more transparent, and safer humanitarian supply chains. This thesis discusses the potential benefits, opportunities and challenges of blockchain technology in the context of cash and voucher-based assistance. The research is conducted as a literature review with an illustrative case example from the field. The case presented is World Food Programme’s (WFP) blockchain project called Building Blocks. The paper first identifies the main issues of cash-based approaches and then discovers that those are largely the same as the main benefits of blockchain technology. The conclusion is that most of the challenges of cash-based humanitarian operations can in theory and in practice be answered with blockchain technology, but more research on the topic is needed.

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Thesis advisor

Tinnilä, Markku

Keywords

humanitarian supply chains, cash and voucher-based assistance, blockchain technology, humanitarian assistance

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202201161240

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[kand] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ