Digital anthropologist Margie Cheesman’s new study shows that blockchain technology has not lived up to expectations as a game-changing tool for helping people in need.
The results, released in the journal Geopolitics on August 13, show that Blockchain is used in humanitarian projects more often as a way to make money than as a real answer.
Cheesman investigated “Cash4Work,” a blockchain-based charity initiative operating in Jordan’s Al-Za’atari and Al-Azraq refugee camps from May 2018 to December 2019. The initiative depended on another entity under the anonymous name “The Blockchain Pilot,” which handled data and transactions; it was designed to pay individuals money in exchange for labor.
Cheesman discovered that blockchain added little value to the project and rather made it more costly and cumbersome, even with all the buzz about technology.
Her research, “Conjuring a Blockchain Pilot: Ignorance and Innovation in Humanitarian Aid,” also “criticizes the over-reliance on blockchain as a claimed innovation,” She refers to it as a “conjuring” behavior aimed to increase donor money instead of improving the efficacy of aid.
One of the project managers claimed that obtaining donors was primarily dependent on blockchain usage.
“Donors like to hear we are using blockchain because they like new ideas, especially if it helps them save time and keep track of where their money is going,” the administrator told Cheesman. Field workers who either didn’t know what blockchain was or got it incorrect also felt this, usually confusing it with other technology unrelated.
Blockchain Deployment Faces Challenges In Humanitarian Aid Efforts
According to the research, blockchain deployment has resulted in several issues including less effective means of assistance distribution.
For instance, grocery cashiers paid rather than directly by assistance workers when the system moved to a blockchain. This resulted in delays and financial issues with non-on-time contributions. With this shift, the superior approach for distributing money at women’s centers also vanished.
In his report, Cheesman talks about four main types of “ignorance” that keep these blockchain projects going: confusion, illusion, absence, and misdirection. She says these things are kept going because people use technology in a way that isn’t clear and often leads people astray. This keeps power structures in place instead of giving people more power.
The research did note one potential advantage of blockchain: it might cut transaction costs. One project manager claimed that thanks to blockchain, these costs were far cheaper when local banks were avoided; Cheesman could not locate any evidence to back up this assertion.
The problems Cheesman is having are the same ones the Digital Humanitarian Network found in a study in October 2022.
In that study, the use of blockchain in many humanitarian projects was also called into question. It did, however, point out some cases, such as the World Food Program’s Building Blocks project, which uses blockchain to cut down on useless aid work.
Cheesman’s study shows that blockchain’s use in help doesn’t always live up to what it says it can do. Something that doesn’t really make life better; it’s just a way to make money and keep things the same.
