When Rahilla Zafar served as an aid worker in Afghanistan and Pakistan, she saw firsthand how humanitarian assistance could be misused or squandered.
“In Afghanistan, so much of USAID money went to build hospitals, clinics, and other structures,” Zafar recalled in a phone interview with Devex. “But it wound up being contracted and subcontracted out, and everyone was skimming off the top. The actual amount that went to build the buildings was so much less.”
For Zafar, one solution is greater transparency on what transactions are made and where aid dollars are diverted. Part of that solution, in her opinion, is the blockchain, a distributed ledger database with a time-stamped list of records. Blockchains often undergird cryptocurrencies, serving as the forum to create, distribute, trade, and store coins or tokens such as Bitcoin.
About the author
Jason Steinhauer
Jason Steinhauer is an author and public historian in Washington, D.C. He is the founder of the History Communication Institute and author of the bestselling book "History, Disrupted: How Social Media & the World Wide Web Have Changed the Past." He is currently a global fellow at The Wilson Center and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Past bylines include TIME, CNN, and The Washington Post.
