Open Conversations: Breaking Barriers in Humanitarian Aid (Anna Whitson-Diaz)
Funding the Commons Open Conversations · 2:01
Anna Whitson-Diaz of the Stellar Development Foundation, who spent over a decade at the UN Development Programme, argues that Stellar differs from the speculative image of crypto because it concentrates on financial inclusion. She says donors want cross-border payments that are cheaper, faster and more transparent, and that Stellar has worked with the UN refugee agency UNHCR on open-source technology for delivering humanitarian aid directly. She reports over $5 million in direct cash assistance to more than 2,200 households in Ukraine during almost two years of operation, and invites ground-level NGOs to partner.
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From Funding the Commons Open Conversations, hosted by Funding the Commons.
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when people hear crypto they often think it's about speculation or it's about you know trying to make money or kind of doing something nefarious maybe and there is a lot of that happening in the space obviously but I think Stellar as a blockchain is really different because we're very focused on financial inclusion and all of the work we do more broadly I'm Anna Woodson Diaz I work for the Stellar development foundation having spent the bulk of my career in the UN system so I was at undp uh for a little over a decade which is the largest un development agencies and there I was working on what's called kind of the effectiveness of development cooperation so this is kind of in the blockchain space and the digital payment space so what donors really want whether it's in traditional financing mechanisms or in the blockchain space is they want
to be able to make payments cross borders that are cheaper that are faster and that are more transparent and so with blockchain that it's it's ready made for that Stellar had an ongoing partnership with unhcr the UN Refugee Agency for several years years and we have developed open source technology and consultation with them to deliver humanitarian Aid directly to those in need so this has been operational uh for almost two years with unhcr they've done over $5 million in Ukraine to more than 2 200 households delivering direct cash assistance to Refugee populations in Ukraine you know the need is growing really so we're looking for more Partners who want to come in and help us make this technology more useful for the
beneficiary populations we're trying to serve we want to work with all types of organizations especially those that are close to the ground National Regional subnational ngos and others um to ensure that we can make digital payment technology as big as it can be so that we can you know get more money into the hands of people that need it as quickly and efficiently as possible [Music]