Economic Identity, Supply, Demand, Poverty, Refugees, Trust-Networks and …… Yes, you guessed it, the Blockchain!

An hour doesn’t go by these days without someone blogging or posting on LinkedIn or speaking at a big fintech event or addressing the company board of directors about the game-changer-revolution-watershed-moment that is, blockchain. “This changes everything”! Yes, we have heard it everyday, and I agree. You name it, every industry starting with finance / banking, real estate, automotive, healthcare, etc., and blockchain has you covered.

More books are coming out as fast as they can get through the printer. It is like the mid-to-late 90s, if you could spell “Java”, “Website” or “Internet” you were gold. And yes, 20 years later we have seen absolutely amazing innovations, amazing companies and massive amounts of wealth creation. Yet, we still have almost 2.5 billion people in extreme poverty and 65 million refugees today…Today, September 19th, 2016!

About a year ago, we at BanQu coined the phrase “Dignity Through Identity” as a means to enable long-term “Economic Identity” solutions for poverty alleviation and re-integration / safe repatriation of refugees globally. We are thrilled to see that today many large and small corporations, INGOs and governments worldwide are talking about “Economic Identity” as a solution for some of the world’s most urgent problems.

Now comes the hard part, e.g., moving beyond conversation into action. In order to do the work it is critical that we (all of us .com, .org, .gov – everyone) understand and disrupt a fundamental flaw when it comes to poverty and the refugee crisis.

The flaw is so massive that it is hiding in plain sight and overshadows the entire “development / aid / social enterprise / emergency response” world. Candidly, it is no one’s fault, yet everyone’s problem. We have continued to evolve and innovate everyday when it comes to global crises but we have never questioned the core. A core firmly built on a “supply side” DNA vs. a “demand side” DNA. Now, many of you will jump off your seat and completely disagree with me and give me examples of micro-finance, market-access, mpesa mobile money, fair-trade coffee etc. and how it is really “demand” driven.

However, if you look deeper and broader at these initial point solutions, none of these are demand-side. Here are some examples:

1.    When an earthquake or typhoon hits a region, our immediate humanity (and rightly so) kicks in and we are shipping water, food, toothpaste, clothes, etc.

2.    For poor farmers in East Africa we are rushing to enable “access to finance” and “access to seed inputs” and “access to farm equipment”.

3.    In refugee camps we are rushing to provide “cash assistance” and “food coupons”.

Again, please don’t get me wrong. These are all the right things to do in the short-term but they don’t address the long-term problem that is these folks are viewed as beneficiaries, not customers, for rest of their lives. There is something about being a beneficiary that slowly chips away at one’s dignity and one’s identity. This is because our “supply side” core tells us to “give” instead of understanding what is required to support “demand side”.

Frustrated? Confused? Convoluted? Makes no sense?

Don’t worry; I was too. I have been studying this problem since the 2010 Haiti earthquake and I like everyone else in the world at that time decided we had to get every bottle of water and granola bar and every blanket into Haiti ASAP! Sadly, we all know how that story evolved and this story continues today across the globe – more aid dollars flowing into Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, more clinics being built in the toughest parts of the world, more cellphones given and used by the poorest, and more reports on global poverty and refugee crises. Yet, the data coming out of agencies such as the UN point to continued dire straits. Why is that?

Here is a simple (yep, no fancy model needed) explanation:

Things happen to poor people and refugees. Things such as a – a poor woman farmer in Africa gets a high interest micro-loan, she gets a mobile phone to receive text messages on market prices, she gets enrolled in a training program about planting seeds or drip irrigation, she gets a solar home system – all really, really awesome stuff! But, “things are happening” to her from a supply side. The “supply side” being, those of us who live and operate in the developed world giving her our surplus.

Let’s dive deeper into the woman farmer example and let’s us call her Naomi. Naomi, is one of 500 farmers in a remote village in East Africa making $300 a year and significantly below the extreme poverty line. Naomi is part of a village cooperative that works with 4-5 INGOs, on average. For Naomi, her  life is stuck in neutral because she can’t “own and control” the things that happen to her. She is stuck in the “supply” overflow. Nobody is thinking of her as a customer because Naomi is a “beneficiary”! Naomi cannot “collect or triangulate” things that happen to her and then leverage that knowledge to carve her own path out of poverty.

And 9 out of 10 times we assume what Naomi needs. Its like Steve Jobs (RIP) saying customers don’t always know what they want. I bet Naomi would disagree 100%!

Same story when it comes to refugees – Sudanese, Somali, Syrian, Rohyinga – doesn’t matter – we know what the refugees need! That explains why refugees now average 17 years in a refugee camp!!

Isn’t it time we gave the “demand side” a try? After all, isn’t the American dream (or British or French) all about the demand side! So why can’t the Sudanese and Guatemalan dream be demand driven?

Here is real upcoming opportunity – with the FARC rebels peace treaty in Colombia a reality after 50 years of bloodshed – the international community has a real chance to enable a true “customer-centric” approach instead of the traditional “buy one give one” or “let is pour more aid” approach. There are 7 million displaced people in Colombia – much higher than Syria.

Why not?

What if we enabled the demand side? What if the refugees and extremely poor are customers (and not beneficiaries) that are defining their needs, their identity, an Economic Identity that is a collection of who they are, a data set of their life events, their skills and experiences. What if, their trust-networks are “bankable”? What if their cross-border journey doesn’t lose their identity, hope and aspirations?

Very doable by leveraging the blockchain on the “demand side”.

Doable by connecting the woman farmer’s (see above) small plot to her harvest to her solar home system usage – all on the blockchain – in way that gives her 100% control of driving demand and leveraging her trust network, one that has always been there, way before any of us could spell development. Basic land rights on the blockchain can dramatically disrupt poverty.

Doable by enabling a “smart contract” that releases funds (to the drug manufacturer) for a malaria vaccine after the family in Niger gets the vaccine.

Doable by providing refugees access to their education records and skill certifications gained in refugee camps when/if they migrate to a new country or repatriate back home.

Doable by providing micro-climate linked micro-insurance (smart contracts tied to inch-based faming and rainfall measurement) for small plot farmers so their livelihood doesn’t perish due to climate change issues.

Doable by enabling real-time M&E on outcomes, rather than traditional output measures, for INGOs and social enterprises.

For the first time, in a very long time, we have real chance of solving some of the toughest problems in the world. Poverty (in all forms – check out the UN SDGs) can be disrupted if we can take a distributed ledger approach!

Peace out.