Making the NGO of the Future.

Since 2020, the global need for humanitarian aid has increased by 34 million people, exacerbating already unmet demand for aid to 91 million people worldwide. Continued health, climate, and geopolitical crises, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, worsening war in Ukraine, and increasingly recurrent wildfires across the West is increasing the demand for social protection by at least 16.6% year-over-year. At this rate, nearly 160 million people will require aid, but not be able to access it.?

There are an estimated 40,000 international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), working in an enormous global aid industry worth $161 billion as of 2021. NGOs and charitable organizations face a unique challenge from fraud and corruption. Operating in the world’s most under-developed and fragile environments, with minimal infrastructure and trust-based cultures, the risk is high. And, being wholly reliant on donors and supporters for income, so are the stakes. Particularly given that it’s suspected that a minimum of $8 billion (5% of the entire aid sector) is lost annually due to fraud.??

Traditional Aid Cannot Scale to Meet Global Need

The problem? Traditional aid programming cannot scale to meet the world’s increasing demand for social protection. Cash and voucher programs driven by physical cash, paper vouchers, and even mobile money are not transparent nor secure enough to deploy at scale. This is because traditional aid??

1. is not transparent, as cash transactions are nearly impossible to trace, paper vouchers can take months to settle, and mobile money doesn’t provide aid agencies with data on how and on what funds are spent;?
2. is not secure, as carrying cash can be very dangerous, particularly for women and children, and paper vouchers and mobile money payments are easily susceptible to fraud;?
3. is not cost effective, as cash costs a lot to store and send and mobile money charges upwards of $0.45 USD per transaction, and;?
4. is not economically sustainable, as program beneficiaries aren’t provided with re-usable tools to receive and spend their aid, let alone access other financial services.??

The aforementioned problems in traditional aid pigeonhole programs to be reactive, rather than transforming such programs into those of economic empowerment.?

Making the NGO of the Future

With traditional aid’s systemic issues of poor transparency, security, and affordability, it is becoming abundantly clear that the aid agencies that scale aid distribution and transparency will be the NGO’s of the future.?

Novel payment systems, such as blockchain technology, bring forth new potential toward supporting 100% transparent program monitoring, as well as increased aid security and decreased transaction costs. In fact, companies like Umoja Labs are ushering a new era of informal market-focused fintechs that leverage emerging innovations to distribute aid in last mile payments environments.?

With our mass-payouts dashboard and digital wallets, Umoja enables aid agencies to facilitate 100% transparent aid programs with up to 1,000x lower transaction costs. Every penny distributed, received, and spent can be traced back to each aid recipient, merchant, and program staff member to ensure accountability and enable the facilitating agency to be more proactive. By understanding how aid recipients spend their funds, aid agencies can better prepare communities for future crises by making sure high-demand resources are adequately available for purchase beforehand. Additionally, they can provide real-time impact reporting as their program is taking place, and redeploy aid to former recipients at any time in the case of a disaster.

Since aid agencies typically support individuals who lack access to consistent Internet and smartphones, Umoja provides multiple, accessible wallet interfaces that nearly anyone in the world can use - including NFC Cards, USSD (feature phones), WhatsApp (embedded digital wallet), and Android mobile application. In the case of Umoja’s WhatsApp, USSD, and Android digital wallets, aid recipients can enroll into aid programs and verify themselves remotely, eliminating the need to coordinate 1 to 2 month registration efforts. Lastly, by leveraging a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model, Umoja is capable of reducing aid program costs per beneficiary by 6x to approximately $0.01. It is through these cost, transparency, and efficiency gains that Umoja seeks to transform traditional aid agencies into the NGOs of the future.?

Currently, Umoja is offering 12 months of waived subscription fees to aid agencies looking to digitize their cash & voucher programming using Umoja. Learn more here.