Blockchain’s place within the UN’s sustainable development goals

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) list a variety of economic objectives which are intended to ensure sustained economic growth. The blockchain technology can be used to fix problems faced by people who are the focus of the 17 SDGs, such as No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Reduced Inequality and Gender Equality. Some ways to achieve these are effectively disbursing aid and making remittances easier and cheaper.

Development Aid Effectiveness

Issues faced in developing nations include corruption in disbursing aid, getting information related to recipients of aid, as well as difficulty in disbursing aid to people who are very poor and live in remote areas.

• Blockchain technology, due to its key benefits of verifiability, security, and transparency, can play a role in solving some of the problems in these areas.
• It can curb corruption, and transformation initiatives across the globe by providing accountability through immutable trusted ledgers, as well as smart contracts that automate service transactions without the need for inefficient or costly intermediaries.
• Using blockchain platforms, we can reduce financial friction by removing intermediaries, and tokenizing subsidies and automating payments would make it easier to process and access aid or subsidies.
• The problem of fraud can be eliminated by the automatic collection and verification of all data. In addition, the data could be used for tracking results and measuring subsidy impact — a valuable resource for stakeholder planning.

Remittances

Another area where blockchain can help is remittances. Millions of people depend on remittances for their survival, allowing family members to support their families and loved ones from other countries. They are also significant contributors to the GDP of many economies, as attested by the estimated $444 billion that flowed to developing countries in 2017.

As more and more people in developing nations are jumping on to the digital bandwagon, the number of people using digital wallets and currencies for cross-border payments is also increasing.

How QuickX can help meet the SDGs

A new platform, QuickX, is being developed that offers fast, low-cost transactions across the globe using a secure blockchain. It can help eradicate poverty and improve access to the financially underserved communities by overcoming the limitation of the existing models.

As more people are able to receive aid and a measurable impact on the communities can be seen, transparency and efficiency of aid disbursement will improve. More charities and organizations will appreciate the benefits provided by QuickX and adopt this tool for improving the lives of people across the developing world. Equally important, these tools will empower the local people to get their rights.