Exploring blockchain to connect displaced communities in Ecuador
Blockchain is known as a tool that facilitates secure online financial transactions — but this technology has other potential applications for socioeconomic inclusion.
By Angela Mendez, Assistant Innovation Officer
For displaced people — like most other people around the world — internet connectivity is an increasingly essential way of finding information, accessing services, making money, enjoying leisure time, and interacting with loved ones. But refugees and other forcibly displaced people face heightened barriers to accessing connectivity — and particular risks when they do get online.
How can we reduce these barriers and create more affordable ways for refugees to get connected? According to some, one possible solution is blockchain.
Blockchain for humanitarianism: opportunities and risks
While blockchain is a complex technology, Amazon describes it, in simple terms, as “an advanced database mechanism that allows transparent information sharing within a business network. A blockchain database stores data in blocks that are linked together in a chain.” Blockchain is widely known in the digital world as a tool that allows online transactions to be made in a secure, traceable, and verifiable manner. As a result, the humanitarian sector has recently started exploring the use of this technology in delivering programming.
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, among others, is now experimenting with blockchain to innovate in its protection response. In Ukraine, for example, UNHCR has piloted the blockchain-based delivery of cash assistance to families displaced or affected by the war there and is learning more about the potential impact of such interventions.
The World Food Program (WFP) is also using blockchain for various purposes, such as providing cash transfer assistance and promoting financial inclusion for communities facing food insecurity. Additionally, in partnership with UNICEF and the United Nations Innovation Network (UNIN), WFP created an online platform to stimulate learning, collaboration, and innovation around blockchain applications across the UN. Other civil society and humanitarian organizations are using blockchain-supported cryptocurrencies to mobilize resources.
Blockchain advocates often articulate its security features — data-block structure and cryptography — as a key benefit. Yet, critics have noted several important issues with the way the technology has been deployed in humanitarian contexts.
Digital anthropologist Dr Margie Cheesman, for instance, has written about the privacy and transparency challenges of blockchain payment systems. Crucially, Dr Cheesman evidences the contrast between the claims of blockchain advocates (privacy, empowerment, efficiency, transparent transactions) and the in-practice experiences of community members (biometric scans, transaction surveillance without access to accounting tools or information, new and untrusted private sector intermediaries).
Moreover, the digital divide continues to be a key challenge in terms of digital solutions: as long as equitable access to connectivity and technologies remains elusive, it will be hard to ensure these kinds of solutions serve those most in need.
These potential risks and pitfalls of blockchain must be considered and addressed in the planning and implementation of humanitarian interventions that seek to leverage the technology to protect and empower communities.
Piloting blockchain for connectivity in Ecuador
With the support of the Digital Innovation Fund, UNHCR is implementing a project in the northern Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil that uses blockchain to address connectivity challenges. It is exploring whether the security features of this technology can support greater and more secure internet access (by, for instance, guaranteeing online privacy or circumventing risks associated with data leaks or device hacking), bringing benefits to forcibly displaced people and their hosts.
The suburb of Juan Montalvo in Guayaquil is home to a significant population of refugees and migrants from Venezuela and Colombia. As a barrio acogiente — a neighborhood with high barriers to accessing services and opportunities — Juan Montalvo is an area prioritized by UNHCR for socioeconomic inclusion initiatives. Through participatory assessments, the community identified chronic lack of connectivity as one of the main protection risks they currently face in accessing basic services.
So, UNHCR worked with civil society organizations to design a community-based protection strategy that would use blockchain to provide connectivity services free of charge and strengthen other areas of work dedicated to supporting the digital skills and literacy of those in the neighborhood.
How does this network function?
UNHCR partnered with Wayru, an organization that operates internet services in a decentralized and tokenized way, to establish the necessary infrastructure for this network. Wayru’s approach is to deliver low-cost internet access using blockchain and disruptive connectivity technologies in high-volume, low-margin emerging markets.
The infrastructure is provided at low cost, because it is financed by the users’ use of the network. By watching advertisements, each user earns megabytes that allow them to be connected. For instance, viewing 10 ads, for approximately two minutes, enables that user to access WiFi for a week. Protection guidelines have been established to regulate the type of ads users will see, ensuring that the ad content neither creates nor exacerbates digital risks.
Each user who connects to the WiFi network must do so through a captive portal or mobile application, creating a username and a password. In accordance with Wayru’s data protection policy, the network collects no personally identifiable information — it only collects information related to the number of devices connected to the network and the bandwidth used.
How well is it working?
This model is currently allowing thousands of people in the community of Juan Montalvo to access free, high-speed connectivity through WiFi routers that each cover an area with a radius of 100 meters. Twenty routers have been installed in different areas of the community, including three schools. With the implementing partner’s support, 21 additional hotspots have been installed to ensure that community members who oversee the equipment and the community’s schools have access to WiFi.
This project has been designed and implemented under the leadership of the local community, who have played an essential role in the development of the network, the identification of key locations at which to install the equipment, and the selection of individuals to manage its functioning and safety. Seventeen community-based network wardens are ensuring the safety of the routers, as well as providing advice on the appropriate use of the internet.
“I have had a lot of difficulties because of the lack of internet”, said Desiree, a refugee leader who promotes free internet access in Juan Montalvo. “But, fortunately, now the children in the neighborhood can study and do their homework. I can also promote my business through the web and the community can communicate with each other easier and faster”.
How does this link to UNHCR’s mission locally and globally?
This community-led connectivity project is part of UNHCR’s protection strategy in Ecuador to enhance digital inclusion by strengthening digital skills and literacy. In this effort, UNHCR has also partnered with Girls in Tech, a global non-profit organization focused on the engagement, education, and empowerment of women in technology, to provide training to community members of Juan Montalvo neighborhood on the safe use of the internet and digital technologies.
Taking a rights-based approach to connectivity and working to mitigate digital risks facing forcibly displaced communities are an essential part of UNHCR’s protection response, and a key pillar of the organization’s new Digital Transformation Strategy. We’re committed to supporting this kind of initiative to ensure that displaced and stateless people, as well as their host communities, can be part of a connected society and enjoy its social and economic benefits.
Which aspects need further exploration?
Even though the blockchain model allows communities in vulnerable conditions to be connected in a relatively safe and inexpensive way, certain aspects of this approach need further monitoring and analysis. These aspects relate to sustainability, data protection, digital skills and literacy, and optimized access to life-saving or protection-related information.
Although the financing of the network is low cost or free through the tokens that users earn by viewing ads, the sustainability at the community level is not yet 100 per cent assured. This is because additional investment is required to both deploy and maintain the network and its infrastructure. In terms of data protection and digital security, further analysis is recommended to be undertaken with the community to more deeply understand and mitigate associated digital risks. Moreover, it would be good to amplify efforts around enhancing digital skills and literacy, to maximize the positive effects that these digital technologies offer to communities.
Finally, UNHCR and its partners could explore the use of online advertisement to diversify its communication channels, providing life-saving information about access to humanitarian assistance, regularization processes, prevention of gender-based violence, child protection, durable solutions to enhance their inclusion and integration into host communities, and more.
Key takeaways
This pilot project is an exciting exploration of safe, affordable ways to ensure displaced communities can enjoy the benefits of our increasingly connected world. Blockchain might present a viable and flexible technology that can add value to connectivity solutions in communities where regular approaches are not available or reliable.
More work is needed, hand in hand with communities, to ensure this kind of approach is implemented in ways that maximize the benefits of digital tools and spaces.
Read more about the Juan Montalvo community’s experience of the network. You can also explore our transformative Connectivity for Refugees agenda and find out more about UNHCR’s Digital Innovation Programme.
If you’re interested in this project and would like to know more, please get in touch at hqconref@unhcr.org.
