From Good Governance to Governance for Good: Blockchain for Social Impact

Agenda 2030 has triggered a phalanx of initiatives to expand the scale and scope of activities and actors addressing global challenges. One increasingly scrutinized area is the use of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) in the fields of development and humanitarian aid. This paper examines three projects that have piloted DLT use cases, including cash-based transfers to Syrian refugees by the World Food Programme; illegal child trafficking in Moldova by the United Nations Office for Project Services; and microlending to social enterprises in Brazil by Moeda. The paper explores the use of blockchain technology with a view to understanding its implications for governance. It argues that the decentralization and disintermediation associated with the blockchain are not a given outcome in the cases explored for this paper. Rather, the DLT projects under examination have centralizing tendencies that empower the state while replacing traditional intermediaries with new ones that have expertise in code and blockchain. The paper identifies limitations associated with DLT solutions and offers policy recommendations to enhance the use of DLTs to accelerate the achievement of the sustainable development goals. (c) 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.