AI Summary:
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Renaming and Restructuring: The Trump administration plans to rename the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as the US International Humanitarian Assistance (IHA) and place it under the Secretary of State.
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Use of Blockchain: A memo suggests leveraging blockchain technology in USAID’s procurement process, aiming to enhance security, transparency, and traceability in aid distribution.
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Criticisms of Blockchain Use:
- Experts argue blockchain often doesn’t offer significant advantages over existing tools for humanitarian work.
- Concerns exist about added burdens and costs for small NGOs using new systems.
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Examples of Blockchain in Humanitarian Efforts:
- Past projects, such as UNHCR’s pilot for cash assistance in stablecoins, showed some success.
- Critics note limited large-scale use in the sector and question its necessity.
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Budget and Operational Changes: The proposal emphasizes tying funding to outcomes and results, prompting debates about its feasibility and fairness in dynamic environments like disaster zones.
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Broader Context: The plan follows prior workforce cuts and criticisms of inefficiency within USAID, drawing mixed reactions from staff and experts.
“It feels like a fake technological solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” she says.
Yep, that’s pretty much every proposed blockchain use case.
Some of them are technological solutions to real problems like grifters not having as much money as they want or crooks finding money laundering too difficult.
A solution in search of a problem.
This has been a proposed use case for public blockchain technology for a long time. If government agencies have to use crypto currencies that run on public blockchains, that means anyone with a computer and internet connection can audit that agency to see exactly what they are spending their money on. You can even program the money so that it’s impossible to spend it on things that aren’t approved for that agency. Essentially it’s extreme transparency with the aim of preventing fraud.
And yes I know implementation will be hard. And yes I know the people at the helm right now have no genuine interest in government accountability or fraud prevention. But I’ve been following the development of blockchain technology for over a decade and this is literally one of the first use cases that was proposed when bitcoin was invented.
The cornballer was originally intended to make cornballs, and it can. It will also burn the God damn shit out of you and anyone within a meter, and you better have a fire extinguisher around when it’s time to clean up.
What I’m trying to say is, this is not going to work well or be efficient, and this “transition,” is not going well or being efficient. Musk claims he saved some hundred billion, yet he has racked up a cost probably around half a trillion. He has fired and rehired 10s of thousands of employees in critical roles in critical agencies (well, he’s trying to rehire them, rick!). His “accounting” has been shown to be off over and over again.
Elon Musk has proven to the entire world he is nothing but a fuck up with too much money, and everything he touches turns to shit.
anyone with a computer and internet connection can audit that agency to see exactly what they are spending their money on
What if critical suppliers aren’t accepting their crypto coin, or can they force everyone to accept it?
If you want humanitarian aid or be a government supplier, you’ll probably accept it. But I imagine it’d need to be something like USDC
I don’t expect to see the government paying aid recipients or suppliers with ethereum or something similar directly.
You can still get all the blockchain tracking and smart contract stuff with USDC.
What’s the grift this time? Backed by DOGE and Melania coins?
Insider trading. They’ll use coins that they and their billionaire buddies are already heavily invested in.
added burdens and costs for small NGOs using new systems
I’m banking on business solutions to nonexistent problems
I mean blockchain does not necessarily mean coins but im gonna go with trump coins.
They probably think that tracing it will be easier than cash, but obviously there’s a few issues with that:
- we don’t use stablecoins in our day to day lives in western cities with ubiquitous internet and reliable power, it’s probably easier to work it out here first before exporting it to areas that don’t have those things
- a big part of USAID’s raison d’être actually is corruption. It supports opposition news outlets in adversary countries, and projects like free trade/enterprise zones in poorer countries. The actual ‘good’ aid it provides is more of a cover for those projects. If you make all transactions traceable on a blockchain, those countries will know exactly what’s being funded and they’ll have an easy time shutting it down, or have a harder time staying in power if people knew what concessions they’re trading their aid for. I still don’t really know if Trump/Musk just don’t know this and think USAID is doing what it does purely out of altruism, or if they just don’t believe in the concept of soft power.
Why doesn’t DOGE just rob a bank?
They skipped the bank and directly went for the US treasure department and tax money
It probably will be something like that, but a blockchain ledger doesn’t need a coin.
This is one of the few things that might (if done correctly, ie. no coin) actually be a reasonable idea, a record of aid delivered that is immutable protects it from both ‘misplaced’ funds and malicious governments trying to erase previous governments achievements (like the current US gov is doing)
Fuck AI summaries, stop wasting energy on that garbage
JFC on a stick. Here’s a few reasons why this is assenine.
10 years ago implementers tried to stick blockchain into everything. It flopped over and over again. It’s simply not practical for 99% of what humanitarian assistance does.
USAID programs and budget and spending was all FOIAable and heavily audited public record. Do you want to see the invoices submitted for all programs in Malawi from 2018? You used to be able to get that. Annual reports showed detailed budgets. Presentations to Congress presented detailed budget documents. Top to bottom this was already more detailed than a blockchain can realistically provide. They broke a system because they couldn’t understand the difference between dense and detailed but visible, and impractical EILI5 level simplicity.
So you put the transactions on a chain. Great. How does that turn into a salary payment for Malawian staff who only have Malawian bank accounts? It doesn’t. So now you have 2 systems. Meaning twice as much opportunity for error and chance for fraud to go unrecognized.
Most developing world fraud is things that look like perfectly reasonable procurements where the terms of the tender are overly specific as to limit who can win a bid (see Oklahoma school bible solicicitation). Blockchains don’t correct for that. That’s all public information in most places, which is why the fraud has to be so clever.
There will be an app that all the NGOs will have to buy. You can be sure it won’t be standards-based or in any way interoperable. That’s the grift.
centibillionaire
I’m not entirely sure the author thought that through
Listen properly
