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You’ve likely heard the buzz around artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning, but how exactly are these technologies shaping the future of disaster preparedness and response?
In this episode of I Think You’re On Mute with the Food and Agricultural Organization, your host Beth Eggleston explores the innovative technology being tested and employed to enable efficient and effective anticipatory action with guests Sandra Uwantege Hart and Vlad Cozma.
Podcast host and guests
Beth Eggleston
Beth is the Director of the Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and co-founded the organisation in 2012. She has worked in the humanitarian sector specialising in civil-military coordination and humanitarian reform for the last two decades and has field experience in Afghanistan, Liberia, Tonga, Costa Rica, Laos PDR, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
Sandra Uwantege Hart
Sandra specialises in community inclusion and adoption of blockchain and DeFi applications in emerging markets. With 15 years of global experience implementing and managing humanitarian programs, Sandra now builds bridges between the humanitarian and technology sectors – conceptualising, designing and managing community-inclusive blockchain payment solutions for humanitarian crises across the globe.
She is Rwandan-American with degrees from Princeton University (BA) and The Graduate Institute in Geneva (MA), was a co-founder of Umoja Labs, and creator of Oxfam’s Unblocked Cash Project.
Vlad Cozma
Vlad is the CashCap Regional Expert for Asia & Pacific at NORCAP – a part of the Norwegian Refugee Council. He is a cash specialist with a background in disaster risk management and experience in preparedness and response since 2014, starting with the Western Africa Ebola epidemic. Since 2016 Vlad has been working on humanitarian cash assistance, with experience in design, management, and coordination of large-scale cash transfer programmes in Greece, Indonesia, and Turkiye.
As of 2021 Vlad has an inter-agency technical advisory role with NORCAP/CashCap covering Asia and the Pacific.
Podcast research and links
- Anticipatory action and cash transfers for slow-onset hazards: Practitioners’ note for field testing
Podcast transcript
Beth Eggleston: Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge the traditional custodians and their ancestors of the unceded lands and waters on which we live, work and depend. We recognise all First Nations peoples around the world and celebrate their enduring connections to country, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging.
You’ve likely heard the buzz around artificial intelligence or AI and machine learning, but how exactly are these technologies shaping the future of disaster preparedness and response? AI and machine learning are now used to build advanced predictive models that forecast hazards like heatwaves, floods and droughts. By analysing vast data sets in real time from satellite imagery and ground sensors to social media feeds, these systems can issue immediate alerts. These technologies are also increasingly incorporating local knowledge and feedback to tailor early warning messages and interventions to specific community needs, advancing localisation a topic we covered in season two. Then there’s the financial piece. Significant progress has been made in developing and implementing forecast based financing mechanisms. These systems provide pre-emptive funding based on weather forecasts and risk assessments, enabling timely humanitarian interventions before a crisis fully unfolds. With the use of remote sensing technology and drones, the insurance sector is also innovating with prearranged triggers that automatically release funds when specific thresholds are met, increasing the speed and efficiency of anticipatory action. Drones are deployed before and after disasters to assess conditions, support early warning systems, and facilitate rapid, targeted responses. They monitor everything from crop conditions and soil moisture to weather patterns, triggering early actions like distributing drought resistant seeds or installing irrigation systems. By harnessing advanced technology like blockchain, humanitarian organisations are finding ways to increase anticipatory action capabilities to reduce the impact of disasters, and ultimately improve outcomes for vulnerable communities.
A key area here is anticipatory cash, which we explored in our practice paper in the context of the floods in Pakistan, together with Glow Consultants. In this episode, we’re exploring the innovative technology being tested and employed to enable efficient and effective anticipatory action. This is I Think You’re On Mute and I’m your host, Beth Eggleston.
So I’m so pleased now that we’re joined by Vlad Cozma, CashCap Regional Expert for Asia and the Pacific at NORCAP. Welcome to the podcast, Vlad, we’re thrilled to have you here.
Vlad Cozma: Hi, Beth, thanks for the invitation, very good to be here.
Beth Eggleston: Thanks, Vlad. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners briefly?
Vlad Cozma: Okay, so I’m part of NORCAP, which is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, NORCAP is the provider of expertise for the Norwegian Refugee Council. Now, my role in Asia and the Pacific is a bit of a dual role, I support other NORCAP CashCap experts because I’m part of the CashCap roster within NORCAP, and I also support the Asia Pacific Regional Cash Working Group and national level cash working groups. That’s in a nutshell what I do and a lot of the work of the regional cash working group and national level cash working groups revolves around anticipatory action protocols and setting transfer values for anticipatory action, the cash component, etc. That’s in a nutshell.
Beth Eggleston: That’s great because I’ve been particularly excited to talk with you about your experience in anticipatory action and cash transfers. I’d love to know from you, what are some of the biggest issues or challenges that you’ve noticed with cash and anticipatory action to date?
Vlad Cozma: Okay, I love talking about this topic because it’s coming up in meetings at regional and national level often. So, if I were to put it in broad patterns in terms of challenges, I would say the one of the most pressing ones is the fact that anticipatory action, which includes the cash component of anticipatory action protocols, is being designed in isolation, so each agency, organisations, they’re developing their own anticipatory action protocols. I’m not referring to how well they’re doing it or the risk analysis that they’re using. It’s just that it seems in several of these countries where we provide technical support that each agency organisation is sort of doing this on their own terms, according to their own theories of change and the and coordinated AA protocols are not the norms, with a few exceptions, across Asia, Asia and the Pacific. That’s one side on the international side and then on the government, side on the national ownership. I guess one of the key challenges overall, is this aspect around government acceptance and governments’ interpretation of the no regrets approach, which underpins anticipatory action. So you know to put it simply, is sometimes national governments or local authorities just don’t feel comfortable with the idea of releasing, particularly cash transfers, to people at risk ahead of a disaster. Their mentality, particularly the focal points from the disaster management agencies, their mentality is post disaster response. Of course they have preparedness, but that link between preparedness and the anticipation link, it’s not there yet. Although it is, I’m generalising, but it is broadly increasing in terms of their capacity and acceptance of this, but large scale financial flows from the governments to people at risk, five days, it just seems, particularly around cash transfers, it seems a challenge in many of these contexts.
Beth Eggleston: Yeah absolutely, and it’s interesting to see how the evolution of the approach in anticipatory action is shifting, but it’s interesting to get your reflections on where things are at the moment. So if we were then to look forward, what kind of emerging trends or challenges do you see for anticipatory action and cash transfers, you know looking into the future, and how could we address maybe some of those potential concerns, you know, just to get ahead of those?
Vlad Cozma: Well, I can think of two points, which we’ve looked at with between the Regional Cash Working Group and the Regional Anticipatory Action Technical Working Group, we’ve done two papers together on rapid and slow onsets, and I guess the key element in both of those papers is to try to design interventions, coordinated interventions with cash and in-kind, because usually it seems that the best approach is some form of a combination of cash and in-kind, but this design has to be based on, it has to start from people’s perception. So that requires two main components that have to happen before an anticipatory action protocol is activated. One is pre-crisis information. So subnational level risk analysis very detailed; these is few of them available in in Asia and the Pacific. My in the Pacific, so I’m familiar with this region. And the other one are pre-crisis consultations with communities at risk, just to understand their perceptions, what did they do in terms of x, y, z hazard event? What type of support do they need? Particularly around early warning, if they have access to early warning information. If they trust the early warning information. If the early warning messages that are applicable that are coming to their communities, do they understand it, are they likely to act upon it? And what type of support do they need? And then once this information is available with stakeholders that are at the design stage, then then it’s kind of downhill from there. But because it is, and it’s more of a slogan, it’s this design that is people-centred, based on. So it’s just about shifting a little bit the perspective instead of agency mandate or, you know donor preferences or whatnot, but just to focus on the perspective of people at risk.
Beth Eggleston: And Vlad, in your practitioners notes that you co-authored, it highlights the need to integrate anticipatory cash transfers with social protection schemes. What are some of the ways in which we can do this?
Vlad Cozma: That’s a topic for a different, for an entire season, I would say. But I, I guess in terms of linking with anticipatory action with social protection, the big question there is where is the institutional home, so to say, for anticipatory action? Does it sit within some sort of inter-ministerial space, and I’m referring to the national government. Does it sit within some inter-ministerial space between disaster risk management authorities and social protection, ministries or ministries of social protection? And how do they coordinate in terms of targeting and releasing of funds ahead of a predicted hazard event? And how can other agencies complement that, those government interventions? I guess it boils down to targeting and the use of social registries, existing social registries that are ongoing certain social safety nets, but at the same time, also a sort of complementary approach to make sure that people that are not part of the so those social registries, the database, do have a chance to self-register themselves or to be able to be registered for x, y, z anticipatory action protocols. I guess the bottom line is that these questions have to be answered at the contingency planning stage, that implies collaboration between various actors and their national counterparts.
Beth Eggleston: Yeah and I love that you raised the piece around where is the natural home of anticipatory action. This is a conversation I know we’ve had a lot as well, and actually others have asked us, you know, is anticipatory action really part of humanitarian response? Where does it sit? So it’s really interesting to hear that from you, and especially with your reflections about where does it sit within national governments. So that’s been absolutely, really insightful Vlaf. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and for sharing these views, it certainly helps us to understand what some of these linkages are and where anticipatory action, in particular with that cash piece, where that’s headed into the future. Thanks so much.
Vlad Cozma: Thank you, Beth, and thanks for having me.
Beth Eggleston: From AI drones and anticipatory cash transfers to blockchain. Blockchain technology is increasingly being used and anticipatory action to boost transparency, security and efficiency in humanitarian aid.
[Soundbite] At WFP we are using blockchain to trace food produced from farms to an end point, such as markets or retail shops. Accelerate financial inclusion for food insecure communities by providing access to digital accounts and financial services to the unbanked. Coordinate assistance packages such as food protection, shelter, skills development, etc. from various humanitarian organisations.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the FAO, utilises blockchain to improve cash-based assistance by ensuring transparent, traceable transfers and automating payments through smart contracts. It also creates secure digital identities for recipients to increase efficiency and reduce risk of error. I’m so pleased now to introduce our next guest, Sandra Hart, a consultant and advisor for FAO regarding blockchain and Web3 solutions in humanitarian and development anticipatory action programmes. Hello, Sandra, welcome to the podcast.
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Hi. Hey, Beth. I’m happy to be here. It’s rare that I get to talk about this subject, so yeah I’m excited.
Beth Eggleston: Thanks so much for joining us, Sandra, could you tell us a little bit about yourself before we kick off?
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Yeah of course. I work independently as a consultant currently, including with FAO, but with a number of other humanitarian clients, so UN agencies, INGOs, the usual suspects. And I also work quite a bit with the blockchain industry, so blockchain foundations principally, but also local start-ups, local fintechs that develop solutions that are useful for humanitarian aid. And the rest of my background was in humanitarian aid delivering cash assistance, so it’s quite complimentary.
Beth Eggleston: Fantastic, great. Well, your background is why we’re so pleased to have you on the podcast today, Sandra. The first question I would love to ask you is I’m really interested to hear about how the use of blockchain technology can improve the delivery of FAO’s anticipatory action programmes.
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Yeah, I think it’s important to explain what the process has been so far. You know, so this idea began probably two years ago now with FAO. And for me, knowing about how this technology can be used and seeing sort of applications in parametric insurance, for example, started triggering my thinking, and my discussions with FAO around how this technology is useful for anticipatory action. But we had to start by building a case, you know, so we’ve written two different articles; one is in FAO publication; one is actually an academic journal article that’s out in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, which spells out this is why and this is how exactly blockchain can be used in these types of programmes. And so the practical answer to your question is that blockchain applications, right, which are just computer programmes, have specific features that align with some of the pain points in anticipatory action so far. So one being used to process very, very fast, like within minutes and very, very cheap financial transactions as you see with the advent of cryptocurrency. The second one is being a very, very smart, globally distributed, publicly available database, and that’s what gives you sort of transparency, but also the compatibility with the data analytics piece of anticipatory action. You have smart contracts which allow you to programme the way money can move through a system based on a data set or specific instructions, as in anticipatory actions triggers. And the last part are oracles, and these are like little programmes on the blockchain that suck in live information from the internet that is not on the blockchain, like climate and weather and demographic data. So those are all of the pieces that make this technology very useful for anticipatory action.
Beth Eggleston: You describe that so well Sandra, thank you. Now what I’d like to understand a bit more about is, what are some of the main challenges that you’ve seen in implementing blockchain for cash transfers, and how could some of those challenges be addressed?
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Oh man. Okay. Well, I think I’ve gotten past a dozen blockchain pilots in different countries in the world for the humanitarian sector in different organisations. I’m not sure who can top that, but it’s given me quite, you know, the runway to be able to understand what the challenges are. And I think those challenges are sort of like in three categories, right?
One is sectoral right. The humanitarian sector has always struggled with innovation. You know, there are certain motivations that sometimes are like responding very quickly in the midst of a crisis that can interrupt or be counterproductive when it comes to adopting innovative tools that need work, you know, in order to be adapted to the needs of humanitarian actors. And what that means is that actors across the sector, you know, are quite sceptical. You know, there is very little investment, not just blockchain., all investment in innovation in the humanitarian sector is very limited. So resource wise, a lot of organisations don’t have the money, you know, or the and therefore the luxury to be able to test, you know. And then of course there’s this question of risk appetite, you know, which cuts both ways, right. On the one hand, you’re dealing with the most vulnerable people in the world, you know, and nobody wants anybody to be a guinea pig. But at the same time, you’re trying to respond to the needs of those vulnerable people as quickly and as holistically as possible, and that requires you to have all possible tools at your disposition to do so, including tools that are coming from the emerging tech space. You know, so I think in the sector, a lot of work needs to be done to help actors understand sort of like the why and the how and the when and the where is this technology useful for me? And so far, we’re still in the early stages of building an evidence base for that, although I think there is a general, you know, agreement that it can be faster, cheaper and more transparent. But we need to make a better case than that. So you’ve got that. You’ve got bureaucracies that have trouble adapting their systems to new technology. Although we’ve all done this before, you know, on the transition to email, you know, for example, or even going online during Covid, right? It’s not unprecedented. And then the third area of challenge really is the people side. Is that we have a massive digital divide, and if we’re going to use digital solutions to solve our problems, then that means integrating things like digital literacy, provision of devices to these vulnerable people and teaching them how to use them so that both they and humanitarian actors can achieve their objectives better, faster, cheaper, more easily or more directly, you know, using this type of technology.
Beth Eggleston: I really resonate what you said about the innovation piece. I think as a sector, we like to think we’re very innovative, but perhaps not always, all the time, everywhere, so I think that’s a really good observation. Now, something that we do talk a lot about in the humanitarian sector as well is really around transparency. So I’m interested to learn from you, Sandra how blockchain technology and this concept of digital currencies can be used to enhance transparency and efficiency of humanitarian cash and voucher programming.
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Yeah, what I think it’s usually on a case by case basis, you know, it’s quite contextually specific. And what I’ll, I’ll also say is in there are other uses, it’s not just transparency and efficiency as the technology evolves. Right, so from a transparency perspective, you know blockchain is like a big integrated database where every transaction is encrypted and in terms of who it belongs to but it’s timestamped and it’s recorded on a public blockchain. So it’s very easy, you know, to make it clear, you know, how many payments are going to how many people, you know, through what organisation at a given time. So it can actually automate and facilitate the reporting associated with humanitarian funding flows, whether that is in their blockchain solutions across the spectrum, from the donor to different grant organisations, grantees, from those organisations within their own institutional structure. So HQ to regional to country to local partner to beneficiaries, to people in need. So you can actually get transparency all the way down that chain by using blockchain based tools to make financial transactions, which then involves the use of digital currency.
And so this is why they call digital currency programable money, is because you can programme it to facilitate transactions in specific ways, but every single time you have instant data on when those transactions are taking place and you have the capacity to attach information to each transaction, such as who received it, which organisation distributed it, what it was spent on. You know, so it’s really giving us by giving us a faster way to transact, you know, those transactions are tied to information that benefits from the transparency of the blockchain. So that’s the transparency bid. But we’re finding now as the technology evolves, it’s becoming much more functional. And so now we’re seeing at the programme level use cases that other conventional solutions can’t solve, such as highly sanctioned or conflicting environments where it’s actually unsafe to access money for organisations. You know, so it becomes sort of like a humanitarian safeguarding, you know, of aid issue, the protection, the safe corridor, you know, is very useful using this type of technology because it allows you to work outside the banking system. Migration. You know, we see a lot of people in the migrant communities that are in the Americas and in Asia that are adopting cryptocurrency. Why? Because if you need to liquidate all of your assets and move across multiple borders to go where you’re going to go, that is one of the only ways to carry the value of those assets with you. And if you can do that, then potentially you can receive humanitarian aid continuously along a migratory corridor, you know, such as we see going from South America all the way up through Central America into the US, you know, and that gives organisations a much more fluid way to reach people that are constantly on the move. And then, of course, you have cases where the whole infrastructure has collapsed. So Haiti is one of these, or where the infrastructure is insufficient or doesn’t reach far enough to pay people at the last mile. And that was the case for Oxfam in Vanuatu and the unblocked cash project. And the last one and I will stop is hyperinflationary contexts. Delivering cash is extremely problematic when the value of the currency you’re delivering in is going down and using digital dollars, i.e. digital currency, to deliver it to individuals using a local cash out network or redemption network is a way to stabilise that value. So those are all the other cases, sort of at the programme level where this technology can benefit.
Beth Eggleston: Wow Sandra, I can feel like we’re just starting to look at the top of the iceberg here. There is obviously so much that’s going on, and it’s so inspiring to hear just how this technology is already being used, how it’s been, as you mentioned, piloted in so many different contexts and how much potential there is, going forward. Thank you so much for joining us all the way from Kigali, it was absolutely fascinating to hear more about your experience. And yeah, you just explain highly technical areas in such an easily accessible way, so thank you so much for joining the podcast with us today.
Sandra Uwantege Hart: Thanks, happy to share.
Beth Eggleston: From AI and drones to cash transfers and blockchain, these technologies are already shaping disaster preparedness and response. As technologies continue to evolve, they offer incredible potential for humanitarian organisations to increase anticipatory action and better support vulnerable communities before, during, and after disasters.
In the next episode, you’ll hear why anticipatory action has gained fast traction with donors and how it relates to non-economic loss and damage. I’m Beth Eggleston, and this is I Think You’re On Mute.
This podcast, I Think You’re On Mute, is supported by the Australian government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The views expressed through this podcast are the presenters alone and are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government.
A special thanks to FAO colleagues for connecting us with such wonderful guests and sharing the work that they’re doing in the region.
This podcast was produced and recorded by Room3, a production company that works with not-for-profits and social enterprises, and supported by Green Letter Communications.
