The Challenge
The need for subsidies, (financial) aid and relief goods usually requires setting up and maintaining complex distribution and control systems to avoid seepage into unintended channels. Moreover, individual recipients often do not have a reliable way to identify themselves in order to access support.
Subsidies are mostly aimed at serving a particular target population but are not given to it directly but rather to the producer of the good or service. This results in the producer necessarily treating the subsidy provider as their customer, rather than the target population. This is the major cause of the well known problems around subsidies; the competition between producers/service providers is not about best serving the target population but about pleasing the subsidizing agency.
Aid. In frontier and emerging markets, and to a lesser extent industrialised markets as well, the people requiring aid are frequently trapped in an “informal economy” and are largely “unbanked” or “underbanked.” Moreover, many of them lack any form of government identification, and are therefore “unidentified”. Subsequently, financial and other aid, is rarely provided directly, even if it is the most efficient way to rapidly disseminate it.
Relief Goods. The distribution of relief goods is a highly complex operation requiring warehousing, transport logistics, and security. Managing distributors and making sure that the recipients are entitled to these goods is equally complex.
The Solution
Using distributed and accessible technology, we put the recipients of subsidies, aid and relief goods at the center of more effective distribution of these vital goods and services. Giving a subsidy in the form of points, coupons or vouchers (“credits”) directly to the target population, to be redeemed for eligible goods and services, creates competition that is in the best interest of all stakeholders; similarly for direct aid via smart contract that is only redeemable against specific goods and services. Relief goods, finally, can be distributed via the existing distribution systems as used by large and small retailers and be redeemed against credits as distributed via the Jala ID+ system.
Jala ID+ is a simple, flexible and scalable solution that can be geared to many further use cases as required. It leverages existing banking and retail infrastructure, and reduces overhead and friction in the system. Jala ID+ bridges the “last mile” to the target population by providing a biometrically secure identification system in combination with a decentralized ledger to transfer credits or similar accounting units. Secure IDs and safe, easily and automatically auditable transfer systems enable providers of subsidies, aid and relief goods to use existing financial and distribution systems to achieve their goals, and minimize the cost effectively.
Jala ID+ uses face and voice recognition plus palm and/or fingerprints to create a Unique Person Identifier that can be combined with existing authentication systems. Where no such system can be used Jala provides the Community Authentication Process via which members of a community vouch for each other’s name and birthday and other data as required. The Community Authentication is attached to the Unique Person Identifier. The authentication process, whether with existing means or via members of the community, determines the trust level of the “seed ID” that gets continually updated with every use.
Jala partners with retailers to recognize its credits and exchange them for goods and services. Because these credits are digital smart contracts, they can be automatically redeemed either against cash at partnering banks, or potentially as tax credits if issued by governments. Other forms of redemption are similarly easy to implement. Because the Jala system builds on distributed ledger technology, it performs at higher than government standards on issues of privacy, security, auditability and transparency.
Implementation
- A prototype can be developed within 3 to 4 weeks by Jala’s development partners with existing, proven and highly scalable technology.
- Two pilots are awaiting our go ahead, one in the slums of Payatas, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines and the other in parishes of the Catholic Church of the Philippines.
- Several retailers have signaled willingness to cooperate and pilot with us; mobile phones will serve as points of sale.
- Personnel, contractors and volunteers stand by to turn this pilot into a success.
- Organisational infrastructure has to be finalized
- We have formed partnerships with aligned technology, advisory, and service providers Uncompromise, Sphaera, Lab.ph, He Cares Mission, and Vazco & IT Corner
Call to Action
The funding required to finalize the development of the prototype and the first 2 pilots is USD 100,000 equivalent to PHP 5 Million.
Contact me here in this forum
© Jala Holding OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia (registry code: 14884356)