Blockchain Could Unlock Vital Funding to Tackle Climate Change
Billions of dollars in promised funding is failing to reach the world’s poorest countries — but technologists have a fix in mind
In Malawi, dust hangs low over the towns, mingled with smoke from cooking fires. Above the dry earth, brilliant orange mangoes hang from the trees. In the very early morning, groups of women can be seen carrying buckets and jerry cans as they scour the commercial capital, Blantyre, for water. It lies at an altitude of over 3,000 feet, and in periods of water shortage, some districts can go without water for days.
These “bucket brigades” can start as early as 2 a.m., knocking on the doors of wealthier homes and asking to fill their buckets. Then, they walk for hours carrying the water back home. “I’ve seen people go without food, and that is very difficult,” said Jasmine Leitao, who worked in the humanitarian sector in Malawi for 15 years. “But water just seems like a fundamental human right, and it’s such an extreme form of suffering to have to walk so far to find it. It’s the poorest who are hardest hit.”
Water scarcity is just one of a slew of problems caused by climate change, which is already impacting many of the world’s poorest people. Scientists on the United Nations’…
