Ethereum Watch

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is working with the Tunisian Ministry of Education and Devery, an open-source protocol for verification services built on the Ethereum blockchain, to track food safety for school lunches that will be distributed to 1,500 primary school students in Tunisia.

The WFP is one of the largest humanitarian organizations dedicated to addressing food security and hunger across the globe. Its “Zero Hunger” initiative, launched in 2015, set forth an ambitious goal of eradicating hunger on Earth by 2030. 

The WFP has previously utilized Ethereum to explore how blockchain technology can be used to streamline payments and deter misappropriation of funds as well as distribute food entitlements to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The organization hopes to build upon those experiences to bolster the Tunisian government’s existing school meals initiative.

Tunisia’s school meals program was instituted at all public primary schools across the country in 2014 and was designed to “provide improved access to education for children from the poorest households.” Four years into the program, Ethereum start-up Devery has been brought on board to use its open-source validation protocol. The goal is to provide transparency that will ensure not only that each student receives a meal but that those meals are fresh.

According to The Sociable, WFP head of office for Tunisia and Morocco Maria Lukyanova said:

“This project is allowing us to explore how supporting innovation, through the introduction of solutions based on blockchain technology, can contribute to strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of the Tunisian national school meals program.”

Although the initial rollout of the program is to 1,500 primary school students, the ultimate goal is to scale to all 400,000 Tunisian school children eligible for food assistance.

Jordan Daniell is a full-time staff writer for ETHNews with a passionate interest in techno-social developments and cultural evolution. Jordan enjoys the outdoors, especially astronomy, and likes to play the bag pipes and explore southern California on foot in his spare time. Jordan lives in Los Angeles and holds value in Ether.

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