Key Takeaways:
The United Nations Development Programme has moved its blockchain-based payment initiative beyond the pilot stage, expanding a partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation through 2027 after trials in five countries cut distribution costs and improved payment resilience in fragile regions.
"The next phase aims to turn a set of successful pilots into a durable part of how development and humanitarian finance is delivered," Candace Kelly, chief legal and policy officer at the Stellar Development Foundation, said in a statement Monday at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference 2026.
The initiative, coordinated through UNDP's Alternative Finance Lab in Istanbul, evaluated blockchain-based payment systems across 17 countries over roughly 16 months. Live pilots were completed in Haiti, Syria, Kenya, Guatemala and the Gambia, with working prototypes also developed for Colombia and Papua New Guinea.
In Aleppo, Syria, blockchain-based cash transfers for a Cash for Work program reduced payment distribution costs to about 2 percent from approximately 10 percent under conventional methods, with all participants receiving and redeeming their payments, UNDP said. A pilot in Haiti continued processing payments with a 100 percent success rate even after cellular connectivity failed during testing. The blockchain also created an on-chain record showing where program funds were distributed.
The expanded partnership marks a shift from treating blockchain payments as standalone experiments to integrating them as a standard operational tool for UNDP country offices worldwide. Under the agreement, UNDP plans to establish governance and onboarding frameworks for blockchain payments, integrate existing solutions into country programs, and expand use across humanitarian assistance, financial inclusion and social protection initiatives.
Robert Pasicko of UNDP's Alternative Finance Lab said the organization is focused on making blockchain-based digital payments a standard capability for country offices, building on the pilot results rather than treating each deployment as an experiment.
The move reflects a broader push to modernize cross-border payments in emerging markets, where limited access to traditional banking and high remittance costs have made stablecoins an increasingly attractive alternative. Former UN under-secretary-general Vera Songwe said at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in January that stablecoins are becoming "more important than aid" in some developing economies because they provide access to digital financial services where traditional banking remains out of reach. About 650 million people lack access to a bank account in Africa, she said.
Ripple has also expanded into the region, acquiring an equity stake in African fintech Flutterwave as part of a broader effort to deploy its RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger across Africa, where remittances remain a major source of household income. Latin America is emerging as another key market for stablecoin-powered remittances, with issuers targeting payment corridors in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela.
By the end of the partnership in 2027, UNDP and SDF aim to deliver a governance framework, implementation playbook and operational guidance to help blockchain-based payments become a standard capability across UNDP programs worldwide.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
