“We appreciate what you’re doing for us… but could you please work together?” - a question from a Bangladeshi girl, UNFPA field visit, 2020
In Bangladesh, and in many contexts, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) distributes dignity kits to women and girls at one place and time…while other United Nations (UN) agencies distribute different types of aid to the same people separately, at another place and time. Not only does this girl, and many others, have to travel long distances multiple times – time that could be spent on school or at home – but it also raises gender-based violence risks, and unexpected travel expense– and is simply inefficient programming. To respond to this Bangladeshi girls’ simple yet powerful question, since 2021, with financial support from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Global Programme to End Child Marriage (GPECM), UNFPA’s Emergency Fund (EF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNFPA have been using WFP’s Building Blocks blockchain platform to deliver sanitary pads and nutritious food to beneficiaries in Dhaka’s urban slums – together.
