The World Food Programme is exploring an Ethereum-based blockchain solution to track school meals for primary school students in Tunisia.
The United Nations World Food Programme[1] (WFP) is working with the Tunisian Ministry of Education[2] and Devery[3], 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[4]" initiative, launched in 2015, set forth an ambitious goal of eradicating hunger on Earth by 2030.
The WFP has previously utilized Ethereum[5] to explore how blockchain technology can be used to streamline payments and deter misappropriation of funds[6] as well as distribute food entitlements[7] to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The organization hopes to build upon those experiences to bolster the Tunisian government's existing school meals[8] initiative.
Tunisia's school meals program was instituted at all public primary schools across the country in 2014[9] 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[10].
According to The Sociable[11], 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
