Beyond Crypto: How Blockchain Is Quietly Reshaping Public Services and Development

UNDP’s report shows how blockchain, when treated as public digital infrastructure rather than speculative technology, is helping governments improve payments, identity, climate finance, and market transparency across developing countries. Used carefully and under public control, it can rebuild trust, reduce inefficiencies, and link global finance more directly to local action.

Blockchain is usually associated with volatile markets and speculative hype. But a new UNDP report, New Tech, New Partners: Transforming Development in the Digital Era, tells a quieter and more grounded story. Produced by UNDP’s Alternative Finance Lab with support from its Innovation and Digital Team, the Istanbul Regional Hub, and research partners including Korea University, the University of Sarajevo Tele-Informatics Centre, Lingnan University, and the University of Cambridge, the report examines how blockchain is being used as public digital infrastructure to solve real development problems. Instead of selling technology for its own sake, it asks a simpler question: can digital systems be designed to strengthen trust, inclusion, and public accountability?

Why Governments Are Rethinking Digital Systems

Governments today are under pressure to redesign payments, identity systems, climate finance, and data governance at unprecedented speed. Decisions made now will shape how citizens access services and how money and data move for decades. Yet earlier waves of digitisation often created new problems, locking countries into proprietary systems, excluding vulnerable groups, and weakening transparency. The report argues that blockchain offers a different design option, not because it is fashionable, but because it allows shared records and automated rules that many actors can trust without handing control to a single intermediary.

Still, the document is careful not to oversell the technology. Blockchain does not eliminate trust; it shifts it. Poor design can harm privacy, lock in mistakes, or concentrate power in vendors' hands. UNDP therefore positions itself as a “transformation broker,” helping governments experiment carefully, keep systems under public control, and build regulatory and institutional capacity alongside technical tools.

Fixing Everyday Problems in Payments and Services

One of the clearest areas of impact is digital payments. Across Africa, Latin America, and fragile contexts, blockchain-based systems are being tested to move money faster and more transparently. In Cameroon, South Sudan, and Zambia, women and youth entrepreneurs receive grants as digital tokens that can only be spent with approved local suppliers, reducing misuse and paperwork. In Bogotá, a pilot tests stablecoin-based social transfers to understand how low-income households actually use cash support. In Guatemala, remittances from migrants are partly pooled into community investment funds, turning private money into local development capital. In Liberia, daily allowances for training participants are paid automatically once attendance is verified, replacing paper forms and delays. These systems are designed to work with basic phones and existing agent networks, keeping inclusion front and centre.

Protecting Identity and Data While Building Trust

The report also shows how blockchain can support digital identity and data governance without turning into a giant personal database. Universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ghana issue verifiable digital diplomas that employers can check instantly, without accessing student records. In Kazakhstan, people at risk of HIV use anonymous digital passes to access prevention services without revealing their identity. In Malawi, humanitarian agencies use a shared verification layer to avoid duplicating aid, while keeping personal data private. In Mauritius and Seychelles, blockchain underpins consent systems that let patients see who accessed their health data and why. The focus is not on technology complexity, but on trust, transparency, and privacy.

Making Climate Finance and Markets More Credible

Climate finance is where the stakes, and the sums, are highest. The report documents how blockchain is being used to make climate funding traceable and credible. African meteorological services are paid automatically for verified weather data. Climate-vulnerable households in Bangladesh receive adaptation finance through auditable digital systems. Smallholder rice farmers in India earn carbon income from verified changes in farming practices. National carbon registries in Sierra Leone and Tanzania aim to prevent double-counting and ensure communities benefit from projects on their land. Similar tools are used in supply chains, helping waste pickers earn plastic recovery credits, farmers prove crop origin, and artisans certify the authenticity of handmade goods. In each case, the goal is simpler markets, clearer rules, and fairer outcomes.

A Tool for Trust, Not a Tech Fix

The report’s conclusion is deliberately modest. Blockchain will not replace governments or institutions, and it is not a shortcut to development. But when designed responsibly and governed well, it can help rebuild trust in public systems, between governments and citizens, donors and communities, and markets and regulators. In a world where trust is increasingly fragile, that may be blockchain’s most important contribution: not disruption, but repair.