UNDP Advances Blockchain Digital ID and Payments Toward Global Deployment

The UN Development Programme has formed a Blockchain Advisory Group and Government Blockchain Academy to move blockchain-based digital identity and payment systems from pilots into production infrastructure in countries including Malawi, The Gambia, Mauritania and Sierra Leone. Pilots already cut digital payment distribution costs from 10 percent to 2 percent, and officials say the question is no longer whether blockchain belongs in public infrastructure but where to expand it. This signals a coordinated global effort to standardise centrally governed digital identity and payment rails as basic government infrastructure for populations outside formal financial systems.