Aid disbursements
Humanitarian cash assistance that arrives, on the record
When banks are shut and carrying cash is risky, a phone wallet still works. Gleo lets relief teams deliver humanitarian cash assistance in USDG straight to recipients, and gives donors a public trail showing the money left the programme wallet and reached people.
How it works
Public payments, private people
Every outflow from a programme's funding wallet is visible on the explorer, so donors can check delivery themselves. The register that links addresses to names never leaves the organisation.
Five stages
How a cash assistance programme runs on Gleo
- 1
Register
Field staff enrol recipients and help each one set up a phone wallet and its backup words. - 2
Fund
The programme moves its budget into a single funding wallet as USDG. - 3
Send
Payments go out on schedule, each with its own transaction record. - 4
Report
Donors read the outflows on the explorer; recipients spend or cash out at an agent nearby.
Disbursement tool
A payout tool, not a blockchain project
Aid teams should not need engineers to run a payout. The planned Gleo disbursement tool takes a spreadsheet of recipients and amounts, flags bad rows, sends the batch and produces a report.
Until its contract is deployed, payments go out one by one through the Send tool, which already works on mainnet.
Single transfersBatch tool
Why digital cash
Six reasons digital dollars suit relief work
Fast
A payment lands within a block, which matters most in the first days after a disaster.Checkable
Every outflow from the funding wallet is public, so donors can verify it without asking.Reachable
A basic smartphone is enough; recipients need no bank account.Portable
The same tool works in every country, with anchors handling the local cash leg.Stable
Recipients hold dollars, which protects them while local prices swing.Cheap to run
Network fees are a fraction of a cent, so more of the budget reaches people.
Illustrative
Field scenario
A cash assistance pilot for 1,200 households after a flood
Weekly USDG to phone wallets, cash-out at local shops, and outflows donors can follow. An illustrative plan with the risks written down.
FAQ
Hard questions about aid on a public ledger
Are recipients' identities written to the blockchain?
No. Only wallet addresses and amounts are public. The list linking an address to a person stays inside the organisation's own systems.
What if a recipient loses their phone?
Funds in a wallet cannot be recovered without its backup words. Programmes should agree a recovery approach at enrolment, for example smaller weekly payments so little is ever at risk.
Where can recipients get cash?
At anchors and their agents. Coverage depends on local partners, and anchor flows on Gleo run in practice mode today.
Has Gleo run an aid programme?
No. The scenario on this site is illustrative. We would rather say so than borrow somebody else's track record.
Keep exploring
More for relief and programme teams
Talk to us
Planning a cash programme?
We will help you work out whether Gleo fits, and say so plainly if it does not fit yet.