Can Pakistan’s flood victims find hope in mobile money?
By Maha Khan, GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked Pakistan is facing an enormous humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the country’s worst flooding in its history—indeed, a crisis in terms of victims that is now larger than the last three devastating natural disasters combined (the Asian Tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir and 2010 Haiti earthquakes). According to news sources, one fifth of the country has been affected by the disaster; that is, 20 million people, almost equalling Australia’s entire population. Given the speed that is necessary to cope with the huge number of people without safe drinking water, food, and shelter, I can’t help but think of the role mobile money could play in helping to accomplish the task that aid agencies face. While mobile platforms have been used by aid agencies to distribute electronic vouchers redeemable for cash or food, such as the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) pilot project for Iraqi refugees in Syria, mobile money is still relatively new in this field
