United Nations World Food Programme launches mobile voucher pilot program for Iraqi refugees in Syria

Here’s another example of great use of mobile technology for good. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a mobile food voucher pilot project to aid 1,000 Iraqi refugee families in Syria.

Here’s how it works (from the press release):

Iraqi refugees living in Damascus will receive a text message on their mobiles providing a code enabling them to cash in all or part of the “virtual voucher” at selected government shops. They will be able to exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs — items that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets.

Each family will receive one voucher per person, worth US$22 every two months. After each transaction, families will receive an updated balance, also sent by SMS to their mobile numbers.

Apparently this is the first time mobiles have been used to deliver food vouchers, and we applaud UN for pulling this out. The project was developed in collaboration with Syria’s General Establishment for Storing and Marketing Agriculture and Animal Products (GESMAAP), and mobile operator MTN, which donated SIM cards…