The Restoration Challenge Grant Platform for Smallholders and Communities, with Blockchain-Enabled Crowdfunding – Bioversity International

Background

Laikipia Wildlife Forum has been funded by Bioversity International to implement a restoration program ‘The Restoration Challenge Grant Platform for Smallholders and Communities, with Blockchain-Enabled Crowdfunding (herein referred to as the Platform)’.

The platform will facilitate and support enhanced smallholder and rural community member engagement and investment in restoration. The Platform will utilize mobile cellular technology and payment transfer services to provide small grants/payments for smallholder-, community-, and school-led restoration work – principally tree-planting – matched by co-investment (in-kind and/or cash).

Cellular technology will allow for efficient and effective verification of work and transfer of payments. Another key innovative focus of the Platform will be the integration of blockchain technology throughout the restoration value chain to provide transparency, build trust, facilitate real-time monitoring, evaluation and verification, and support mobilization of funding for restoration.

From appropriate species selection, seed sourcing and seedling propagation, to tree planting and maintenance and transfer of payments, each transaction will be marked by a unique, traceable, unchangeable and verifiable blockchain.

A second phase of the Platform will utilize a public-facing web platform and partnerships with other tree planting and restoration investment matching platforms to facilitate crowdfunding of Platform-supported restoration and financial sustainability, drawing upon the block chain technology and ledger for security and transparency and trustworthiness of crowdfunded transactions.

A range of engagement approaches and selection of a diverse group of landscapes will allow for cross comparison and learning informing restoration initiatives going forward. LWF will be implementing the project in Laikipia County, Mukogodo West.

	Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF), P.O Box 764, Nanyuki ,Kenya
	+254 – 726 500260
	communications@laikipia.org