UN to Educate Over 22,000 Staff Members on Blockchain, Web3: Here’s Why

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has decided to launch a blockchain academy next year in 2024.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 1 December 2023 14:43 IST

UN to Educate Over 22,000 Staff Members on Blockchain, Web3: Here’s Why

Photo Credit: Reuters

UNDP’s over 22,000 staff members will get recorded lectures, interactive workshops

Highlights

UNDP has members working in over 170 nations
Through blockchain, UNDP will learn real-world asset tokenisation
The announcement about this initiative was made on Nov. 30

The United Nations seems to be getting ready to hop onboard the Web3-express now that rules and regulations to govern this niche sector have begun surfacing around the world. Aiming to help countries around the world achieve their sustainable development goals, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has decided to launch a blockchain academy next year in 2024. Through this initiative, the UNDP is also looking to train 22,000 staff members in blockchain and Web3 technologies.

The UNDP is a branch of the UN that is focussed on helping poverty-ridden parts of the world with strong policies, skills, partnerships, and institutions. The organisation now wishes to train its staff members across 170 nations on how blockchain could be used to finetune digital identity applications and real-world asset tokenisation alongside bringing transparency in supply chain and increasing financial inclusion.

To do so, the UNDP has partnered with the Algorand Foundation, a non-profit body that supports the eco-friendly green blockchain Algorand.

“The Algorand Blockchain Academy will be instrumental in equipping our team with the tools needed to address complex global challenges using blockchain technology,” said Robert Pasicko, UNDP's expert for alternative finance and low carbon development, while commenting on the development.

Pasicko made this announcement at the Algorand Impact Summit in New Delhi on November 30.

This programme will bring recorded lectures, interactive workshops, and hands-on assignments around blockchain and Web3 to UNDP's staff members.

"We see this education and tooling initiative as a critical first step toward identifying and delivering actionable, on-the-ground use-cases of blockchain to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in a number of areas,” said Doro Unger-Lee, head of education and inclusion at Algorand Foundation.

The initiative will enter its beta mode somewhere between January and March 2024 after which it will gradually expand. It is notable that the UNDP is taking a step like this now, when several nations around the world are ready to embrace the Web3 sector but within rules and regulations.

In Europe, for instance, the MiCA framework got its approval in October this year. First proposed in September 2020, the MiCA rules largely revolves around consumer protection as well as prevention of market manipulation and financial crimes in the crypto sector.

While Dubai and Abu Dhabi have tailored their own crypto laws, members of the G20 are also now deploying the crypto roadmap that was recently finalised under India's presidency.

These crypto laws are broadly to make the industry safe for people to explore and become a part of. Afterall, it is estimated that Web3 will create thousands of jobs worldwide as the sector continues to expand.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Algorand, UN, UNDP

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More