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Anticipatory cash transfers in Kenya

Ethereum smart contracts supported the release of drought-related cash assistance to pastoralist households in Kenya. The 2025 scale-up used RLUSD, a US dollar stablecoin, while recipients received local-currency payments through M-Pesa.

~$16k paid across four payout windows triggered during the October–December 2025 campaign

Humanitarian assistance · Kenya

Institutional context

Pastoralist households depend on livestock and the availability of grazing land. When drought reduces pasture, support that arrives before severe losses can help households buy feed, water, and other essentials. Some households cannot afford insurance premiums, making donor-funded anticipatory assistance another approach to explore.

Prosper Global Ventures (formerly known as Mercy Corps Ventures) worked with Fortune Credit, DIVA Donate, and Ripple to expand an anticipatory cash-transfer program in 2025. The program built on an earlier pilot with Fortune Credit, Shamba Network, and DIVA Technologies. This case study focuses on the later campaigns using Ethereum, rather than the earlier Polygon implementation.

System design

Donors contributed RLUSD on Ethereum to DIVA Donate. Smart contracts—programs running on Ethereum—held the funds and checked whether agreed conditions for releasing assistance had been met. The conditions used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a satellite-derived measure of vegetation health, to indicate when pasture was under stress.

The October–December 2025 campaign checked conditions at nine intervals, rather than waiting for a single end-of-season assessment. Four checks triggered payouts. After funds were released, households received assistance through M-Pesa, connecting the Ethereum-based funding mechanism to a familiar mobile-money service.

Earlier in 2025, a separate campaign enrolled 517 pastoralists in Laikipia North. Vegetation remained above its payout threshold, so no assistance was released in that round. Unused partner contributions were made available for a later campaign. Enrolment made households eligible for assistance, but payment was only made if the trigger conditions were met.

Ethereum’s role

Ethereum was the network used for the 2025 campaigns’ RLUSD funding and smart-contract execution. It provided a shared transaction record and a way to apply agreed payout rules to funds committed in advance. Transactions recorded on Ethereum could be independently reviewed, providing a shared record of how committed funds were released.

This role was distinct from Ripple’s role as a funding partner and stablecoin issuer. Although RLUSD is available on more than one blockchain, the campaign specifically used Ethereum for this implementation.

Measuring vegetation, choosing eligible households, and operating the final mobile-money service remained the responsibility of data providers, program partners, and payment providers. The public network supported the funding mechanism without replacing those institutions.

Status and milestones

  1. 10 April 2026

    The program published findings from the scale-up. Its accompanying brief reported approximately $16,000 paid across four payout windows, with recipients receiving funds 1–5.5 hours after smart-contract release. Reported transaction costs were 3.6% of payout value, compared with a 10% conventional-transfer benchmark.

  2. 10 October–31 December 2025

    The campaign used nine vegetation checkpoints, with four triggering assistance. This replaced the earlier single-assessment approach with smaller, recurring transfers.

  3. 12 June 2025

    DIVA Donate reported that 517 pastoralists had been enrolled in the preceding campaign, approximately 70% of them women. No payouts were triggered because vegetation conditions stayed above the specified threshold.

  4. 9 April 2025

    The scale-up announcement described RLUSD on Ethereum as the payout token and an updated vegetation dataset intended to reduce sensitivity to cloud cover.

  5. 28 September 2023

    The original pilot using DIVA Donate on Polygon was announced for Laikipia and Kajiado counties.

Implementation considerations

Reliable data remained essential. The scale-up brief reports that a US government shutdown interrupted the vegetation dataset, delaying one payout window by 18 days.

Funding, payout frequency, and local implementation also matter. Costs rose from 2.5% in the initial pilot to 3.6% in the later model, which assessed conditions and allowed payouts at several points during the campaign. Even so, costs remained below the stated benchmark for conventional transfers.

Institutions considering a similar model would need reliable trigger data, clear accountability for data or system failures, and dependable arrangements for currency conversion and local payment delivery. Clear communication with communities is also essential: DIVA Donate found that describing conditional assistance as a donation led some participants to expect a payment even when the trigger conditions were not met.

Sources