ABSTRACT

Developing economies provide basic food commodities to the economically backward sections of the society at subsidized prices to reduce food insecurity. The main objective of these programs is to insulate the poor from the impact of rising prices of food commodities and maintain the minimum nutritional status of the population. However, there are financial mismanagement and issues associated with the current working of these schemes that attributed to the illicit diversion of the commodities, urban bias, serious wastage of food and inefficient supervision during the distribution process. Thus, the policy implementation fails to reach its intended beneficiaries. We used principles of Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) to understand this problem at the grass root level by consulting the various stakeholders involved in the food subsidy value-chain. Based on these findings from VFT, we propose a Blockchain-based system demonstrated through a prototype to provide a robust solution for the aforementioned research context.

摘要

发展中经济体以补贴价格向社会中经济落后的部分提供基本粮食商品，以减少粮食不安全。这些计划的主要目标是使穷人免受粮食商品价格上涨的影响，并保持人口的最低营养状况。然而，这些计划的当前运作存在财务管理不善和相关问题，这些问题归因于商品的非法转移、城市偏见、食品的严重浪费和分配过程中的低效监督。因此，政策实施未能达到其预期的受益者。我们使用价值聚焦思维 (VFT) 的原则，通过咨询食品补贴价值链中涉及的各个利益相关者，在基层理解这个问题。