A United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty is set to upskill its 22,000 staff in blockchain technology, with the ultimate goal of helping countries achieve “sustainable development” growth. 

According to a Nov. 30 statement, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has partnered with the Algorand Foundation to launch a blockchain academy in 2024.

The academy will serve the UNDP’s 22,000 staff members across 170 countries, educating them about distributed ledger technology and blockchain, including how it could be used for financial inclusion, supply chain transparency, real-world asset tokenization, and digital identity applications.

During the Algorand Impact Summit in New Delhi, UNDP’s expert for alternative finance and low carbon development, Robert Pasicko, told the audience the partnership will enable the organization to “upskill, empower, and inspire UN practitioners around the world.”

The curriculum will include lectures, workshops, and hands-on assignments and will be “instrumental in equipping our team with the tools needed to address complex global challenges using blockchain technology,” said Pasicko.

Head of education and inclusion at the Algorand Foundation, Doro Unger-Lee, added that education was 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.”

Related: The role of blockchain in agriculture and how it advances the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Algorand is a layer-1 blockchain offering secure, efficient, and scalable applications. Its native token, ALGO, saw little movement from the announcement and was trading up 1.5% on the day at $0.135 at the time of writing.

The United Nations has been researching blockchain applications for several years. In 2018, the UNDP partnered with the Blockchain Charity Foundation (BCF) to support the application of DLT for social good.

Also in 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres created a ‘High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation’ with a focus on blockchain technology.

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