XUNICEF News and Views

I am a digital enthusiast. I do my banking online, I use face recognition and fingerprints for authentication, I pay my groceries with my phone, music is streaming into our home, and I feel comfortable in the cyberworld. I haven’t bought bitcoins yet, and I am not sure I ever will; but I understand people who invest some of their own money in crypto just for the fun of it.

UNICEF is selling non-fungible tokens, and I am going to sell them, too. Non fungible tokens, or NFTs, are the new way to make money. UNICEF calls it innovative fundraising . Here is my non fungible token, and I invite you to put in a bid. Starting price is 20,000 Euro. There is no need to pay me in bitcoin, plain money will do. The key to the value of a non fungible token is its uniqueness. When you take a photograph of your evening meal and share it on social media, all your followers have a copy of this digital photograph. After a while, nobody knows who really owns the photograph. There are too many copies of your meal floating in cyberspace. The non fungible token mechanism, activated through a thing called blockchain, ensures that the original photograph is marked so that no other than you can claim ownership of the photo of your meal. No matter the actual taste of the pie, or the aesthetic value of your digital art, there will be irrefutable proof that you took the photo and you...

Binance Charity will donate $2.5 Million worth of cryptocurrency in support of Unicef’s humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. This announcement is made as more children are at risk from the continuing military conflict with invading Russian troops. Use Donated Cryptocurrency to Help Unicef Finance Activities in Ukraine The Binance Charity Foundation has announced a donation of $2.5 million in cryptocurrency for the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef). The money will be used to finance the organization’s efforts in Ukraine amid escalating hostilities with Russia that threaten a growing number of children and their parents. “Humanitarian needs are increasing by the hour,” Unicef said in a statement. “Many children are profoundly traumatized by the violence all around them. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the move, and family members have been separated from their loved ones,” the organization added. Unicef stated that cryptocurrency donations are coming at a crucial time for the or...

by Ken Gibbs If something seems to be too good to be true (Thomas Lupton's Sivquila; 1580) – then it probably is. The recent discussion surrounding UNICEF’s ‘investment’ in Cryptocurrency and NFTs has left some of us feeling that it’s probably all about smoke and mirrors with a little snake-oil thrown in for good measure. They seem not to be regulated by anyone and while a few people claim to have made substantial sums from them, one hears little about those who have lost money on them. I wonder what position the UNICEF Board has taken on this matter and who will be responsible for any loses that are faced as a consequence of this ‘investment’ ? ***** 1. Whatever currency UNICEF is donated, it needs to be convertible Have you ever been in a situation where events take over and drive your project(s) in directions never imagined when making agreements with the Planning Commission ? When running a very large programme which required substantial supply elements, it was sometimes nec...

The warning signs have been flashing for months now. A new and largely unregulated electronic world of virtual reality is nearly upon us, even while we have barely begun to manage abuses of 'reality' as presented by the internet of today. 'VR goggles' began to appear a few years ago as a novel way of viewing short film clips giving viewers the thrill of a roller coaster ride or a 3-D visit under the sea. Soon games emerged allowing the viewer to feel totally immersed in an artificial world. The next logical step was to allow gamers to link up and play with hundreds / even thousands of users elsewhere. These developments took place alongside other developments in the electronic worlds of finance, business, and entertainment built around the concept of the blockchain and the use of crypto-currencies - supposedly secure means of buying and selling and registering transactions outside of the control of banks and governments. Attach the blockchain to virtual reality webs...

Some of us started a debate about the sense or nonsense of UNICEF selling Non-Fungible tokens (NFTs) and investing in crypto-currency. While computer-generated greeting card designs may devaluate more quickly than you can spell "NFT", the following article cleverly connects the discussion of 'what is a NFT' with some or the more thorny questions on 'ownership and copyright'. There is a lot of potential for someone getting angry about something - as told in the following article that appeared in The Guardian last week, and was picked up by Ken Gibbs. Row about Congolese statue loan escalates into legal battle over NFTs By Daniel Boffey The Guardian View Original A statue depicting the angry spirit of a Belgian officer beheaded during an uprising in Congo in 1931 is at the centre of a tug of war between a US museum and a Congolese gallery at the site of the rebellion. The statue of Maximilien Balot, a colonial administrator, has travelled to Europe but the Virg...

The financial world is now ablaze with hype around new financial instruments using crypto-currencies and NFTs as means of buying, selling and securing transactions outside the reach of governments.  With UNICEF already partnering with global crypto-currency companies, supporting crypto-currency startup projects in several countries, and now auctioning off 1,000 NFTs as a means of raising funds, it is worth asking a few questions about the enviromental impacts these investments have on the world.   It seems useful to look at the recent experience of the NFT launch by the World Wildlife Fund.  WWF came under heavy fire recently for the environmental impacts connected with sales of its own NFTs, and ultimately was forced to drop their launch.   What struck me most, however, was reading that the Ethereum blockchain by which most crypto-currencies and NFTs are secured, has a carbon footprint equivalent to the entire nation of Singapore.   Note that Ethereum...

The UNICEF Innovation Office has launched various crypto-currency initiatives. Donors can now make contributions to a UNICEF’s Crypto Fund that makes grants to crypto projects aimed at improving the lives of children. This year UNICEF will auction 1,000 NFT (non-fungible token) encrypted works of art. Can retired UNICEF oldies have any worthwhile opinion on this development? Well, here is an attempt. First, a very brief description of crypto and its ecology. Fiat money (like US$, € or £) is issued and backed by a national or supranational central bank and, except for notes in circulation, is transacted and represented in bank ledger accounts. Dominant crypto-currencies, representing about half of all crypto, are Bitcoin and Ether (crypto-currency behind Ethereum), which between them have a market capitalization of over $1 trillion – this compares with about $100 trillion in total world fiat currency. Ethereum differs from Bitcoin in that it is a digital platform for authenticata...

One of the 1,000 NFTs UNICEF is issuing as part of its 75th Anniversary on behalf of Giga - a project intended to connect schools to the internet In our most recent Weekly Digest we asked our readers to share their views of the fast-growing use of crypto-currencies and the buying and selling of digital 'objects' like NFTs (non-fungible tokens).  In particular we wondered our readers' views of UNICEF's recent foray into the crypto / NFT world. "We nowadays hear a lot of hype about crypto currencies. You also might have heard that UNICEF started to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) . UNICEF will sell those digital collectibles using the Ethereum blockchain. The editor's team was wondering, whether we are the only ones who remain reserved about this new trend? What do you think? Do you invest in bitcoins or similar assets? Do you have a piece of advice, or warning? Let us talk about it. Write to xunicef.news.views@gmail.com . " UNICEF's recent report "...

How Crypto Currency works... an analogy in Layman’s terms. Not long ago a merchant found a lot of monkeys that lived near a certain Village . One day he came to the Village saying he wanted to buy these monkeys ! He announced that he would buy the monkeys at $100 each. The Villagers thought that this man must be crazy - How can somebody buy Stray Monkeys at $100 each ? Still some People caught some monkeys and gave it to this merchant and he gave $100 for each monkey. This News spread like wildfire and People caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant. After a few days, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each. The lazy villagers also ran around to catch the remaining monkeys! They sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each. The merchant then announced that he will buy monkeys for $500 each! The villagers start to lose sleep!.....They caught six or seven monkeys, which was all that was left and got $500 each. The Villagers were waiting anxiously for the next announc...

India Covid Crypto Relief Fund to donate $15 million to UNICEF By Polygon Indiatimes 2 min View Original India Covid Crypto Relief Fund will donate $15 million (approx Rs 110 crore) to United Nations Children’s Fund ( UNICEF ) India to procure 160 million RUP syringes. The relief fund, founded by cofounder Sandeep Nailwal , has also partnered with the Ministry of Health to speed up the deployment of vaccines in the country. “While talking to officers at Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Crypto Relief volunteers understood that while Government of India is taking steps for securing the required vaccines, syringes are equally important for successful vaccination drive, and they’re in shortage,” Nailwal wrote on microblogging platform Twitter on Friday. India Covid Crypto Relief Fund was launched in April amid the second wave of the pandemic by Nailwal, Etherum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, and former Coinbase technology chief Balaji Srinivasan has also contributed to the fund. Nailwal...

For documents of this Annual Session click here  1 June 2021 Thank you, Mr. President, for your statement. We approach a significant milestone for UNICEF — our 75th anniversary. In the coming months, we will have a number of opportunities to recognize everything that our organization has achieved for children and young people over the decades. And to take pride in our UNICEF family — from our dedicated staff members, to our National Committees who do so much to support our work, to our UNICEF volunteers around the world. But this year is not only a moment of reflection. It is also a moment of re-dedication to our mission. As we look to the past, we must also look to the future, and the work ahead. And to do so — always — with optimism and hope in what we can achieve together, with our partners and donors around the world, with the members of our Executive Board, and with children and young people themselves. COVID-19 has reminded us how fragile our world can be. And how quickly all...

Read article Photo Credit: Wikipedia Interview with Sumita Grote - UNICEF Fund Manager CT: Could you explain why UNICEF decided to partner with the Ethereum Foundation?  SG:  We had a number of conversations with leading foundations and partners in the space. It was clear that the Ethereum Foundation is closely aligned with the objectives of our fund. They’re focused on developing solutions on public blockchains, and that was key to our partnership and finding common ground.  CT: Does UNICEF have any concerns about the potential anonymity of contributions to the Cryptocurrency Fund? SG:  At the moment, all contributions follow the standard know-your-customer (KYC) and due diligence processes that UNICEF uses for the contributions it receives in any currency. UNICEF National Committees in France, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA are currently able to accept donations. They are the primary recipients of cryptocurrency donations and they conduct the necessary screeni...