Mobile phone money transfer which East Africans take for granted is being used to assist survivors of the 2010 devastating earthquake in Haiti. They started receiving cash subsidies through the first-ever mobile money transfer system in support of post-disaster housing reconstruction, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said yesterday in press statement sent to The New Times.Money transfer for relief services was widely used in Kenya last year during the ‘Kenya for Kenyans’ campaign when the country faced a devastating drought and famine. The campaign saw Kenyans raised the equivalent of $1 million in a week to purchase food and medicines for millions of people facing starvation.In Haiti’s case more than 2,000 mobile money transfers are planned in the next three months to 1,000 low-income families receiving subsidies totalling $500 to purchase construction materials such as cement, iron and wood at selected project-certified stores. The initiative is part of the ‘Community Support Centres for House Repairs,’ a partnership between UNDP and the Government of Haiti. Commissioned by UNDP and developed by Digicel, one of the country’s largest cell phone service providers, the mobile telephone cash transfers are helping boost financial inclusion in Haiti, where nearly two-thirds of the population has access to mobile phones, but only 10 per cent have bank accounts.
