Case Study: International Rescue Committee, Chad
The Challenge
Chad is a country grappling with a regional refugee crisis, in addition to seasonal droughts and flooding which destroy crops and threaten millions of people with famine. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) began working in Chad in 2004, and in response to the Boko Haram crisis in 2016, has provided a holistic programme focusing on health, economic recovery and women’s protection services.
Today, the IRC continues to provide these services to host communities, internally displaced and refugee populations in five provinces and ten refugee camps in Chad. According to the IRC’s data, 15% of HIV patients receiving antiretroviral medicines in these populations do not complete treatment, due to the lack of adequate nutritional support and purchasing power to access health services and to pay for transportation to health centres.
The Solution
To enable vulnerable persons and HIV patients to access adequate food supplies and strengthen their economic access to health services, IRC Chad deployed sQuid’s secure, digital cash-based assistance technology. sQuid’s dual-wallet contactless smart card solution enabled the IRC to distribute digital value in separate Health and Cash wallets to beneficiaries in two programmes in the country.
The first programme, funded by Global Affairs Canada, provided multisectoral assistance to internally displaced women and girls, focusing on delivering food assistance, where sQuid’s technology enabled the IRC to distribute funds digitally to beneficiaries, who in turn purchased a range of food items from designated vendors. The second programme, funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), aimed to improve access to, and the quality of, health and nutritional services for a displaced population in the Liwa Health District, by distributing food and health payments to the vulnerable and at-risk. Beneficiaries received value on their dual-wallet contactless smartcard, and were able to withdraw funds from their Cash wallet at designated agents, using the cash to pay for transit to health centres. Once at the health centres, which were equipped with sQuid’s mobile terminals, beneficiaries used the digital funds in their Health wallet to pay for medicine and lab tests.
This digital delivery of funds enabled the IRC to trace every dollar to the intended beneficiary - improving programme transparency, accountability and providing thousands with the food and medical support needed in this highly-challenging environment.
sQuid's cash-based assistance solution for the International Rescue Committee included:
Funds distributed via Dual-Wallet Contactless Smart Cards
Programme Management & Analytics Hub
Digital Accounts for Beneficiaries
Full Training & In-Field Support
“Thanks to sQuid’s digital technology, the International Rescue Committee reached the most vulnerable internally displaced people in Chad’s Lake province by providing dignified humanitarian assistance in a very complex rural environment.”
Mouhamadou Diaw, Senior Programme Coordinator, International Rescue Committee
The Results
$475k
Distributed across 2 programmes
2,500
Beneficiary households supported
7
Vendor locations equipped with mobile POS devices
