Hassan Maishera
On Monday, the Stellar Org announced via X that the United Nations Development Programme and the Stellar Development Foundation have signed a new agreement that carries their joint work on blockchain-based digital payments into its next phase.
Coordinated by the UNDP Alternative Finance Lab (AltFinLab) at the Istanbul Regional Hub, the agreement shifts the focus from testing the technology in specific contexts to putting in place the institutional conditions under which it can be used at scale.
Over the coming period, the two partners will establish the governance, onboarding, and safeguards that allow UNDP to adopt digital payments responsibly, move validated solutions from the existing pipeline into active use, extend the same infrastructure across different categories of UNDP programming – from humanitarian response to social protection and financial inclusion – and consolidate the evidence and operating guidance that the service needs to continue and grow within the development system.
Throughout this phase, the Stellar Development Foundation will provide technical advisory support and coordination across the Stellar ecosystem, including expertise on the network and its protocols, and engagement with the solution providers operating within the UNDP pipeline, while UNDP will retain responsibility for delivery and implementation.
Stellar is an open-source network with the mission to "create equitable access to the global financial system." Stellar is maintained by the Stellar Development Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 2014.
The Stellar network is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable blockchain built for financial products and services. The network launched in 2014 with the purpose of connecting the world's financial systems by offering a protocol for payment providers and financial institutions that facilitates near-instant global payments and currency exchanges. In 2024, Stellar released protocol 20, enabling full-featured smart contracts to the network. The network is transforming international payments and remittances through safer, faster, and more affordable solutions, and connecting real-world assets to DeFi to enable comprehensive everyday financial services.
The Stellar network’s native digital currency - Lumens (“XLM”) - is used to pay the network’s transaction fees. (XLM can also be used as an intermediate currency for operations. How it works: the protocol converts money in a few seconds, first into XLM, and then into the requested currency.)
XLM is down 1.9% in the last 24 hours and now trades at $0.1959 per coin.
