Blockchain for development: a guiding framework

Figures & data

Table 1. Understanding of development in the B4D field.

Development category	Development aspect	References
Economic development	Economic considerations	Global Investor (2017); Interfax (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Nguyen (2016); Pisa and Juden (2017); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); Savelyev (2018); van der Westhuizen (2016); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Growth	Chinaka (2016); Interfax (2017); Mitchell (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017b); Savelyev (2018); Shin (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Access to capital	Kinai et al. (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); Thomason et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); Koh et al. (2018)
	Business opportunities	Gupta and Knight (2017); Parino et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
	Easy transfer of money	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Pisa and Juden (2017)
	Government participation in building financial infrastructure / cryptocurrency	Bank for International Settlements (2020); McLellan (2018); PRNewswire (2018b)
	Wealth	Gupta and Knight (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Employment	Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
Social development	Well-being	Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Pisa (2018); Tse et al. (2017)
	Freedom	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); Pisa (2018); Shin (2017)
	Fraud prevention	Crosman (2018); Kshetri (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Health	Kamau et al. (2018); Pisa (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Corruption prevention	Kshetri (2017); Themistocleous (2018)
	Education	Shin (2017); Themistocleous et al. (2020)
	Political participation	Chaieb et al. (2019); Shin (2017)
	Poverty alleviation	Pilkington et al. (2017); Schmidt (2017)
	Environmental considerations	Marke and Sylvester (2018)
	Peace	Irwin and Milad (2016)
	Social development	Nguyen (2016)

Table 2. Motivations for Blockchain adoption.

Motivation category	Subcategory	References
Technological trust	Ensure privacy	Crosman (2018); Kamau et al. (2018)
	Increase security	Crosman (2018); Gupta and Knight (2017); Kamau et al. (2018); Kinai et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Increase transparency	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Marke and Sylvester (2018); Nguyen, 2016; Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Increase trust	Gupta and Knight (2017); Kamau et al. (2018); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
Technical / Architectural	Decentralization	Kamau et al. (2018); Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Enable peer-to-peer transactions	PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Fault tolerance and disaster recovery	Kamau et al. (2018)
	Increase efficiency	Nguyen, 2016; Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Sharing data	Kamau et al. (2018)
Renew / Create infrastructure	Financial infrastructure	Global Investor (2017); McLellan (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018b); van der Westhuizen (2016)
	Refresh legacy (banks)	Economist (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Support for Fintech	Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018a)
Economic / Business	Enhancing trade	Mitchell (2018); PRNewswire (2017b)
	Reduce costs	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Nguyen (2016); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d)
Legal / Public administration	Public administration	Wei and Pokrovskaia (2017)
	Economy at large	Interfax (2017)
	Public infrastructure (land registry)	Kshetri and Voas (2018)
	Regulatory framework	Savelyev (2018)
Societal	Food safety	Tse et al. (2017)
	Women empowerment	Shin (2017)

Table 3. Blockchain opportunities for development.

Opportunity category	Opportunity subcategory	Blockchain opportunities for development	References
Environment	Climate trading and finance	Water trading	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Carbon trading	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Climate finance flows	Marke and Sylvester (2018)
Financial	Payments	Mobile payments	Cao et al. (2017); Gupta and Knight (2017); PRNewswire (2017c)
		P2P payments	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017)
		Online payments	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017c); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018c)
	Money transfer	Facilitating money transfer	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); PR Newswire (2017a); PRNewswire (2017d); PRNewswire (2018c); Shin (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Faster and cheaper remittances	Economist (2018); Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Financial transparency	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Fundraising	Lending to SMEs	Crosman (2018); Kinai et al. (2017)
		Fundraising through cryptocurrencies and DeFi	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Management	Blockchain public finance management	Kshetri (2017); Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
		Blockchain and traditional finance	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a); Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PR Newswire (2017a)
Healthcare	Document management	Health records	Kamau et al. (2018); Thomason et al. (2018)
Inclusion	Financial	Financial services for the unbanked	Chinaka (2016); PRNewswire (2017c); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Microfinancing	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Microinsurance	Kshetri (2017)
	Empowerment	Women empowerment	Shin (2017)
		e-Identity	Kshetri (2017); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); PRNewswire (2018c); Thomason et al. (2018)
Legal and Regulatory	Security	Fraud detection	Crosman (2018); Kshetri and Voas (2018)
		Money laundering prevention	Cao et al. (2017); Irwin and Milad (2016); Kshetri (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b); PRNewswire (2018c)
		Tracking donations and aid­	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Financial	Prevention of tax avoidance	Mukkamala et al. (2018)
		Corruption prevention	Kshetri (2017); Mukkamala et al. (2018); Themistocleous (2018)
Public Administration	Property management	Land registry	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Shin (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
	Finance	Public finance management	Gupta and Knight (2017); Pantielieieva et al. (2018)
	Social services	Social security	Kshetri (2017)
	Democracy empowerment	e-voting	Kshetri (2017)
Trade	Cross border trade	Expediting cross-border trade	Kshetri (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Mitchell (2018); PRNewswire (2017b); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
	Logistics	Supply chain management	Cao et al. (2017); Kshetri (2017); PRNewswire (2017b); Thomason et al. (2018); Tse et al. (2017); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
Transformation	Disruption	Blockchain potential for developing economies	Gautham (2017); Gupta and Knight (2017); Interfax (2017); Kshetri and Voas (2018); Pantielieieva et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Blockchain disruption	Nguyen (2016)
Utilities	Water	Water management	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
	Energy	Renewable energy	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)

Table 4. Blockchain challenges for development.

Challenge category	Challenge subcategory	Challenges	References
Adoption	Awareness	Lack of awareness of Blockchain among key stakeholders	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018)
		Negative perceptions of Blockchain due to its association with Bitcoin	Kshetri (2017)
	Diffusion	Costs of setting up and running systems	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Not enough investment in the Blockchain field	Kshetri (2017)
		Lack of absorptive capacity to benefit from Blockchain	Kshetri (2017)
	Resistance to change	Resistance from those that benefit from lack of transparency	Thomason et al. (2018)
		Resistance from middlemen that will be disintermediated	Thomason et al. (2018)
	Technical skills	Required technical competencies	Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Global shortage of Blockchain developers	Thomason et al. (2018)
Legal and regulatory	Regulation	Regulatory aspects	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Dark side of Bitcoin	Irwin & Milad, 2016; PRNewswire (2018a); PRNewswire (2018b)
		Regulation of cryptocurrencies	Malaya and Lazebnyk (2018); Zharova and Lloyd (2018)
		Governance of personal data	Thomason et al. (2018)
Operational	Technical	Infrastructure barriers	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Operational barriers	Kshetri (2017); Thomason et al. (2018); Tuomisto and Saeed (2018)
		Congestion of the Bitcoin network	Kshetri (2017)
		Interoperability and standardization	Kshetri (2017)

Figure 1. Framework for Blockchain-supported development.

Table 5. Definition of categories and factors in the framework.

Category	Factor	Definition/Operationalization
Business		Business-related considerations at the level of local businesses and industries.
	Business operations/conditions	Considerations improving business operations / conditions, including reduction in fraud, lowering costs of money, processes and transactions across the supply chain.
	Disruption	Radical change of business models and practices. Innovations that make previous alternatives obsolete.
	Enablement of business opportunities	Possibilities such as new markets, new job opportunities, disintermediation, platforms for international trade, enabling automated and agile contracts.
	Innovative business models	Novel approaches to doing business, including dispensing with third parties and ensuring fairer trade.
Economy & Finance		Economic and financial considerations at the country or international level.
	Economy digitalization	Opportunities for development of digital economy such as the introduction of Central Bank Digital Currencies and FinTech solutions.
	New financial instruments	New financial products, assets, and services such as ICOs, Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs), Security Token Offerings (STOs), cryptocurrencies, crypto-assets, and Decentralized Finance.
	Reduction of informal economy	Extending financial services to a broader segment of the population and reducing tax evasion.
	Transformation of financial industry	Modernizing systems and services in the traditional financial industry. Facilitating international payments.
Policy		Policy-related factors at different levels, mainly national and international.
	Dark side	Taking advantage of anonymity in cryptocurrencies to conduct illegal activities (e.g. money laundering, funding of terrorism).
	Government	Increase in the efficiency of public administration including digitization of government services and replacement of legacy institutions.
	International considerations	Cross-border aspects such cooperation between central banks and averting international sanctions.
	Legal considerations	Updating laws and regulations including recognition of smart contracts and digital evidence.
	Prevention of fraud and corruption	Lowering the level of fraud and corruption in various organizations including charities and NGOs.
	Transparency	Increasing the dissemination and availability of relevant information such as public records.
Society		Societal considerations at various levels, i.e. individual-, family- community-related, and national
	Empowerment of the disadvantaged	Providing new opportunities to the disadvantaged including women empowerment and children education, introducing digital identity, and improving efficiency of humanitarian aid funding.
	Financial inclusion	Facilitating access to financial products and services to both individuals and businesses (e.g. introducing microfinancing).
	Reinforcement of democracy	Strengthening democratic mechanisms including political empowerment and greater political freedom.
	Safety	Increasing traceability in supply chains mainly related to food production.
Technology		Blockchain technology-related considerations.
	Blockchain characteristics	Blockchain technology attributes or components such as transaction anonymity or pseudo anonymity, immutability of the ledger, smart contracts and consensus.
	Governance	Controls, rules, processes, and structures used to ensure desired functioning of the Blockchain-based solutions.
	Improved systems	Trustable and streamlined IT solutions.
	Infrastructure	Improved technical infrastructures, namely for interoperation in areas such as healthcare and finance.

Table 6. Impacts across areas of development enabled by Blockchain in the special issue papers.

	Impacted dimension
	Business	Society	Economy & Finance	Policy	Development
Economy & Finance	Cappa and Pinelli; Coffie et al.
Technology	Correa Tavares et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos; Pawar et al.; Tomlinson et al.	Diniz et al.; Ning et al.; Pawar et al.; Singh et al.; Tomlinson et al.		Correa Tavares et al.; Ning et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos; Pawar et al.; Tomlinson et al.	Correa Tavares et al.; Tomlinson et al.
Policy	Correa Tavares et al.; Papadaki and Karamitsos		Papadaki and Karamitsos		Correa Tavares et al.

Note: Follow the row for a dimension to find out which papers describe impacts on other dimensions (represented in columns).

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