Tech can empower refugee communities - if they`re allowed to design how it works
(World News Science)

In Lebanon, around 350,000 Syrian refugees don´t have access to enough safe and nutritious food. To stem the crisis, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations introduced an electronic voucher system to distribute food aid . People are given debit cards loaded with `e-vouchers` that they can use in certain shops to buy food. But we found that Syrian refugees living in rural Lebanon often have to make difficult choices when buying essential items at the expense of food. Their e-vouchers can only be used in exchange for food, not other essentials like nappies. Refugees have to engage in `grey-area transactions` that work around the e-voucher system, by asking shop owners to sell them...