{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,16]],"date-time":"2026-04-16T16:45:42Z","timestamp":1776357942342,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,10]],"date-time":"2021-08-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1628553600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Computers"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in under-developed countries are receiving funds from donor agencies for various purposes, including relief from natural disasters and other emergencies, promoting education, women empowerment, economic development, and many more. Some donor agencies have lost their trust in NGOs in under-developed countries, as some NGOs have been involved in the misuse of funds. This is evident from irregularities in the records. For instance, in education funds, on some occasions, the same student has appeared in the records of multiple NGOs as a beneficiary, when in fact, a maximum of one NGO could be paying for a particular beneficiary. Therefore, the number of actual beneficiaries would be smaller than the number of claimed beneficiaries. This research proposes a blockchain-based solution to ensure trust between donor agencies from all over the world, and NGOs in under-developed countries. The list of National IDs along with other keys would be available publicly on a blockchain. The distributed software would ensure that the same set of keys are not entered twice in this blockchain, preventing the problem highlighted above. The details of the fund provided to the student would also be available on the blockchain and would be encrypted and digitally signed by the NGOs. In the case that a record inserted into this blockchain is discovered to be fake, this research provides a way to cancel that record. A cancellation record is inserted, only if it is digitally signed by the relevant donor agency.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/computers10080098","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,10]],"date-time":"2021-08-10T08:57:14Z","timestamp":1628585834000},"page":"98","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":67,"title":["Using Blockchain to Ensure Trust between Donor Agencies and NGOs in Under-Developed Countries"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Ehsan","family":"Rehman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Institute of Business Management, Karachi 75190, Pakistan"}]},{"given":"Muhammad Asghar","family":"Khan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Institute of Business Management, Karachi 75190, Pakistan"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7119-0644","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Tariq Rahim","family":"Soomro","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Institute of Business Management, Karachi 75190, Pakistan"}]},{"given":"Nasser","family":"Taleb","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Management, Canadian University of Dubai, Dubai 117781, United Arab Emirates"}]},{"given":"Mohammad A.","family":"Afifi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of IT, Skyline University College, Sharjah 1797, United Arab Emirates"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0672-7924","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Taher M.","family":"Ghazal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of IT, Skyline University College, Sharjah 1797, United Arab Emirates"},{"name":"Center for Cyber Security, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebansaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Malaysia"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Kravitz, D. (1993). Digital Signature Algorithm. (5,231,668), U.S. Patent, Available online: https:\/\/patentimages.storage.googleapis.com\/e6\/de\/c5\/75aceb27607e59\/US5231668.pdf."},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Satoshi, N. (2021, April 11). Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. Available online: https:\/\/bitcoin.org\/bitcoin.pdf."},{"key":"ref_3","first-page":"75","article-title":"Blockchain Is Already Here. What Does That Mean for Records Management and Archives?","volume":"16","author":"Bhatia","year":"2019","journal-title":"J. Arch. Organ."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.2478\/acss-2020-0001","article-title":"Block-ED: The Proposed Blockchain Solution for Effectively Utilising Educational Resources","volume":"25","author":"Irshad","year":"2020","journal-title":"Appl. Comput. Syst."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"154848","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3017654","article-title":"Developing a Reliable Service System of Charity Donation during the Covid-19 Outbreak","volume":"8","author":"Wu","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Sam, D. (2021, May 11). 30 Blockchain Applications and Real-World Use Cases Disrupting the Status Quo. Available online: https:\/\/builtin.com\/blockchain\/blockchain-applications."},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"Akash, T. (2021, May 11). Top Blockchain Platforms of 2021. Available online: https:\/\/www.leewayhertz.com\/blockchain-platforms-for-top-blockchain-companies\/."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"213","DOI":"10.1257\/jep.29.2.213","article-title":"Bitcoin: Economics, Technology, and Governance","volume":"29","author":"Bohme","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Econ. Perspect."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"45360","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2019.2902501","article-title":"Blockchain Applications-Usage in Different Domains","volume":"7","author":"Saade","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_10","unstructured":"Curt, T. (2016). Foreign Aid and the Education Sector: Programs and Priorities. Congr. Res. Serv., 1\u201323. Available online: https:\/\/fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/row\/R44676.pdf."},{"key":"ref_11","first-page":"1","article-title":"Blockchain for Humanitarian Action and Development Aid","volume":"3","author":"Zwitter","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. Int. Humanit. Act."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"106588","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compeleceng.2020.106588","article-title":"A Framework to Make Charity Collection Transparent and Auditable Using Blockchain Technology","volume":"83","author":"Farooq","year":"2020","journal-title":"Comput. Electr. Eng."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hsu, C.S., Tu, S.F., and Huang, Z.J. (2020). Design of an E-Voucher System for Supporting Social Welfare Using Blockchain Technology. Sustainability, 12.","DOI":"10.3390\/su12083362"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jia, H.W., and Deng, X.Q. (2018, January 7\u20138). A Preliminary Analysis of the Application of Blockchain in Social Emergency Relief. Proceedings of the 2018 2nd International Conference on Education Management and Applied Social Science(EMASS), Wuhan, China.","DOI":"10.12783\/dtssehs\/emass2018\/20436"},{"key":"ref_15","unstructured":"Nor, R.M., Rahman, M.H., Rahman, T., and Abdullah, A. (2017, January 25\u201327). Blockchain sadaqa mechanism for disaster aid crowdfunding in Zulikha. Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of Computing & Informatics, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rangone, A., and Busolli, L. (2021). Managing Charity 4.0 with Blockchain: A Case Study at the Time of Covid-19. Int. Rev. Public Nonprofit Mark., 1\u201331.","DOI":"10.1007\/s12208-021-00281-8"},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"(2021, May 21). Available online: https:\/\/www.charitywall.org\/."},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"072020","DOI":"10.1088\/1757-899X\/768\/7\/072020","article-title":"Research on Charity System Based on Blockchain","volume":"768","author":"Hu","year":"2020","journal-title":"IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering"},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"120898","DOI":"10.1016\/j.techfore.2021.120898","article-title":"The role of blockchain technology-based social crowdfunding in advancing social value creation","volume":"170","author":"Nguyen","year":"2021","journal-title":"Technol. Forecast. Soc. Chang."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Suciu, G., N\u0103drag, C., Istrate, C., Vulpe, A., Ditu, M.C., and Subea, O. (2018, January 25\u201328). Comparative Analysis of Distributed Ledger Technologies. Proceedings of the 2018 Global Wireless Summit (GWS), Chiang Rai, Thailand.","DOI":"10.1109\/GWS.2018.8686563"},{"key":"ref_21","unstructured":"Dubey, R., Gunasekaran, A., Childe, S.J., T Hazen, B.E.N.J.A.M.I.N., and Papadopoulos, T. (2021). Blockchain for the humanitarian supply chain. Supply Chain. 4.0 Improv. Supply Chain. Anal. Ind. 4.0 Technol., 61."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fischer, M.J. (1983). The consensus problem in unreliable distributed systems (a brief survey). International Conference on Fundamentals of Computation Theory, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-12689-9_99"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gilad, Y., Hemo, R., Micali, S., Vlachos, G., and Zeldovich, N. (2017, January 28). Algorand: Scaling byzantine agreements for cryptocurrencies. Proceedings of the 26th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.1145\/3132747.3132757"},{"key":"ref_24","unstructured":"Al-Riyami, S.S., and Paterson, K.G. (December, January 30). Certificateless public-key cryptography. Proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptology and Information Security, Taipei, Taiwan."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lamport, L. (2019). Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system. Concurrency: The Works of Leslie Lamport, Association for Computing Machinery.","DOI":"10.1145\/3335772.3335934"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Whetten, B., Todd, M., and Simon, K. (1995). A high performance ordered multicast protocol. Theory and Practice in Distributed Systems, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/3-540-60042-6_3"},{"key":"ref_27","unstructured":"Van Steen, M., and Andrew, S. (2017). Tanenbaum. Distributed Systems, Maarten van Steen."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"398","DOI":"10.1093\/comjnl\/44.5.398","article-title":"Consensus-based Timestamps in Distributed Temporal Databases","volume":"44","author":"Nguyen","year":"2001","journal-title":"Comput. J."},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Awerbuch, B. (1987, January 25\u201327). Optimal Distributed Algorithms for Minimum Weight Spanning Tree, Counting, Leader Election, and Related Problems. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, New York, NY, USA.","DOI":"10.1145\/28395.28421"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1145\/3303712","article-title":"Distributed Protocols for Leader Election","volume":"7","author":"Abraham","year":"2019","journal-title":"ACM Trans. Econ. Comput."}],"container-title":["Computers"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-431X\/10\/8\/98\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T06:43:20Z","timestamp":1760165000000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-431X\/10\/8\/98"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,10]]},"references-count":30,"journal-issue":{"issue":"8","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,8]]}},"alternative-id":["computers10080098"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/computers10080098","relation":{},"ISSN":["2073-431X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2073-431X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2021,8,10]]}}}