{
  "title": "Digital Dollars for Online Tea",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/03/fighting-pandemic-disruption-with-innovation-dorst",
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  "summary": "The Bahamas, Sri Lanka, and Uganda fight the pandemic’s disruption with innovation including quickly creating a digital marketplace for tea.",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Overview",
      "content": "- Innovators in The Bahamas, Sri Lanka, and Uganda responded to COVID-19 disruption with rapid digital solutions that extended financial access, preserved critical markets, and created new e-commerce channels.\n- Common enabling factor: an environment that allowed rapid, homegrown innovation to scale and serve underserved populations."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The Bahamas: first digital currency",
      "content": "- Launched in October 2020: the world’s first central bank digital currency—the sand dollar.\n- Design and features:\n  - Pegged one-to-one to the Bahamian dollar.\n  - Uses a blockchain-backed digital token.\n  - Issued and regulated by The Bahamas’ central bank.\n  - Accessible to people and businesses to buy and sell goods and services and send money.\n  - Does not require a bank account or a mobile phone for use (though most transactions use mobile phones).\n- Motivations and context:\n  - The Bahamas territory is spread out over 700 islands, making ATMs and branches unprofitable on remote islands.\n  - Extreme weather events increase infrastructure costs and exacerbate lack of access.\n  - The need to serve the unbanked and underbanked and to modernize the payment system.\n  - Accelerants for rollout: 2019’s Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic.\n- Early rollout and uptake:\n  - Following pilots, central bank distributed sand dollars to commercial banks, payment system providers, and money transfer operators.\n  - Funds are placed in clients’ digital wallets with access limits and transaction thresholds.\n  - Circulation level (early days): $130,000 worth of sand dollars in circulation compared with $500 million Bahamian dollars.\n  - Reported user benefits: ease, faster turnaround, lower costs, no fees or transaction costs in some use cases, and safety of cashless transactions."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Sri Lanka: digitalizing a 125-year-old tea auction",
      "content": "- Context and importance:\n  - Tea industry employs millions; 10 percent of Sri Lankans derive an income from the tea industry.\n  - Tea exports generated more than $1.2 billion in export revenues in 2020.\n  - The Ceylon tea auction had operated for more than 125 years, convening twice a week at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.\n- Crisis and response:\n  - COVID-19 prevented the weekly live auction from convening, halting sales and jeopardizing millions of livelihoods.\n  - A task force including the Sri Lanka Tea Board, technical experts, government, brokers, and auctioneers collaborated to build a digital solution.\n- Technical and operational rollout:\n  - Local IT company CICRA Holdings led technical development and worked with brokers to translate live-auction dynamics into an e-platform.\n  - Training: within days, about 300 people participated in simulated training programs, with sessions running up to the night before launch.\n  - Deployment timeline: built a solution and launched the first digital auction on April 4, 2020.\n- Reported outcomes:\n  - The digital auction is COVID-safe, faster, more strategic, cost-effective, and yields higher prices.\n  - Improvements in transparency, efficiency, and reduced duplication of work.\n  - Continuity of sales allowed estates to continue operations and pay workers; pluckers reported receiving salaries during the pandemic."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Uganda: SafeBoda’s pivot to e-commerce and financial inclusion",
      "content": "- Pre-pandemic context:\n  - SafeBoda launched in 2015 as a safer motorcycle-taxi (boda boda) service connecting riders and drivers through a mobile app.\n  - In 2017 SafeBoda introduced a wallet to document drivers’ income, expanding access to financial services for informal-sector drivers.\n- Pandemic shock and rapid pivot:\n  - When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, mobility restrictions grounded vehicles and commerce stalled.\n  - SafeBoda partnered with local vendors and UN Capital Development Fund and digital experts to launch a new digital service, Shop, within two weeks.\n- Scale and reach:\n  - SafeBoda app has more than 1 million downloads.\n  - Platform connects customers to nearly 1,000 food vendors, 350 shops, 16 markets, and 21 United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) pharmacies through 20,000 moto drivers in Kampala.\n- Reported impacts:\n  - Enabled access to food, medicine, and income-generating deliveries during lockdown.\n  - Helped vendors increase earnings—examples include paying rent and school fees.\n  - Drivers reported increased earnings from rides plus deliveries.\n  - The service reduced exposure to COVID-19 through cashless, minimally invasive transactions and stimulated the local digital economy."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Cross-cutting lessons and implications",
      "content": "- Urgent need plus entrepreneurial drive can accelerate technology adoption and institutional innovation.\n- Critical success factors observed:\n  - Strong public–private collaboration (e.g., central bank with payment providers; tea board with IT firms and brokers; SafeBoda with UN and local vendors).\n  - Rapid prototyping, training, and iterative deployment (days to weeks).\n  - Design choices that prioritize inclusivity (works without bank accounts or mobile phones in some cases; documents informal incomes).\n  - Crisis conditions can catalyze long-delayed modernization (e.g., 20 years of discussion around digital tea auctions accelerated into days).\n- Outcomes for underserved populations:\n  - Extended financial access in remote and informal contexts.\n  - Preservation of livelihoods and continuity of critical commodity markets.\n  - Creation of new revenue streams and improved transparency and efficiency in market mechanisms.\n\nSTEVEN DORST, March 2021 — Digital Dollars for Online Tea, F&D\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- بيع الشاي عبر الإنترنت مقابل دولارات رقمية\n  - بيع الشاي عبر الإنترنت مقابل دولارات رقمية (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - بيع الشاي عبر الإنترنت مقابل دولارات رقمية (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 数字货币在线上茶叶市场找到用武之地 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷\n  - 数字货币在线上茶叶市场找到用武之地 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 数字货币在线上茶叶市场找到用武之地 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Digital Dollars for Online Tea – IMF F&D\n  - Digital Dollars for Online Tea – IMF F&D (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Digital Dollars for Online Tea – IMF F&D (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Dólares digitales y té en línea ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021\n  - Dólares digitales y té en línea ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Dólares digitales y té en línea ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Цифровые доллары за чай в режиме «онлайн» – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года\n  - Цифровые доллары за чай в режиме «онлайн» – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Цифровые доллары за чай в режиме «онлайн» – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2021/03/fighting-pandemic-disruption-with-innovation-dorst"
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    "Authors: STEVEN DORST",
    "Published: March 1, 2021",
    "Innovators in The Bahamas, Sri Lanka, and Uganda responded to COVID-19 disruption with rapid digital solutions that extended financial access, preserved critical markets, and created new e-commerce channels.",
    "Common enabling factor: an environment that allowed rapid, homegrown innovation to scale and serve underserved populations.",
    "Launched in October 2020: the world’s first central bank digital currency—the sand dollar.",
    "Design and features:",
    "Motivations and context:",
    "Early rollout and uptake:",
    "Context and importance:",
    "Crisis and response:",
    "Technical and operational rollout:",
    "Reported outcomes:",
    "Pre-pandemic context:",
    "Pandemic shock and rapid pivot:",
    "Scale and reach:",
    "Reported impacts:",
    "Urgent need plus entrepreneurial drive can accelerate technology adoption and institutional innovation.",
    "Critical success factors observed:",
    "Outcomes for underserved populations:",
    "**بيع الشاي عبر الإنترنت مقابل دولارات رقمية**",
    "**数字货币在线上茶叶市场找到用武之地 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2021年3月号·第58卷**",
    "**Digital Dollars for Online Tea – IMF F&D**",
    "**Dólares digitales y té en línea ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2021**",
    "**Цифровые доллары за чай в режиме «онлайн» – Финансы и развитие – март 2021 года**"
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