The 16 user rights make up the newly launched Presidio Principles: the foundational values for a decentralised future and was developed for over a year by the WEF Global Blockchain Council, which brings together individuals with varying interests and perspectives on the current state and future of blockchain; it was workshopped globally with technologists and civil society.

Early adopters include public and private sector companies, international organizations, NGOs and civil society and global call issued.

The WEF said that the pressure created by the COVID-19 outbreak on global trade systems highlights an urgent need for global co-operation to maintain and strengthen the resilience of international supply chains.

To help organisations improve future pandemic preparedness and accelerate an economic rebound post COVID-19, the WEF released the Redesigning Trust: Blockchain Deployment Toolkit, which enables leaders to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks of the technology. According to the WEF, resilience in supply chains depends on trust, transparency and integrity, which can be improved through the responsible deployment of blockchain technologies that offer a “shared truth”.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for businesses and governments to improve the integrity and provenance of pharmaceutical products and medical supplies, as well as food, goods and industrial and consumer products.

Nine requirements

The WEF said that any implementation of blockchain technology should be approached just as any other new solution an organisation wishes to integrate into its overall operation. Blockchain is one piece of the information technology puzzle that, if deployed correctly, complements the other solutions used every day to carry out routine and mission-critical tasks.

The toolkit lists nine key requirements that organisations typically need to address for any new enterprise solution. The items on this list are grounded in IT best practices and project management principles that are likely already familiar to the reader and include:

• defined business outcomes;
• operational integrity;
• regulatory compliance;
• interoperability;
• security;
• scalability;
• formal governance;
• known and trusted participants; and
• information sharing agreement.

The WEF said that a decentralized system that is nevertheless owned by a large buyer is the best way to give suppliers the privacy they need and buyers the visibility they want. A blockchain with either private or public permissions meets this criteria. When created properly, suppliers can audit their data-sharing permissions directly on their own blockchain node.

At the same time, their data can be securely distributed to others in the blockchain network without requiring the point-to-point integration that centralized systems do. According to the WEF, this has therefore solved a key technology problem in getting suppliers to participate in supply chain visibility initiatives.

The WEF said:

"Blockchain is the ideal technology to ensure that data on performance and risk, which underpin all supply chain finance transactions, can be shared in an authenticated manner with financiers and other parties to a transaction, even when there is no direct relationship between them.

"Using blockchain, buyers can, for example, use payment commitments on the blockchain as alternatives to a letter of credit, pay suppliers later, reduce cost of goods sold, and insulate themselves from supplier bankruptcy. Suppliers, in turn, recognize revenue sooner and replace their current supply chain finance arrangements with much lower financing terms. These benefits multiply as the network grows. The result is a financing ecosystem that makes data sharing pay for itself."

On blockchain and distributed ledger technology, the WEF listed the following initiatives:

• The "Blockchain Beyond the Hype" toolkit is helping organisations make informed and responsible decisions regarding investments and deployments of this potentially transformative technology.
• Over 45 central banks collaborated to tackle regulatory, security and inclusion challenges with the world’s first Central Bank Digital Currency Deployment Toolkit.
• Companies and governments can adopt the WEF's framework to ensure the interoperable, responsible and inclusive deployment of blockchains for supply chains, which has been piloted in multiple industries, geographies, and use cases – including with partners representing 85% of the world’s cocoa supply chain, Hitachi executives, 60 transport ministers from across the world and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) blockchain ecosystem through a new Blockchain Governance Accelerator in collaboration with C4IR UAE.
• New initiatives are using blockchain to combat corruption, co-designing effective cryptocurrency governance standards, creating effective blockchain regulation across sectors, aligning stakeholders behind a Blockchain Bill of Rights to protect users, and accelerating the effective use of smart contracts.