What do you leave behind when you are forced to leave your home? Usually a lot more than just a place. Birth certificates, university documents, proof of previous employment, IDs, and all those papers that demonstrate who we are can all be lost or no longer easily available for someone on the move. This loss creates a series of roadblocks to getting a job, medical care, continuing one’s studies, opening a bank account, or claiming humanitarian support.
A new grant of $500,000 from the Gates Foundation will fund an initiative that intends to mitigate these risks with technology, providing Civitas ID with seed capital to build open-source digital infrastructure designed to enable refugees, migrants, and other displaced people among the most marginalized in the world to have secure ownership over and ways to prove all kinds of key personal data. For NGOs delivering assistance to refugees and migrants, there’s an emerging question on everyone’s minds: does having better infrastructure change anything in accessing the resources people require?
Why Digital Identity Matters
While to us it’s just a routine part of our lives, identity documents are essential for displaced persons. An applicant trying to get a job requires their diploma as proof. A student attempting to continue his studies needs an academic record.
To get medical or financial aid, families need an identification document.
If not, they can be victims of many complex procedures because they don’t possess any. Digital identity can be a solution that will offer a means of securely recording and validating their vital information in an electronic form, and people wouldn’t have to rely solely on their physical certificates—validated digital certificates could be available to any person of access and shared and recognized by organizations.
What will the $500,000 grant support?
The grant will support Civitas ID’s work on digital infrastructure designed specifically to help people facing documentation challenges.
The project includes tools that could allow people to:
- Store important digital credentials
- Prove their identity securely
- Keep education or employment records
- Connect with relevant services
- Manage credentials through a digital wallet
- Find opportunities and support in their communities
The project is also based on open-source technology and standards, which could make it easier for different organizations and systems to work together.
That could be particularly useful for displaced people who may move between communities or countries and need to access services in different places.
Why NGOs Should Pay Attention
Supporting displaced people is a big piece of the puzzle for many NGOs. People seeking help and facing so many difficulties will rely on organizations for everything from access to basic healthcare and education to assistance with employment and financial resources. However, actually getting all that done can be hard.
A lack of proper identification can prevent you from being able to register and verify that you are who you say you are and are eligible for the kind of help you need, and the human hours needed to collate and verify such details add time up.
A digital solution could solve a few of those challenges by speeding things up and enabling NGOs to spend more time helping. In our example here, the employment-focused NGO might be able to provide a service to enable displaced individuals to prove their training or work experience with trusted, verifiable credentials to make things easier on both ends.
Technology Is Becoming Part of Humanitarian Work
This development also reflects a larger change in the NGO and humanitarian sector.
Technology is increasingly being used not only for administrative work but also to improve how services reach communities.
Digital identity, online platforms, data systems, and AI-powered tools are becoming part of conversations around humanitarian assistance and development.
For NGOs, this creates opportunities to improve service delivery and reach people more efficiently.
But the goal should not be to introduce technology simply because it is new.
The technology should solve a real problem.
AI Can Help, But People Still Matter
As digital infrastructure becomes more advanced, AI could also play a role in organizing information, identifying service gaps, improving communication, and helping organizations understand community needs.
However, technology cannot replace the human side of humanitarian work.
An algorithm may help identify that a community is struggling to access healthcare, but local NGO workers understand the reasons behind that problem. They know the community, understand local circumstances, and can build the trust needed to provide support.
That human connection remains essential.
Privacy and Security Cannot Be Ignored
There are also important concerns that NGOs must consider.
Digital identity systems involve sensitive personal information. For displaced people, protecting that information can be especially important because sharing the wrong data with the wrong person or organization could create serious risks.
Organizations need to consider:
- Who can access the information?
- How is the data protected?
- Does the person understand how their information will be used?
- Can they control what they share?
- What happens if they do not have a smartphone or reliable internet?
These questions should be considered from the beginning, rather than after a digital system has already been introduced.
What NGOs Can Learn From This
The biggest lesson is that digital transformation should begin with people and their needs, not technology.
NGOs do not need to adopt every new digital tool available.
Instead, organizations can start by identifying common problems in their work and asking whether technology can make those processes easier, safer, or more accessible.
For NGOs working with displaced communities, digital identity could be particularly useful in areas such as the following:
- Employment and skills development
- Education
- Healthcare
- Financial inclusion
- Social protection
- Humanitarian assistance
At the same time, organizations should make sure that people who cannot access digital services are not left behind.
The Bigger Picture for the NGO Sector
The $500,000 Gates Foundation grant may be only one investment, but it points toward a much larger trend.
As digital infrastructure becomes more important in development and humanitarian work, NGOs may increasingly find themselves working alongside technology companies, foundations, governments, and researchers.
This could create new opportunities for partnerships and innovation.
But NGOs also have an important role to play in these conversations. They understand the realities that technology developers may not see from behind a computer screen.
Their experience with communities can help ensure that new digital systems are practical, inclusive, and genuinely useful.
Final Thoughts
Digital, not displacement, fix No technology alone will solve displacement. Technology can’t substitute for humanitarian workers or magic away the complicated roots of displacement. But properly targeted technology can strip away much of the needless barriers people experience as they set about putting their lives back together.
The $500K Gates Foundation grant towards digital infrastructure for the displaced is an example of the ever closer coupling of digital identity and the work of humanitarianism.
What the new grant means for NGOs The message from this Gates grant and others on the horizon: The future in social tech and humanitarianism isn’t about having newer and cooler tools; it’s about deploying digital ethically, securely, and with intent. When tech is designed with community and context in mind, instead of being a purely tech endeavor, it can be a very concrete tool to help people regain access and services and ultimately put themselves back on a path to a better life.
