Empowering pastoralists in Kenya - The 6th DIVA Donate campaign
By Wladimir Weinbender at
We are excited to announce the launch of the 6th DIVA Donate campaign, continuing our mission to use web3 technology for anticipatory cash transfers that support pastoralist communities in Kenya ahead of drought.
This campaign builds on the foundation of earlier efforts while introducing an innovative progressive payout design.
The funds from the 5th campaign which were left unreleased due to favorable vegetation conditions ($36,673 in total) have been rolled over, highlighting the amplified impact of every dollar contributed. As before, we utilize Ripple's stablecoin RLUSD on Ethereum as the payout token, demonstrating its applicability in humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
✨ About the campaign
In the 6th campaign, we continue to target pastoralist households in northern Laikipia, Kenya, who rely on livestock as their primary source of income and food security. These communities are acutely vulnerable to climate change, with rainfall variability often leading to pasture shortages and livestock losses.
Our objective remains the same: to provide timely drought relief through parametric cash transfers linked to vegetation health, measured via the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).
The location of the Laikipia County is highlighted in below map:
Figure 1: Kenya map. Source: NDMA Reports
🆕 Key change to previous campaigns
In previous campaigns, NDVI was assessed once at the end of the rainy season. If vegetation levels were insufficient, a payout was triggered. This setup created only a single payout opportunity per campaign.
The 6th campaign introduces a multi-checkpoint payout structure:
- The Oct-Dec 2025 rainy season is divided into nine observation points, spaced every ten days.
- At each checkpoint, NDVI is compared against a fixed threshold of 0.55, a level identified through historical data as indicative of healthy vegetation conditions (see “Payout threshold calibration” section for details).
- If NDVI falls below this threshold, a payout is triggered.
Each triggered checkpoint disburses approximately $7.85 to each of the 518 participating pastoralists, with a maximum potential of $71 (9 x $7.85) across the season.
🌍 Why this matters
Timelier support
The new design ensures that relief can arrive earlier in the season if forage is scarce, rather than waiting until December. Healthy vegetation and forage for livestock during the rainy season is crucial. It enables herds to recover from the preceding dry season and build the reserves needed to withstand the subsequent dry period. By linking payouts directly to vegetation levels throughout the season, the new model makes aid both timelier and more relevant.
Gaining beneficiary trust
Further, by moving from a single event to a progressive payout model, we address the trust problem that insurance-type programs like DIVA Donate face. Because such programs only pay out in rare adverse events by design, participants can lose confidence when seasons pass without support. Indeed, across the five campaigns to date, a payout was triggered only once.. Introducing multiple checkpoints within a season increases the likelihood of disbursements, albeit in smaller amounts per event, making support more tangible and reinforcing trust in the DIVA Donate initiative.
Progressive payouts remain largely untested in both insurance and anticipatory action because traditional payout cycles are too costly to administer. With blockchain-based automation, however, DIVA Donate can demonstrate that progressive payout models are affordable but can also make such products more attractive and impactful.
💸 Payout threshold calibration
To determine the payout trigger, we analyzed historical NDVI data alongside on-ground assessment reports. As illustrated in the vegetation health map for Laikipia North, the years 2019 and 2020 were characterized by very good vegetation conditions during the Oct-Dec period.
Figure 2: Vegetation health map for Laikipia North. Source: NDMA Report Laikipia, December 2023
The NDVI curves for 2019 and 2020 are presented below. Both remained consistently above the 0.55 threshold during the Oct-Dec season (see green support line). This empirical evidence supports the use of 0.55 as the payout trigger level for the campaign.
Figure 3: NDVI in the years 2019 and 2020 for Laikipia North. Source: FEWS dataset
📊 Historical example: 2023 Oct-Dec season
To illustrate the impact of the multi-checkpoint approach, consider the Oct-Dec 2023 period in Laikipia North. As shown in the NDVI chart below, the NDVI was below the threshold from October until mid-November, and improved by December (NDVI > 0.55). Under the previous single-checkpoint design, no payout would have been triggered because the end-of-season NDVI was healthy, despite early stress that left animals with less time to build reserves for the subsequent dry period.
Figure 3: NDVI in 2023 for Laikipia North. Source: FEWS dataset
With the new progressive, multi-checkpoint design, such a scenario would result in early, smaller disbursements at the beginning of the season, and no payouts once conditions improve.
🔧 Technical setup
To implement this structure, donor contributions are equally distributed across nine payout pools, one for each checkpoint. For example, if a donor contributes $18 before the first checkpoint, then $2 is allocated to each pool. From the donor’s perspective, the process remains unchanged: one simple deposit transaction. This highlights the flexibility of the underlying DIVA Protocol that powers the DIVA Donate platform.
The table below outlines the nine checkpoints and their corresponding reporting dates. Reporting dates are set 5-9 days after each checkpoint to accommodate NDVI data publication delays and to ensure that payouts can be processed during working hours. This second point reflects one of the key learnings from previous campaigns: timely execution requires both reliable data availability and operational readiness.
| # | Checkpoint date | Reporting date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 Oct 2025 | Wed, 15 Oct 2025, 9 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 2 | 20 Oct 2025 | Mo, 27 Oct 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 3 | 30 Oct 2025 | Tue, 4 Nov 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 4 | 10 Nov 2025 | Mo, 17 Nov 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 5 | 20 Nov 2025 | Tue, 25 Nov 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 6 | 31 Nov 2025 | Mo, 8 Dec 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 7 | 10 Dec 2025 | Tue, 16 Dec 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 8 | 20 Dec 2025 | Mo, 29 Dec 2025, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
| 9 | 31 Dec 2025 | Tue, 6 Jan 2026, 8 AM CET (10 AM EAT) |
🏆 Participation and rewards
Donors can participate via the divadonate.xyz campaign page by depositing RLUSD on Ethereum into the campaign escrow.
As before, contributors will receive a POAP digital certificate to commemorate their donation. Contributions of $75 or more will be recognized with a golden-ring POAP, while smaller amounts receive the silver edition.
🔢 DIVA Donate impact so far
Since inception, DIVA Donate has:
- Launched 6 campaigns (with 5 now completed)
- Secured contributions of $83,219 from Mercy Corps Ventures, Arbitrum, Ripple and DIVA Protocol community members
- Released $11,744 (14%) as drought relief payouts
You can find those statistics also in our docs.
💎 Join the cause
The DIVA Donate team is actively seeking partners who share our vision of harnessing blockchain technology to provide effective support to vulnerable communities affected by climate change. Given the versatile nature of DIVA Protocol, the smart contract-based infrastructure powering DIVA Donate, the donation payout can be linked to virtually any metric and adapted to many different use cases. If you represent an organization passionate about this concept, reach out and join forces to provide more efficient and effective support to those in need.
🌔 Conclusion
The 6th DIVA Donate campaign reflects both continuity and innovation: continuity in our commitment to pastoralist resilience, and innovation in the way we deliver timely and reliable support.
By introducing nine observation checkpoints and adopting a progressive payout model, we increase the probability of payouts, align them more closely with real needs, and strengthen confidence in anticipatory financing.
We are deeply grateful to our donors and partners for their ongoing trust and support. Together, we can continue to build resilience for vulnerable communities facing the realities of climate change.
🍀 About DIVA Donate
DIVA Donate is an innovative platform that leverages blockchain technology to enable parametric conditional donations for disaster relief. It is a joint initiative between two entities united around the mission of empowering vulnerable communities affected by climate change:
- Fortune Connect: A digital resilience provider specifically targeting microfinance customers in Kenya which provides economic and climate resilience ecosystem digitally driven solutions that have reached 50k+ customers including small-holder farmers and pastoralists.
- DIVA Technologies AG: Developer of DIVA Protocol, a smart contract-based system for creating and managing custom derivative contracts peer-to-peer.