The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an electronic food voucher pilot project — the first of its kind in the world to use mobile phone technology — to aid 1,000 Iraqi refugee families in Syria.

Iraqi refugees living in Damascus will receive a text message on their mobiles providing a code enabling them to cash in all or part of the “virtual voucher” at selected government shops. They will be able to exchange their electronic vouchers for rice, wheat flour, lentils, chickpeas, oil and canned fish, as well as cheese and eggs — items that cannot usually be included in conventional aid baskets.

Read the story at http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/wfp-launches-mobile-phone-based-food-voucher-pilot-iraqi-refugees-syria