Reports

Providing cash to meet basic needs - food and other items - requires an assessment of what people need to survive, how much meeting these needs will cost and whether the cash grant is trying to meet those costs…

This Issue Paper focuses on the question of how to monitor and evaluate cash transfer programmes, with special reference to the learning that has emerged from the tsunami response. Some of the key questions that monitoring and evaluation systems should…

Aid agencies implementing cash-based responses to the tsunami mainly used banks or direct payments. The Sri Lankan government used an existing welfare payment system called Samurdhi to distribute cash to tsunami-affected people at a rate of Rs200 per week.…

The aim of this practical guide is to support the implementation of cash programmes in emergencies. It is based on the experience of Oxfam GB over five years (2000-2005) in a variety of disaster contexts. Oxfam GB has used cash…

Sri Lanka had never before experienced a disaster of the magnitude of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004. Over 35,000 people were killed, 516,000 displaced. Some $900 million-worth of assets were destroyed, and around 200,000 people lost their…

The devastating tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on 26 December 2004 killed over 35,000 people, making it the worst natural disaster in the country's recorded history. Over 200,000 people were estimated to have lost their livelihoods, half of them…

This briefing note discusses considerations for in-kind food aid. Using the post-tsunami food assistance as an example, it calls for cash-based assistance instead of in-kind food aid where local conditions are favourable as well as improvements in cash transfer…

This discussion paper attempts to answer to the following question: when does it make sense to give people cash or vouchers in emergencies, rather than in-kind assistance? To this purpose, it looks at the following issues: - The impact of…

Focusing on distribution in natural disasters and/or in relatively peaceful settings, this paper reviews the theoretical underpinnings of a cash-based approach to food emergencies, and presents case-studies of cash distribution drawn from Africa, South Asia and the Balkans. Highlighting both…