Oxfam Health and Food Security: Cash interventions in Emergencies

Oxfam GB has used cash interventions as part of its response to the needs of communities affected by droughts, floods, hurricanes, and cyclones, and the needs of displaced people and people experiencing chronic food insecurity as a result of protracted conflict and/or poverty. This guide makes extensive reference to responses to the tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean region in December 2004. Most of Oxfam’s experience relates to cash-for-work programmes, but in the past three years Oxfam staff have increasingly implemented cash grants and voucher programmes. Many other agencies are implementing cash programmes; when possible and appropriate, we have drawn on their materials to inform these guidelines. However, this book is mainly based on Oxfam’s experience.

All cash programmes have the following broad aim: to increase the purchasing power of disaster-affected people to enable them to meet their minimum needs for food and non-food items; or to assist in the recovery of people’s livelihoods.

In reality, food aid dominates emergency response. However, food aid, as a resource transfer, is sometimes highly inefficient. It is not always the right response, even when the disaster-affected population are unable to meet their immediate food needs. Oxfam’s guiding principles for response to food crises, produced in November 2002, promote alternatives to food aid where appropriate and feasible. The alternatives include cash vouchers and food vouchers, cash-for-work programmes, cash grants, market support, and production support (for agriculture and livestock). According to the Sphere Minimum Standards for Disaster Response, in a guidance note on the first food-security standard:


General food distribution may not be appropriate when

Adequate supplies of food are available in the area (and the need is to
address obstacles to access).
A localised lack of food availability can be addressed by the support of
market systems.

Cash-transfer interventions are increasingly considered by donors and
humanitarian agencies as an appropriate emergency response to meet
immediate needs for food and non-food items, and to support the recovery
of livelihoods. Cash interventions can be used to meet any need for which
there is a private market. The cash transfers described in this book are
intended to enable recipients to obtain goods and services directly from
local traders and service providers, rather than from an aid agency. The aid
agency is not directly involved in the procurement, transportation, or
provision of goods and services. Cash transfers often therefore meet
people’s needs more quickly than commodity distribution, because they
reduce the logistics involved. At the same time, they stimulate the local
economy. Moreover, cash transfers are more dignified than in-kind
distributions (of items such as food aid, jerry cans, cooking stoves, seeds,
and tools), because they give disaster-affected populations the option of
spending according to their own priorities.

Cash grants The provision of money to targeted households, either as
emergency relief to meet their basic needs for food and non-food
items, or as grants to buy assets essential for the recovery of
their livelihoods. Cash grants for livelihood recovery differ from
micro-finance in that beneficiaries are not expected to repay the
grants, and the financial services provided are not expected to
continue in the long term. Both cash grants and micro-finance
may be accompanied by training to upgrade the recipients’ skills.

Cash for work
Payment for work on public or community works programmes.
The cash wages help people to meet their basic needs, and the
community project helps to improve or rehabilitate community
services or infrastructure. Cash for work differs from casual labour
in that it is targeted at the poorest or most food-insecure
members of the community.

Vouchers
Vouchers provide access to pre-defined commodities. They can be
exchanged in a special shop or from traders in fairs and markets.
The vouchers may have either a cash value or a commodity value.
Vouchers have been most commonly used for the provision of
seeds and livestock, but they can also be used to provide food.

source:
www.oxfam.org.uk