• Grants of US$1,000 paid to tsunami affected
households in Aceh Province, Indonesia,
through the British Red Cross Society (Adams,
2007)
• Grants of up to US$3,000 for women’s group
enterprises in Afghanistan, through UN-Habitat
(UN-Habitat, 2007)
The distribution of cash needs to be done
competently after a thorough needs assessment
to ensure that it is well targeted. Care needs to be
taken to ensure that female-headed households
qualify for and receive payments. Community
organisations may be best placed, following some
capacity building and support, to manage the
distribution of cash in their local areas. It should be
linked to larger-scale community-based savings and
credit schemes that can continue into the future.
Agencies will also need to take account of the
likely role of remittances. Some people affected
by a disaster will probably be in the advantageous
position of having relatives living outside the area
who help by sending money. This supplements
the official cash transfers, and is also helpful in
boosting the local economy generally.
Cash for work
In addition to cash transfers, it is also possible to
pay local people for work in reconstruction. Initially
they might be paid to clear rubble and debris, and
later to repair and rebuild damaged infrastructure
such as roads, drainage channels, bridges, sea and
river defences, sanitation and sewerage, pathways,
and community or market buildings. Opportunity
needs to be taken to employ people who are
still some way from recovering their economic
livelihoods, because they are the most in need of
a boost to their incomes. Some women may need
additional support to ensure they can participate
in the work teams. The work can provide training
opportunities for all, which they could use in
rebuilding their houses later on.
Better still are community contracts in which
communities manage the rebuilding themselves
and receive negotiated lump sum payments from
the government reconstruction agency, international
agency or NGO for carrying out the work.
Community contracting is described in PCR Tool 5:
Learning from the Housing Sector.
Rural infrastructure is usually more basic than
in urban areas, so its reinstatement can probably
be handled almost entirely by rural communities
themselves. In urban areas, rebuilding is likely to
be more complicated and require some supervision
and inspection by a qualified engineer.
Timeline of cash payments
In its reconstruction strategy following the tsunami
in Sri Lanka, the Task Force for Rebuilding
the Nation (TAFREN) tried to illustrate the
Government’s overall strategic plan for the
economic recovery of those affected. The emphasis
would shift between three approaches over time.
The first phase would involve mostly emergency
cash assistance (cash transfers), moving on to
cash for work, with a final stage involving loans for
businesses (‘economic activities’). The diagram
Income
Intermediate
Cash transfers
Short term
Cash for work
Long term
Economic activities
Jan 05
Jan 08
Figure 3. The Government of Sri Lanka’s conceptualization of recovery assistance under
the Rapid Income Recovery Programme.
Source: TAFREN (2005) taken from Adams (2007) p.47
10