Increasing Resilience to Natural Disasters with Cash-Based Interventions

This report from Catholic Relief Services funded through the Start Fund learning grant, identifies best practices and highlights the lessons learnt following the completion of projects within Alert 195 Vietnam (Typhoon Damrey).

Typhoon Damrey hit Vietnam and flooded homes, towns and cities across 15 of the country’s central provinces on November 4, 2017. More than 100 people died and 4.3 million were affected as the storm devastated their homes, water infrastructure, food sources and livelihoods. In the early aftermath, at least 400,000 people were in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.

The Start Fund’s rapid disbursement process enabled its members, Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, to quickly launch emergency relief efforts. The speed with which they were able to address survival and livelihoods needs with programs that upheld the dignity of the person, resulted from a combination of two factors: rapid funding mobilization and disbursement through the Start Fund mechanism. Rapid emergency funding mobilization, particularly with the activation of the Start Fund enabled the fastest Cash Transfer Programme (CTP) response at scale in Vietnam to date. The Start Fund demonstrated the efficacy of a rapid response funding mechanism, compared with traditional humanitarian funding mechanisms. The Start Fund supported cash distribution was the first CTP, 21 days after the crisis, and was 30 days faster than CTP from other funding sources.