Cash Transfers for Disaster Response: Lessons from Tropical Cyclone Winston

Mansur, Aisha; Doyle, Jesse Jon Gerome; Ivaschenko, Oleksiy

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3143459

Cited by 10 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In response to the disaster, the government provided a post-disaster CT (top-up benefit) to beneficiaries of regular CT schemes, 4 in addition to other types of postdisaster assistance (Mansur et al, 2018). The post-disaster CT was equivalent to about three months of the regular CT; it was given to all registered beneficiaries, irrespective of whether they resided in areas that were heavily, lightly, or not affected.…”

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides the post-disaster CT, the government provided other forms of assistance that can be broadly divided into three categories: in-kind benefits, vouchers, and special access to savings from public pension funds (Mansur et al, 2018).…”

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The vouchers had to be used for repairs or reconstruction, and the amount depended on the extent of the damage incurred: FJD 1,500 (USD 750) for houses with partial roofing damage; FJD 3,000 (USD 1,500) for houses with extreme roofing damage; and FJD 7,000 (USD 3,500) for houses that were destroyed (Mansur et al, 2018). The government introduced the Help for Homes initiative, which provided a total of FJD 70 million (USD 35 million) in vouchers to low-income households that were damaged or destroyed by the cyclone.…”

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within the first two months of the disaster, 170,000 applications were approved, injecting around FJD 250.2 million (USD 125.1 million)-equivalent to 3 per cent of GDP-into the economy (Mansur et al, 2018). Withdrawals were authorised for a period of 60 days.…”

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The post-disaster CT was equivalent to about three months of the regular CT; it was given to all registered beneficiaries, irrespective of whether they resided in areas that were heavily, lightly, or not affected. 5 Postdisaster CTs were distributed on 18 March 2016, about one month after TC Winston pummelled Fiji (Mansur et al, 2018).…”

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Cash transfers' effect on government support: the case of Fiji

Ríos¹,

Ivaschenko

Doyle

2019

Disasters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While some scholars have found that government post-disaster assistance supports the incumbent, others have shown that incumbent effects among beneficiaries are imperceptible or negative. This article contributes to this debate by using a regression discontinuity design of households affected by Tropical Cyclone Winston in Fiji to show that the type of assistance provided is an important variable in understanding the effects of aid on perceptions of the government. Residents of Fiji who received a post-disaster cash transfer are up to 20 per cent more likely to be very satisfied with the government than are those who did not. The probability further increases if the cash transfer was provided along with in-kind benefits or vouchers, but it is not affected if beneficiaries were also encouraged to use their own pension savings. This paper provides evidence in favour of the 'attentive citizen' theory by demonstrating that beneficiaries actively appraise government responses; it also reveals possible effects of elite capture on the relationship between the government and beneficiaries.

show abstract

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Fiji's Casementioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Cash transfers' effect on government support: the case of Fiji

Ríos¹,

Ivaschenko

Doyle

2019

Disasters

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes, Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal

Billon¹,

Suji²,

Baniya³

et al. 2020

Development and Change

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The political economy literature on post‐disaster reconstruction tends to contrast ‘disaster capitalism’ narratives denouncing the predatory character of neoliberal rebuilding, and ‘building back better’ policies supporting market‐driven reconstruction. This article seeks to provide a more nuanced account, developing the concept of ‘disaster financialization’ through a case study of household‐level changes experienced through processes of post‐earthquake reconstruction in Nepal. The concept of disaster financialization describes not only the integration of disaster‐affected households into the cash‐based logic of reconstruction instituted by donors and government authorities, but also the financialization of their lives, social relations and subjectivities. It is a transitive process involving a shift into financialized mechanisms of disaster prevention, adaptation and recovery. Analysing contrasting experiences across three earthquake‐affected districts in Nepal, this study proposes disaster financialization as an integrative term through which to understand the simultaneous acceleration of monetization, the leveraging of cash incentives by donors and government to ‘build back better’, and the flurry of financial transactions associated with reconstruction processes. While some aspects of disaster financialization have had negative social impacts, such as debt‐related anxieties and a breakdown of voluntary labour exchanges hurting the most vulnerable, the process has taken on variegated forms, with equally variegated effects, reflecting household characteristics and interactions with financial institutions.

show abstract

Building Back Better

Hallegatte¹,

Rentschler²,

Walsh³

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cash Transfers for Disaster Response: Lessons from Tropical Cyclone Winston

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

Cash transfers' effect on government support: the case of Fiji

Cash transfers' effect on government support: the case of Fiji

Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes, Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal

Building Back Better

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About