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Responding to tropical storm Sedong

[Photo:ACF]

When tropical storm Sedong hit the Philippines in December 2011, the Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP) through member ACF and with support from ECHO extended its presence in the country in order to fill important gaps in coordination and to provide technical support.

Tropical storm Sedong

From the very first stage of the emergency, the CaLP’s support was appropriate and effective in addressing the needs of stakeholders and filling gaps in coordination.

With markets still accessible and functioning, numerous organizations developed cash-based responses to meet the needs of those affected by disasters.  With many different organizations using different modalities and mechanisms of transfer in the same or in neighboring areas, and in areas where in-kind distributions were also being carried out, there was an immediate need for effective coordination and information management. In addition, and in parallel to the high number of humanitarian and governmental actors involved, the volume of private donations from the entire country was very high. This increased the complexity of context of intervention.

Based on this context and on the needs expressed by those involved in the response to the disaster, the CaLP developed and sustained the following activities:

• Provision of ad-hoc technical support to aid agencies, including methodologies and forms for market assessments, project design advice, information on delivery mechanisms, and monitoring tools. Such support builds on the work that was done by the CaLP in 2011, including the development of analysis, tools, materials and documents specific to the Philippines context.

• Set-up and chair a Cash Working Group (CWG) in order to (1) Ensure the general coordination regarding cash and voucher programming, (2) respond to technical issues, provide guidance and tools to its members; (3) act as a platform to share information and documents about CTP good practices, lessons & recommendation, (4) identify potential synergies.

The CWG will regularly provide its members and each of the clusters with key information such as an analysis of who is doing what, where (3W) in order to identify gaps and overlaps and make recommendations, as well as share key challenges, solutions and lessons learned from the field. The

TWG will also promote the identification of potential areas for synergy and support the analysis of the overall CTP response through the set-up and use of common M&E indicators.

Below: A 3W map showing who, what and where humanitarian actors are using CTP

• Advocate to the cluster leads on the need to increase the consideration currently given to CTP within each cluster, for a better coordination of the activities and analysis of the best response developed to address sector’s needs.

The leadership role that CaLP took within the humanitarian structures has been naturally accepted and supported by all stakeholders, none having the human or financial resources to address the needs, and the CaLP being recognized for its expertise. This critical function still needs to be sustained beyond what the CaLP can ensure at this time, especially to support the coming monitoring and the development of recovery activities, as well as to provide a general analysis and evaluation of the response.

See more on CaLP's work in the Philippines

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