Direct Cash Transfers to Address Loss and Damage: Principles for effective response

Cash transfers are a highly impactful investment in addressing loss and damage: a tool that is effective, flexible, localised and scalable enough to respond to the widespread and individualized impacts of loss and damage – economic and non-economic – in ways which put affected individuals  and communities in the driving seat. Our vision is for direct, unconditional cash to be a major pillar of global loss and damage support. GiveDirectly is a nonprofit that sends money directly to the world’s poorest communities. Based on our experience of delivering loss and damage support to survivors of Cyclone Freddy in Malawi, and from reaching more than 1.6 million people with direct cash transfers, this note sets out what good loss and damage programming looks like from our perspective and how direct cash helps to deliver on that. These principles have been endorsed by the Loss & Damage Collaboration.