Visa Partners with Cash Learning Partnership
As an extension of our humanitarian aid commitment and our experience in the disbursement of money, Visa has teamed up with a consortium of leading international humanitarian organizations to make the distribution of cash aid for disaster relief faster, more effective and more secure. The partnership with this consortium—the Cash Learning Partnership—will study how to increase preparedness for disasters by reducing the time and resources required to distribute relief funds to people impacted by emergencies, beginning with a focus project in the Philippines.
In times of disaster, humanitarian organizations perform detailed needs assessments in order to inform disaster response and early recovery efforts. These assessments increasingly are including consideration of the capacity of local markets to meet the needs of people impacted by crisis. In circumstances where local markets can meet demands, cash transfers–or distribution of money to individuals–provide an opportunity for beneficiaries to purchase goods directly from local vendors, creating a ripple effect in the economy. As a result, more and more relief agencies are choosing this approach.
The Cash Learning Partnership (CaLP), a consortium formed after the 2005 southeast Asia tsunami and whose Steering Committee includes Oxfam Great Britain, the British Red Cross, Save the Children, Action Against Hunger / ACF International and the Norwegian Refugee Council, is focused on improving the quality of programs whose approach includes the use of cash transfers whether in physical cash, paper voucher or electronic payments form.
This collaborative project is part of Visa’s broader commitment to be a global corporate citizen in times of humanitarian need, including helping deliver a transparent, secure way to distribute aid. The work also contributes to our core focus on financial inclusion, as in some circumstances the distribution of cash transfers to those in need can create an “inclusion moment”—the chance to help those often underserved by financial services begin to have access to financial tools.
To learn more about the role of cash transfers in humanitarian response, visit www.CashLearning.org.
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