Earthquake emergency cash response - May 2023
Key highlights: Emergency cash assistance to earthquake-affected families caring for children with disabilities - Hama Governorate
Highlights
This report presents the findings of the rapid Post-Distribution Monitoring (PDM) survey, which was conducted among earthquake-affected families who benefitted from UNICEF’s emergency cash assistance in Hama governorate.
The household survey was conducted among families enrolled in the Integrated Social Protection Programme for Children with Disabilities who have been directly affected by the earthquake. When the earthquake hit Hama on 6 February 2023, 3,094 families (over 20,000 people) were benefitting from the programme. Of those, 748 families (or 24 per cent) were directly impacted by the earthquake and received a cash top-up of USYP 1.54 million.
The rapid PDM survey was conducted to understand how families have used the cash top-up and to gauge their level of satisfaction with the emergency response.
Key highlights include:
- Almost half of the cash was used for home repairs and rent. The top expenditure with the cash top-up was for house repairs (36 per cent). This indicates that the cash was used to address new humanitarian needs directly resulting from the earthquake.
- Eighty per cent of beneficiaries have used some of the cash for house repairs, confirming the relevance and targeting approach of the cash response.
- One-quarter of the cash assistance was used by families for health-related expenditures. The significant amount of cash used for health highlights the high level of pre-existing vulnerabilities among beneficiaries and indicate that the earthquake has further aggravated poverty and vulnerability of families caring for children with disabilities.
- The share of the cash used for food was unusually small (7 per cent only).
- The use of the cash was very quick. On average, families spent the cash in 4.9 days.
- There was high level of satisfaction among beneficiaries with the cash response.
