Visa and Oxfam America expand pre-disaster financial support programme

A proactive approach and mobile-based payments

B-READY unites parametric forecasting with community inputs to provide humanitarian assistance to individuals, communities, and businesses before a disaster strikes. Visa and Oxfam America intend to scale B-READY to create a mobile-based payment solution infrastructure to digitise humanitarian payments to help families, individuals, and small businesses protect themselves and their assets before a disaster.

B-READY and Visa's strategic integration for global resilience

From 1970 to 2019, 50% of all disasters and 74% of all reported economic loss globally resulted from weather, climate, and water hazards. Without action, it is estimated that the impacts of climate change will push an additional 100.7 million people into poverty by 2030 globally compared to 2020.

By integrating Visa Direct, which provides a single point of access to billions of endpoints helping to transform global money movement, and Visa Government Prepaid, B-READY will be able to help build resiliency and decrease the impact of emergencies on people, homes, businesses, livelihoods, and governments.

Officials from Oxfam America said they know that climate change, poverty, and inequality are linked. Disasters disproportionately impact the most marginalised people, worsening inequality and heightening the need to provide financial assistance to those who need it the most. They look forward to scaling B-READY with Visa to improve disaster preparedness and recovery for at-risk communities worldwide.

Innovating humanitarian finance

Anticipatory action and digital cash transfers are a significant part of the future of humanitarian finance, however, the lack of early warning systems linked to digital cash transfers limits the advance of anticipatory action. Reducing vulnerability to disasters requires innovation, and the collaboration aims to integrate three innovations for global impact:

• Anticipatory action is advanced humanitarian response: Anticipatory action can help reduce the need for humanitarian response post-disaster, and timely pre-emptive cash delivery can be effective for driving impact;

• Money in the hands of those who need it most: Direct disbursement of funds to people in a crisis can help strengthen communities and systems and provide recipients with decision-making power and agency at a difficult time;

• Digital solutions are a key into the future: Humanitarian digital cash transfers can also help drive broader digital financial inclusion for previously unbanked people.

Oxfam America and Visa have a track record of collaborating to innovate in humanitarian response and digital financial inclusion. They worked together to disburse funds efficiently, safely, and transparently to disaster affected populations, starting with Visa digitising humanitarian payments during Oxfam's response to super typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, improving disaster preparedness and recovery of at-risk communities by addressing multiple barriers to financial inclusion.

B-READY was founded in the Philippines in 2019, providing cash grants to families and individuals three days after the landfall of Typhoon Ursula. It has since expanded to reach North Darfur, Sudan, and Indonesia.