Early Recovery & Market Systems

Global Communities’ early recovery approach is rooted in the following principles.

Market-aware
We conduct market assessments before beginning our work to identify local actors, opportunities and barriers and continue to conduct assessments and adapt with the fluidity of the context. Where immediate direct services are required to mitigate crisis, we do so with an eye to transitioning to market facilitation as soon as possible. For humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable, we prioritize cash transfers over procurement of aid commodities to support local markets where they are functioning.

Locally-driven
We use our local networks and economic strengthening strategies to support and scale adaptation and innovation by local actors, such as traders, mobile money operations and financial service providers. Similarly, we draw on our robust relationships with local communities and government leaders to assist them with crafting key messaging, co-strategizing policy roll-out and compliance efforts, and providing appropriate capacity building measures.

Systems-focused
While providing support to households when needed, Global Communities simultaneously focuses on rebuilding the capacity and resilience of market institutions, both private sector and governmental. For example, we partner with small and medium enterprises, including cooperatives and their apex organizations, in the agricultural supply chain to leverage their positions as buyers of the production of smallholder farmers. Taking a systems lens also means considering the needs sparked by the crisis — basic food supplies, water and sanitation services, protection and health supplies or distance education — and working with local entrepreneurs to meet them through market-based means.

Do No Harm
All of Global Communities’ programming is designed to Do No Harm. In early response programming, we thoughtfully design and implement activities that safeguard the health of participants and staff and avoid exacerbating existing tensions or economic inequalities. We leverage local markets for humanitarian response wherever possible rather than replacing them with imported assistance.

Gender and inclusion
Global Communities seeks to identify the needs and constraints of the most vulnerable or marginalized groups in a particular context, including women, internally displaced persons and refugees, minorities, or people with disabilities. Women, particularly those who are the sole income earners in their households, are vulnerable given that their economic activities are frequently in the informal sector or in services and sectors particularly affected by disasters or conflict.

Sequencing and layering
Global Communities engages with local stakeholders to identify an explicit sequence and deliberate layering of targeted, relevant and feasible interventions that can have the greatest impact in sustaining development and on the incomes and well-being of people experiencing poverty and other vulnerable groups.