MANILA – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today signed a  to provide PHP 260 m (US$ 6 m) in cash assistance to 500,000 food insecure people across 50 municipalities of Leyte and Samar in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda.

According to DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman, this partnership with WFP is a proof that during times of adversity, conditional cash transfer programs become a good avenue for humanitarian aid to reach its intended recipients.

A fixed emergency cash grant of PHP1,300 per household per month will be added on top of the beneficiaries’ Pantawid Pamilya cash grants for the months of December this year and January next year.

“The local economy plays an important role in this recovery and in order to put it back on track, the people needs money that they can use to purchase goods – goods that they need in order to survive,” Sec. Soliman said.

The most food insecure households were identified in WFP’s post-‘Yolanda’ assessments among the vulnerable families already identified by the Pantawid Pamilya. In addition to the cash grant from WFP, each family will also receive a one-month supply of rice.

The agreement for cash support through the Pantawid Pamilya marks a step in the strategic evolution of the assistance provided by WFP.

To date, WFP’s has already distributed nearly 6,000MT of rice, 190MT of high-energy biscuits, and 2MT of nutritional products for children, which have been distributed to some 3 million people, in partnership with DSWD and other non-government organizations.

“WFP’s response is centered on three principles: versatility, scale and partnerships. We need to provide the right kind of assistance as circumstance change, and at this point in time, our assessments indicate that a combination of cash support and in-kind rice is an effective approach,” said WFP Philippines Country Director and Representative Praveen Agrawal.

Pantawid Pamilya is a human development program of the Philippine national government that invests in the health and education of poor households primarily of children aged 0-14.