Cash and In-Kind Food Aid Transfers: The Case of Tsunami Emergency Aid in Banda Aceh

In order to be effective, international assistance to alleviate the impact of emergencies in poor countries must meet various criteria, including adequacy and rapidness of response. Assistance can take several different forms, including cash and in-kind assistance, which has given rise to vigorous debate in both theoretical and empirical literature. A significant policy question revolves around the relative merits of cash versus in-kind assistance. Using as an illuminating 'case study' the emergency assistance programs employed in Aceh, Indonesia as part of the relief program to help combat the devastating the 2004 tsunami, this paper considers the arguments surrounding the comparative advantages of cash and in-kind assistance. It is argued that while existing empirical evidence is insufficient to draw categorical conclusions on the comparative merits of cash and in-kind disaster assistance methods in developing countries, available evidence from Aceh suggests that cash and in-kind assistance are complementary rather than competing methods of delivering assistance.