Locations
UNDP’s Giving Facility
for Flood Relief and Livelihoods support
UNDP Sri Lanka has established a Giving Facility to mobilize funding for flood relief and livelihoods support in response to Cyclone Ditwah.
The Facility offers:
- A trusted mechanism for immediate livelihood relief
- Ready-to-fund early recovery and resilience pathways
- Strong alignment with Government and UN coordination mechanisms
- Transparent and accountable procurement, delivery and reporting
This mechanism builds on UNDP’s operational experience, private sector engagement track record, and Phase 1 success which mobilized over USD 6 million during Sri Lanka’s 2022 crisis.
Partnership Pillars: Relief to Recovery
- Cash-for-Work (CfW) for Community Clean-Up & Essential Rehabilitation prioritizing women and youth. This includes debris removal in homes, marketplaces, and public spaces, with cleaning and rehabilitation of community assets (wells, community centers, farm access roads), and restoration of basic infrastructure that enables livelihoods (irrigation points, storage spaces).
- Catalytic micro-grants for flood-affected informal micro-entrepreneurs (e.g., market vendors, home-based producers, repair service providers, farmers). This should be a fast disbursement to prevent prolonged income loss and be flexible to cover urgent needs such as raw materials, tool replacement for farming and food processing, seedbank replenishment, livestock feed, or mobile vending setups.
- Practical business continuity supports flood-affected MSMEs to stabilize and resume operations. This includes the provision of temporary workspaces for enterprises whose premises are damaged and the purchase of essential equipment for repair (machinery, tools, cold storage, agro-tools, processing equipment).
- Immediate skilling of CfW participants covering occupational safety (PPE use, hazard identification, safe movement in damaged structures), quality standards for basic repairs and community asset rehabilitation, and “Build back better” basics relevant to local livelihoods (flood-resilient storage, raised shelving, safe food handling, resilient home-gardening practices).
- Rapid deployment of mobile restoration teams to ensure people can regain access to their financial identities and assets, in partnership with banks, cooperatives, and financial institutions.
- Market re-establishment: pop-up/weekly markets with anchor firms; re-establishing damaged markets to reconnect producers. Asset replacement and climate-smart upgrades for agriculture, fisheries and services (e.g., pumps, cold storage, dryers, incubators), targeted at women-headed households and youth.
- Sector-specific asset replacement and climate-smart upgrades: upland cultivation (seed varieties, tools and irrigation support for maize and vegetables); downstream/paddy (machinery repair); poultry for households (feed support and improved coops); inland fisheries (nets, gear, dryers, etc.); seed access (procurement from unaffected government supplies and/or targeted imports to ensure continuity of harvests.
- Access to finance: risk-sharing grants with banks/MFIs; financial literacy; referral to concessional lines where available.
- Enterprise advisory and e-commerce enablement in partnership with platforms and chambers.
- Community infrastructure repair (small works): access roads, drainage, storage and market stalls via CfW + MSME co-finance.
- Market re-establishment: pop-up/weekly markets with anchor firms; re-establishing damaged markets to reconnect producers. Asset replacement and climate-smart upgrades for agriculture, fisheries and services (e.g., pumps, cold storage, dryers, incubators), targeted at women-headed households and youth.
- Sector-specific asset replacement and climate-smart upgrades: upland cultivation (seed varieties, tools and irrigation support for maize and vegetables); downstream/paddy (machinery repair); poultry for households (feed support and improved coops); inland fisheries (nets, gear, dryers, etc.); seed access (procurement from unaffected government supplies and/or targeted imports to ensure continuity of harvests.
- Access to finance: risk-sharing grants with banks/MFIs; financial literacy; referral to concessional lines where available.
- Enterprise advisory and e-commerce enablement in partnership with platforms and chambers.
- Community infrastructure repair (small works): access roads, drainage, storage and market stalls via CfW + MSME co-finance.
How Organizations Can Partner
Governance, Safeguards & Compliance
- Government coordination: align with Disaster Management Centre and channel emergency requests via MOFA; respect official relief prioritization.
- UNDP due diligence: Private Sector Risk Assessment Tool; AML/CFT self-certifications; Do-no-harm; gender and environmental safeguards.
- Monitoring & reporting: output/outcome dashboards (beneficiaries, jobs, enterprises restarted, assets replaced); independent verification and spot checks.
- Visibility: co-branding per UNDP guidelines; joint field missions; media stories focused on communities and results.
- Targeting & Data-Driven Prioritization: use UNDP/Crisis Bureau RAPIDA geo-analysis and Household & Building Damage Assessment (HBDA) to prioritize hotspots and estimate debris/repair needs. Integrate local datasets (roads, schools, health sites, vulnerability indicators) for precise targeting.
- Coordinate with UN agencies to avoid duplication; harmonize with UNCT flash appeal and assessment working groups.
Potential Opportunities and Proposed Interventions
- Distribute quality paddy seeds to re-establish damaged paddy fields.
- Encourage diversification by supplying OFC seeds to farmers who wish to shift from paddy to short-duration and climate-resilient OFCs for quicker recovery.
- Provide seed packages for early replanting of groundnut, cowpea, green gram, black gram, and similar crops during the first pre-Yala season (January 2026), followed by support for the Yala season (March 2026).
- Prioritize beneficiaries with existing micro irrigation systems to maximize early recovery.
- Supply inputs for maize, finger millet, and sorghum cultivation for both consumption and feed purposes.
- Assist seed producers through:
- Replacement of damaged seed stocks
- Rehabilitation of fields and storage units
- Small grants to restart seed production operations
- Immediately restore over 3,000 market-oriented home gardens equipped with micro-irrigation by providing:
- Vegetable seeds and planting materials
- Compost/organic fertilizers
- Basic tools and agronomic supplies
- Promote home gardens as a fast-track solution for improving household nutrition and reducing dependence on market purchases.
- Provide 20 backyard chicks per household to 5,000 flood-affected families who have functioning poultry coops.
- Strengthen local brooding centers with parent stock to ensure a sustainable supply of quality chicks for beneficiaries.
- Improve feed access through emergency distribution and short-term feed support.
- Restock affected tanks and ponds with high-quality fingerlings.
- Rehabilitate damaged tanks and carry out ecological restoration where needed.
- Provide critical aquaculture inputs, including nets and fishing gear and small craft, etc.
- To accelerate early recovery and restore critical agricultural functionality, the project will introduce Cash-for-Work (CfW) and targeted financial assistance programs for affected farming communities. These interventions will support both household income recovery and the rehabilitation of key community-level agricultural assets.
