Pre‑arranged financing for early response: A smarter way to protect lives and livelihoods
By Lucy Bloxham and Michael Goode
In rural Syria, Lamis, a farmer from Dadikh village, returned home after six years of displacement to a place she barely recognized. Her land was damaged and strewn with debris and landmines, her community shattered and her livelihood in ruins. Farming equipment lay broken, olive trees had been cut down and once-productive fields were left barren.
Despite the risks, Lamis set out to rebuild her life. She borrowed around USD 10,000 to restart her farm:
“We planted wheat, barley, cumin and lentils, but nothing yielded,” she recalls. “We borrowed money and now we are indebted.”
Lamis’s story reflects the reality facing thousands of families across Syria. Years of conflict and displacement, compounded by economic collapse and extreme weather, have eroded people’s ability to recover. Families who once relied on agriculture for their livelihoods now struggle to afford even basic food. When harvests fail, they are often pushed into debt and forced into difficult choices that undermine their long-term recovery.
Before losses escalate
To limit these impacts, the World Food Programme (WFP) is deploying Macro‑Level Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) to ensure pre‑arranged funding can be released automatically when conditions reach pre‑defined thresholds. DRF secures rapid liquidity after an event through mechanisms such as parametric insurance and catastrophe bonds. Instead of waiting for humanitarian appeals or assessments after losses occur, financing for responses becomes available early, helping families avoid asset sales, high‑interest debt and other harmful coping strategies.
In Syria, when dryness reached its most severe levels in half a century, this mechanism triggered a USD 7.9 million insurance payout. As a result, 119,880 people received timely cash assistance, including Lamis and her family. This support helps meet basic needs, reduces immediate financial pressure and enables efforts to replant crops and recover livelihoods.
Strengthening national systems
Pre‑arranged financing is designed to complement existing humanitarian responses while supporting governments and partners to plan and budget more effectively for recurring shocks. A key component of WFP’s macro-level DRF approach includes developing pre-agreed operational plans that ensure insurance payouts are mobilized quickly and predictably, reducing both financial and operational strain.
For people like Lamis still living without basic services, this kind of predictability can make a huge difference.
Inclusive Risk Financing in Iraq
In Iraq, WFP has expanded its Inclusive Risk Financing portfolio further by introducing the country’s first parametric insurance product — also marking WFP’s first insurance solution globally to cover heatwave risk. With support from the Ministry of Agriculture, WFP piloted the scheme in the Ninewa Governorate, Al Mosul, Telkif and Al Hamdaniyah districts, protecting from drought during the agricultural period from December 2024 to May 2025 and heatwave risk from June to September 2025, reaching 4,800 vulnerable people with inclusive insurance.
When severe dryness and extreme heat struck during the coverage period, the insurance scheme triggered automatic payouts of USD 61,000, released based on satellite-detected thresholds. Reaching more than 2,400 people, this support helped farming households stabilize their incomes, protect their livelihoods and avoid falling into long-term hardship. Most funds (67 percent) were invested in agricultural activities such as seeds and fertilizers, while 20 percent were used for essential household needs, highlighting that drought impacts extend beyond the farm to overall household welfare. Notably, 86 percent of farmers expressed a willingness to enrol again in the inclusive insurance programme.
Building a network of global preparedness
WFP’s Disaster Risk Financing tools are now active in 48 countries, supporting national institutions, local markets and households to manage the impacts of shocks more effectively. By shifting from reactive to early action, this approach helps protect livelihoods, reduce humanitarian needs and strengthen long‑term resilience.
For families like Lamis’s, early assistance helps them hold on to what little they have and begin to rebuild. In 2025, WFP provided food assistance and cash to Lamis and her family, including a USD 300 grant to help them meet immediate needs and replant part of their land.
“This USD 300 that you gave to my brother and I gave us great joy, and we hope it continues because we have no one to support us.”
Pre‑arranged financing cannot prevent difficult seasons, but it can help ensure people are not left to cope alone when impacted by extreme weather. It offers a practical, scalable solution that supports early action where it matters most.
The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources, supports and scales high-potential solutions to end hunger worldwide. We provide WFP colleagues, entrepreneurs, start-ups, companies and non-governmental organizations with access to funding, mentorship, hands-on support and WFP’s global operations.
Find out more about us: http://innovation.wfp.org.
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