HOW IS DISASTER AID ALLOCATED WITHIN POOR COMMUNITIES? RISK SHARING AND SOCIAL HIERARCHY

How disaster aid is allocated within poor communities is little understood. Using original post‐disaster survey data in rural Fiji that capture household‐level traditional kin status, cyclone damage and aid allocations over post‐disaster phases, this paper demonstrates that allocations are driven by informal risk‐sharing institutions and social hierarchies. On one hand, in response to a disaster with moderate severity, private risk sharing can strongly make up limited aid, making targeting aid on damage appear weak as a result. On the other hand, local elites can dominate not only aid allocation for given damage but also the targeting on damage. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.