This paper attempts to examine the broad theoretical and empirical literature on how poor households respond to shocks to their incomes and livelihoods brought upon by natural disasters and by conflict. Natural disasters and other crises present formidable challenges to the fight against poverty...

Despite the widespread occurrence of humanitarian emergencies such as epidemics, earthquakes, droughts, floods and violent conflict and despite the significant financial resources devoted to humanitarian assistance, systematic learning from such interventions using rigorous theory-based impact...