Draft 0.1, 29 September 2026. Visible to administrators only, for review before publication.

Module 4: From emergency response to recovery: when and how to make the shift

Reading time about 20 minutes, workshop 45 to 60 minutes. For club presidents, club disaster coordinators, district disaster teams and the community leaders they work with.

What you will be able to do

• Recognise the five indicators that show a community is leaving the emergency and entering recovery.
• Decide, with the right people, which emergency activities to stop and which recovery activities to start.
• Describe what a local club contributes to a long-term recovery project funded by a Global Grant.
• Place your own situation on the transition timeline and plan for the two to three years that recovery takes.
• Explain where the work of DNA-RAG (response) hands over to the work of RAGCED (economic recovery).

Why it matters

The Rotary Foundation has given RAGCED two mandates: train communities before a disaster, and help restart the economy of affected areas afterwards. RAGCED does not work in immediate relief: other organisations, such as ShelterBox, do that, and the first hours and weeks are covered by the Disaster Field Guide (https://disasterfieldguide.org/). This module sits exactly at the hinge between the two. If a club shifts too late, it keeps distributing aid that the local market could now provide, and it delays the rebuilding of livelihoods. If it shifts too early, families are left without essentials. Knowing when and how to make the shift is the first skill of economic recovery.

Student volunteers rebuild the gutted interior of a flooded house (Princeville, North Carolina, USA, 8 November 1999). Photo: FEMA / Dave Gatley, public domain

1. Recognising the moment to shift

The move from emergency response to recovery is not a switch. It is a gradual shift. But you have to recognise it, because the tools, the funding and the skills required change completely.

The five transition indicators

#	Indicator	What it means
1	No more rescues needed	Search and rescue is over. Everyone trapped has been located.
2	Vital needs secured	Water, food and emergency shelter are available to all.
3	Access restored	Main roads are passable. Outside supply is possible.
4	Area declared safe	Authorities confirm no immediate hazard remains.
5	Civil authorities in control	Crisis management is back with normal civil authorities.

When these five indicators are met, even partially, it is time to change operating mode: from "saving lives" to "rebuilding lives".

Who decides? The club's disaster coordinator, in consultation with the district disaster response officer and the civil authorities. It is never a unilateral decision.

Closing the stabilisation phase

The stabilisation phase (roughly from 72 hours to two weeks) is where community kitchens and distribution points run. The guide gives an objective rule for closing a community kitchen, and it is an economic rule: extending a kitchen beyond need maintains dependency and exhausts volunteers. Close it as soon as two of these three criteria are met:

• The local market works again: at least 80% of food shops in the area have reopened.
• The kitchen costs more than the market: the cost per meal is higher than an equivalent meal bought locally.
• Attendance has fallen: fewer than 20% of the peak number of beneficiaries, over three consecutive days.

Announce the closure a few days ahead, direct the remaining vulnerable people to permanent social services, then close and report. The same logic applies to every emergency activity: decide on criteria, not on feeling.

2. Short-term recovery: 1 to 6 months

Short-term recovery is the grey zone between emergency and reconstruction. People have water and food but may still sleep under tarpaulins. Roads are open but schools are damaged.

Priority actions

Action	Who in the club	Possible partners
Debris removal and clean-up	Project committee	Municipality, local firms
Temporary repairs	Trained volunteers	Local firms, ShelterBox
Drinking water access	WASH-RAG if activated	UNICEF, water services
Return to school	Education committee	Education ministry, NGOs
Support to shops and small firms	Economic development committee	Chamber of commerce, microfinance
Psychological support	Club health professionals	Local psychologists

The line "support to shops and small businesses" is where RAGCED's mandate begins. Module 5 shows how to do it without harming the local market.

Financing short-term recovery

The guide lists four sources, to be used in this order:

1. The balance of the Disaster Response Grant, if any, within the approved plan.
2. The club's own funds, through an exceptional budget voted in a meeting.
3. Donations received, used according to what was promised to donors. Money given "for the emergency" is not used for reconstruction without the donor's agreement.
4. The district disaster relief fund, if needs exceed the club's capacity.

What you stop

Stopping is as important as starting. Identify the emergency activities that no longer have a reason to exist:

• Daily food distribution gives way to the restoration of the local market.
• Group shelters give way to temporary family shelters.
• Situation reports every few hours become weekly reports.
• Daily coordination meetings become twice weekly, then weekly.

3. Long-term recovery through Global Grants

Long-term recovery, from about six months to several years, generally exceeds the capacity of a single club. This is where Global Grants make sense. The district leads the grant, but the club remains the indispensable local partner: without its knowledge of the ground, the project fails.

What the club does in a Global Grant

• Identify lasting needs, not emergency needs, which are already covered: which schools to rebuild, which water system, which vocational training.
• Write the field part of the application: the area, the beneficiaries, the local context.
• Find the international partner club, through Club Finder on My Rotary or by asking DNA-RAG to connect you with a partner district.
• Supervise local implementation: check that the work is done properly, that beneficiaries receive what was planned and that the schedule holds.
• Document and report: photos, data, testimonies. The Foundation's stewardship reports depend on the quality of your field documentation.

A Global Grant requires a qualified district and an international partnership. Check the current Terms and Conditions of The Rotary Foundation before planning amounts or deadlines.

Typical recovery projects

The guide lists drinking water systems, disaster-resistant schools, semi-permanent health clinics, earthquake and cyclone resistant shelters, vocational training (construction, agriculture), agricultural recovery (seeds, tools, irrigation), ongoing psychological support and environmental restoration.

Five examples: what the local club contributed

The guide describes five recovery projects. What matters here is the role of the local club, the part no one else could have played.

• Haiti, drinking water after Hurricane Matthew. Water purification systems and latrines in the Grand'Anse department, with local technicians trained in maintenance. The club identified sites, supervised installation, trained technicians and wrote quarterly stewardship reports.
• Philippines, typhoon-resistant schools after Typhoon Haiyan. Primary schools rebuilt in Leyte province to resistant standards, teachers trained, school kits distributed. The club selected sites with the education authorities, controlled construction quality and organised the kit distribution.
• Nepal, clinics after the earthquake. Semi-permanent clinics in isolated rural districts, with community health workers trained. The club identified the most isolated communities, recruited health workers, handled medicine supply and supervised continuously.
• Mozambique, agricultural recovery after Cyclone Idai. Flood-resistant seeds, tools and micro-irrigation for farming families in Sofala province, farmers trained in resilient techniques, marketing cooperatives created. The club identified families with local authorities, distributed seeds and tools, supported the cooperatives and sent monthly reports.
• Ecuador, earthquake-resistant shelters and training. Semi-permanent shelters and training of local workers in earthquake-resistant construction in Manabí province; the programme was adopted as a reference by the municipality. The club partnered with a local technical university for supervision, selected beneficiary families and followed the workers' training.

The common feature: the club was not the main implementer. It was the field supervisor, the local connector and the guarantor of quality.

4. The transition timeline

The guide's practical timeline, counted in days from the disaster (D+0), gives the order of magnitude:

Period	Phase	What happens
D+0 to D+30	Emergency response	Direct action, distribution, assessment
D+30 to D+90	Transition	Indicators checked, lasting needs listed, DNA-RAG contacted
D+90 to D+270	Grant preparation	Partner district, participatory assessment, application
D+270 to D+450	Foundation review	Clarifications, approval, agreement
D+450 to D+900	Implementation	Field work, documentation, reports
D+900 to D+1000	Closure	Final report, impact evaluation

From disaster to grant closure, count two to three years. The CED guide proposes a similar logic for the economy: a first, transitional economic Global Grant to restart the damaged local economy, then a second, structuring one to install lasting mechanisms such as microfinance, cooperatives and restored value chains. Treat these dates as planning estimates, not rules.

Two problems the timeline creates

Annual rotation of presidents. A Global Grant typically spans three presidencies: the one that launches it, the one that runs it, the one that closes it. If the memory of the project rests on the president of the year, the grant loses coherence at every handover. This is the role of a multi-year disaster coordinator.

Fatigue against expectations. At one month, your club is exhausted. At three months, public attention has moved on. At one year, you may be among the only ones still carrying the subject. The beneficiaries have not forgotten: they measure your reliability over time. Three simple habits help:

• a quarterly grant review meeting written into the club's permanent calendar;
• a short report every six months (two pages, with photos) sent to donors, even when "nothing new" is happening;
• a yearly site visit by a club member.

5. Handing over: DNA-RAG and RAGCED

Two Rotary Action Groups work on either side of the shift.

DNA-RAG (Disaster Network of Assistance Rotary Action Group) is the Rotary action group dedicated to disaster response. It does not command clubs or districts: it advises, connects, coordinates and equips. In the response phase it activates experts, prevents duplication between clubs and connects international partner districts. Its own description of the recovery phase includes co-developing Global Grants, monitoring projects through local clubs, training local volunteers and documenting lessons learned.

RAGCED is described in the Disaster Field Guide as the action group for community economic development, including post-disaster economic reconstruction: microfinance, vocational training and the recovery of local markets. With its new mandates, it does not enter during relief.

This programme proposes the following division of work, to be agreed between the two groups case by case:

• During response and stabilisation, DNA-RAG leads network coordination. RAGCED is not on the ground; it can already listen and note which livelihoods have been hit.
• When the five indicators are met, the club, the district and DNA-RAG invite RAGCED into the planning of economic recovery: markets, small businesses, farming, skills.
• During long-term recovery, DNA-RAG keeps its role of connection and documentation, while RAGCED brings economic expertise to the design of the Global Grant and to its follow-up.

The handover is a conversation, not a transfer of files. The club remains at the centre of both.

Go further

• Disaster Field Guide, Guillaume Bourgogne: Chapter 14, "Stabilization: from 72 hours to 2 weeks"; Chapter 23, "From response to recovery"; Chapter 24, "Document and report".
• Club guide: "After: recovery and closure". District guide: "After: recovery and reporting to the Foundation".
• Community economic development guide for Rotary clubs (in preparation), chapter "The Rotary Foundation and CED Global Grants".
• Disaster Field Guide: https://disasterfieldguide.org/
• DNA-RAG: https://dna-rag.com
• RAGCED: https://ragced.org
• The Rotary Foundation grant Terms and Conditions, on My Rotary.

After running this module in your club, please send your feedback (a pre-filled email), or fill in the feedback sheet in the workshop sheets and send a photo of it. It helps RAGCED improve the programme.

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