The programmatic focus of the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (ERS) is on strategies and interventions designed to promote enterprises, employment, and cash flow and asset management among affected enterprises and livelihoods. These include four distinct technical program areas: financial services, asset interventions, employment creation, and enterprise development. It emphasizes encouraging enterprises and livelihoods to re-start or improve markets.

The standards set out here do not attempt to cover the related but separate field of market-integrated relief, which is the practice of working through markets to provide relief and basic services. To some extent, market-integrated relief and economic recovery can overlap in the means and activities undertaken. However, market-integrated relief programs do not necessarily promote broad-based economic recovery. Additionally, livelihoods and enterprise interventions have a different target population. They focus on those economic sectors that have the greatest impact on income and employment and reach the greatest number of targeted enterprises and households.

These standards do not address macroeconomic interventions to promote economic recovery, such as fiscal and monetary policy or trade policies and institutions. These interventions are outside the purview of most international humanitarian agencies and tend to be undertaken by governments and bilateral or multilateral organizations.