Comparing the Efficiency, Effectiveness and Impact of Food and Cash for Work Interventions: Lessons Learned from South Sudan

In addition to food aid, which used to be the standard response to food emergencies, alternative instruments of food assistance such as cash and vouchers have increasingly been applied in emergency and transition situations in recent years.

The subject of the present study was a comparative analysis of Food for Work (FFW) and Cash for Work (CFW) interventions. Current evidence on the performance of such innovative food assistance instruments is limited. This study therefore aims to shed light on the efficiency, effectiveness and impact of the two approaches and to draw conclusions about their feasibility. The analysis was carried out in two counties (Magwi and Morobo) of South Sudan, where the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been implementing a Development-oriented Emergency and Transitional Aid (DETA) project. Primary data were collected from two rounds of household surveys, covering a total sample size of 332 respondents. Despite the difficult conditions under which the study was carried out, a number of important research findings can be reported.