Health Cluster Workshop on Cash and Voucher Assistance – Ukraine: Health Cluster Training Workshop Report, 17th October, Dnipro

Following the countrywide escalation of conflict in 2022, the Health Cluster in Ukraine, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Health, has been engaged in providing essential health care support to communities in need. This has been implemented by means of strategic planning, resource mobilization, and technical guidance to partners who provide services to needy populations with a focus on remote and hard-to-reach areas. The Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) for health initiative, a key component of this response, aligns with global humanitarian strategies that emphasize financial resilience, equitable access to healthcare, and effective crisis response. Guided by Grand Bargain commitments, which emphasize the importance of cash-based interventions as a preferred modality, CVA for Health supports accessible, efficient, and accountable health services in emergency settings. Additionally, CVA for health aligns with the Global Health Cluster strategy for the Cash transfer programming for health in humanitarian contexts, aiming to enhance inclusive health care access, particularly for vulnerable populations facing accessibility challenges. This approach helps dismantle barriers to quality health care and ensures that crisis-affected communities can obtain essential lifesaving health services.

CVA for health enables access to health care by addressing barriers that vulnerable groups face in accessing health assistance. To streamline CVA for health interventions amongst partners, the Health Cluster convened a CVA for health workshop bringing together implementing partners to address operational challenges, share insights, and build a unified approach.

The workshop provided a collaborative platform for partners to share experiences, discuss operational challenges and how to use CVA to complement existing services while integrating it within the existing system avoiding disruption, duplication or creating dependency. In addition, the workshop fostered strategic alignment among participating organizations, enabling a cohesive approach to CVA for health programs. By leveraging the collective knowledge and experience of all partners, the workshop aimed to vulgarize the CVA for Health Framework 1.0 while noting specific issues to be addressed in its subsequent iteration.