Inter-Agency Humanitarian Cash for Work Guidelines: Afghanistan

Forty years of war, recurrent natural disasters, chronic poverty, drought, and the COVID-19 pandemic have left more than 24 million people in Afghanistan in need of humanitarian assistance . Over the years Afghanistan has experienced massive destruction of basic infrastructure, health and educational facilities, commercial buildings, private houses, and agricultural assets. Several assessments indicate that most Afghans lack the minimum income and financial resources to meet most urgent needs. Lack of employment and low economic participation by both urban and rural dwellers is one of the major impediments for people to meet basic needs, embark on livelihoods recovery and generally to consider investing in household (HH) level livelihoods activities. Given the scale and diversity of needs at the HH and community levels, amongst all vulnerable populations, Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) activities including Cash for Work (CfW) have the potential to address the humanitarian and recovery responses in an effective and cost-efficient manner, while addressing a range of unmet needs.

Objectives of the guideline

These CfW guidelines for humanitarian and early recovery phases have the following objectives:

• To provide harmonized approaches to CfW including guidance and resources (annexes and other tools) to CVA actors implementing CfW for humanitarian and recovery activities in Afghanistan,
• To provide CVA actors in Afghanistan with a framework for the design, implementation, and monitoring of CfW activities,
• To provide guidance to CVA actors on how to implement the much-needed humanitarian assistance that allows able-bodied vulnerable communities to make meaningful contributions to their societies.