Linking Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance to Long-Term Solutions: Key Findings and Recommendations from the Iraq CWG Workshop November 2021

Large-scale Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) has been provided in Iraq since 2015 to assist people who are affected by conflict to meet their basic needs. Humanitarian actors view MPCA as the most appropriate response modality in Iraq and a major component of the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). 

The Iraq Cash Working Group (CWG) has played a key role, driving coordination efforts focusing primarily on the harmonization of the strategy and approach, targeting systems, frequency and transfer values, and other technical tools. 

This paper provides a summary of findings and recommendations from a workshop that took place in November 2021 in Erbil, Iraq. The workshop brought together 40 senior staff from 30 humanitarian organizations (the UN, national and international NGOs, the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and with the technical support of CashCap) to review the MPCA strategies. They focussed on how to take more harmonised approaches to working with other coordination structures (clusters and/or development coordination mechanisms) in 2022, factoring in the transitional development context.