Skip to main content

Cash 101: Cash and Voucher Assistance Explained

We are sorry but the page you are looking for is not available in the language you have selected, please go to the corresponding homepage
  1. Home
  2. Themes

Risk

To ensure cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is routinely considered by humanitarian actors when designing an intervention, we must address the perceptions and myths that it is a riskier form of response than others.

The CALP Network’s State of the World’s Cash report found that the perception that CVA is riskier than other forms of aid was one of the main barriers to CVA being routinely used. This concern is linked to the growing emphasis from donors on anti-terrorism and money laundering, and shrinking budgets for humanitarian assistance. The CALP Network’s work under this theme aims to debunk myths, facilitate collaboration, and share learning to ensure that CVA is systematically and equally considered, based on evidence of actual risks across modalities.

Current priorities

A variety of organisations are currently working on CVA and risk. The CALP Network is working to identify synergies among actors, avoid duplication, and define joint priorities that can be better addressed collectively. Together with WFP, the CALP Network is co-leading the risk priority within the Grand Bargain workstream on cash.

Latest

DG ECHO Thematic Policy Document on Cash Transfers

Policy paper

DG ECHO released its Thematic Policy document on Cash Transfers in March 2022. The document provides guidance primarily to DG ECHO’s partners and staff, but also to the wider cash community with the objective of collectively enhancing the quality and efficiency of cash programmes and of humanitarian...

22 March 2022

Digital identity, biometrics and inclusion in humanitarian responses to refugee crises

Report

Digital identity and biometrics have long been divisive topics in the humanitarian sector. On the one hand, they have the potential to be more inclusive and reach people in need at scale due to perceived efficiency gains. A legal identity for everyone as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...

6 October 2021

Refugee checking money received during a cash distribution

Screening recipients of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance: necessary precaution or wasted resources?

Blog Post

Is screening the recipients of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance an effective way to mitigate against the perceived diversion risk that cash represents? If yes, how? If not, why are conversations growing on the topic? In a recent report for Oxfam and Bond, Nina Newhouse & colleagues from the London...

14 July 2021

GBV Risk Mitigation: An Analysis of the CARE Somalia Integrated Relief &Recovery Program (ISRP) Multipurpose Cash.

Report

This is a learning brief that highlights the GBV risk mitigation analysis of CARE’s ISRP Project (Economic Recovery Sector ) funded by USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), The CARE Project was applied as one of the case studies for the inter-agency Somalia GBV Risk mapping in CVA projects.

31 May 2021

SPACE Social protection and climate change: scaling up ambition (Summary Brief)

Policy paper

Climate change, once perceived as a long-term environmental issue, is now an immediate threat to safety and prosperity, especially for the most vulnerable people that are hit hardest by increasing weather extremes. The impacts cannot be managed just by reducing greenhouse gas emissions or by small tweaks...

31 May 2021

Forecast based financing – lessons learned on early actions with cash transfers

Report

The objective of the document is to present the lessons learned related to the implementation of early actions with cash transfers as part of the forecast-based financing mechanism implemented by the World Food Programme in the Yaque del Norte watershed in the Dominican Republic.

27 May 2021

Rapid Market Assessment and Price Monitoring Report – Huehuetenango Department Guatemala

Report

Methodology: This rapid assessment of markets and prices was based on an adapted version of the IFRC’s Rapid Assessment for Markets, elements of the EMMA toolkit’s market system approach and the consortium of NGO’s price monitoring format. The methodology was chosen to give a basic and rapid...

21 April 2021

“Doing no harm” in the digital age: What the digitalization of cash means for humanitarian action

Policy paper

Cash transfers have changed the way the humanitarian sector delivers assistance, and at the same time, digitalization is changing the way our world works in fundamental ways. The digitalization of cash means that the simple click of a button can put money in the hands of hundreds of thousands, if not...

18 March 2021

Sudan – Gedaref Joint Cash Risk assessment

Report

Since the crisis in the Tigray region of Ethiopia in November 2020 over 60,000 people have sought refuge in neighbouring Sudan and were mostly accommodated in camps re-established in Gedaref State. Cash is has been utilised as a response modality and is being considered further by several agencies. This...

17 February 2021

2020 Cash and Voucher Programming (CVP): Roadmap and milestone achieved

Report

In 2020, World Vision has implemented cash and voucher programming like never before – not least due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related social protection transfer scale-ups. From 2019 to 2020, we have seen a 28 % increase of our cash, voucher based programming, moving towards enabling affected...

22 January 2021

Towards shock-responsive social protection: lessons from the COVID-19 response in Bangladesh

Report

The COVID-19 crisis is likely to have a staggering impact on poverty in Bangladesh. This report documents the social protection responses by the Government of Bangladesh to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations. Analysing factors that enabled and constrained the effectiveness of...

20 January 2021

Pinning Down Moving Targets: Research Note Medium-term priorities for cash assistance in Lebanon

Report

Whilst most humanitarian responses across the globe have had to navigate the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, in Lebanon the challenges related to COVID-19 emerged on top of an unprecedented protest movement, political instability, a rapid deterioration of the economy and the increasingly protracted...

4 January 2021

Cash 101: Cash and Voucher Assistance Explained

Explore the Cash 101