Coordination
Background
Effective coordination can prevent gaps and overlaps in humanitarian responses, ensure the impact of CVA is optimised for the benefit of crisis affected populations, whilst also making the most of limited humanitarian funding. But the CALP Network’s State of the World’s Cash report found that cash coordination is seen as weak and ad hoc, and that this is having serious operational impact.
Ninety-five donors, international and national NGOs, private sector actors and one UN agency have called for clarity on two key issues surrounding cash coordination:
- Who should be accountable for ensuring effective cash coordination, and
- What the scope of Cash Working Groups should be, including in relation to multipurpose cash.
We urgently need to build on what works and provide clarity at the global level on the questions above, whilst adapting to different contexts. Clear decisions based on the impact on affected populations rather than agency politics are long overdue.
Current priorities
We aim to contribute to progress on this issue on three levels: supporting Cash Working Groups at the regional level; contributing to practical solutions for cash coordination at the global level; and convening evidence-based discussion on the key issues, highlighting critical decision points and opportunities for progress.
Featured content
Cash Coordination – LIVE timeline
Page
The latest updates on cash coordination as they unfold.
95 Organisations Sign Letter Calling for Strengthened Cash Coordination
News
Today a letter signed by 95 organisations was handed into the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) urging the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) to take a decision on the leadership and scope of cash coordination in the coming year.
Is cash transforming the humanitarian system or is the system limiting how cash is used?
Blog Post
At the State of World’s Cash 2020 launch event, Sorcha O’Callaghan, Director of Humanitarian Policy Group at ODI warned that, “Cash offers a huge transformative potential, but as far as the system is privileging the interest of the agencies over people in crisis, we won’t be able to see it”. If you missed the State of the World's Cash 2020 launch we're sharing highlights. Quote 4...
State of the World’s Cash 2020 Chapter 5 summary: Coordination
Report
There has been very limited progress on cash coordination since 2017. Cash continues to challenge the established coordination and funding architecture, and efforts to resolve outstanding questions around cash coordination have failed. Despite the lack of global agreement, Cash Working Groups are pushing forward and contributing to improved programming, and generating new approaches. This...
Cash Coordination Tip Sheet
Guidelines and Tools
This tip sheet sets out established best practice, key guidance and resources for all aspects of cash coordination, intended as a clear, accessible and action-oriented guide for those engaged in coordination of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) at the field level.
Introducing the Cash Coordination Tip Sheet
Webinar
The CALP Network has developed a tipsheet setting out established best practice and key guidance and resources for all aspects of cash coordination, intended as a clear, accessible and action-oriented guide for those engaged in coordination of cash and voucher assistance at the field level.
Cash Coordination: A proposal from members in MENA
Blog Post
Earlier this year the CALP Network undertook regional consultations to explore options for cash coordination. This blog lays out recommendations from participants from the Middle East and North Africa who sketched out what cash coordination, and coordination more broadly, could look like in future to support a more effective, efficient and accountable response.
Thematic lead
Latest
Ep. 3. What does the future of financial assistance mean for your work today?
Podcast
In this episode of the CashCast we speak to Meg Sattler from Ground Truth Solutions, Lars Peter Nissen from ACAPS, and Jenny Caswell from GSMA about the changes we should be seeing today, to effectively meet the humanitarian needs of the future.
Q&A on the Call to Action Letter on Cash Coordination
Report
Returns from Iran and Pakistan Funding Needs
Report
As of 23 June 2018, 348,506 undocumented Afghan returnees have crossed back into Afghanistan from Iran. The months of April and May have witnessed an average of 20,000 returns each week. The total represents a 50% increase of returns over the same period in 2017. The larger return is associated with a...
Examples and Good Practices on the Use of Multi-Purpose Cash in the Food Security Sector
Guidelines and Tools
This global Food Security Cluster (gFSC) document was produced by the Cash and Markets Working Group (CMWG) to highlight the role and engagement of food security actors through different country experiences and good practices.
In recent years, multi-purpose cash (MPC) has been adopted more widely to...
Protocol for the Prevention and Control of Infections in the Context of the COVID19 Pandemic
Guidelines and Tools
Readiness Checklist for Cash Working Groups in light of COVID-19 Response – Version 2
Guidelines and Tools
This checklist is designed to assist CWGs adjust their plans and prepare to play an enhanced role in coordination of CVA in the context of increasing (and in some cases unprecedented) needs and limitations of COVID-19. Responses should, as ever, be context specific. We suggest that CWGs consider the...
Best Practices for Rapid Cash Deployment
Guidelines and Tools
This note shares some best practices for rapid cash transfers based on our experience delivering cash transfer programs in difficult operating environments. Crown Agents Bank (CAB) and Segovia Technology joined forces last year to seamlessly manage payments to mobile wallets and banks in Africa. CAB has a...
CWG SS Tipsheet: Protection from COVID-19 during cash distribution (PPE)
Guidelines and Tools
This document is created by Cash Working Group (CWG) South Sudan to provide guidance/key messages to partners, sectors, inter-sector working group, FSP, communities and beneficiaries on key safety measures in the context of COVID-19. The document compiles recommendations from different sources including,...
We Turn Mobile Sim Cards Into Bank Accounts for the Emerging World
Presentation
Fonbnk LLC (“Fonbnk” or the “Company”) is new distributed finance company, providing borderless banking infrastructure directly to unbanked people around the world using the mobile internet. Anyone with a prepaid mobile SIM card and a verified online identity can now have a global stored value...
COVID-19 and Cash Transfers in MENA: What’s Possible?
Blog Post
Some of the most complex and protracted humanitarian crises in the world are in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. These crises were already suffering from funding shortfalls and worsening vulnerabilities. Now, like the rest of the world, people in MENA – both host and refugee/displaced...
Sectoral Analysis Activities and Risk Mapping
Guidelines and Tools
This resource maps the risks, activities and impact of delivering Multi-Purpose Cash (MPC) assistance in the current COVID-19 response.
Position Paper: Humanitarian Access for CVA Delivery
Guidelines and Tools
This position paper is intended to advocate for exemptions to movement restrictions for stakeholders involved in the delivery of humanitarian cash assistance in response to COVID-19 crisis. It includes advocacy messages from cash working groups (CWG), inter-cluster coordination groups (ICCG) and the...
Guidance for CVA Response Plan for The COVID-19 Pandemic
Guidelines and Tools
This document from the Damascus CWG provides guidance intended for CVA practitioners preparing a response plan for COVID-19. It includes a sections on humanitarian needs analysis, response approach, coordination mechanisms.
LOUISE Learning Review
Report
This report presents the outcomes of the learning review on the Lebanon One Unified Inter-Organizational System for E-cards (LOUISE) platform commissioned by UNICEF on behalf of the LOUISE agencies (WFP, UNHCR, UNICEF) in 2019 to build on the LOUISE experience and conduct a stock-taking exercise. The...
External Evaluation of SDC/HA Emergency Cash Pilot For Earthquake Affected Households in Bubq, Albania
Report
In November 2019, Albania was hit by a large earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4, causing 51 people to lose their lives and injuring 913 people. Around 47,000 additional people were directly affected by the earthquake. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) immediately deployed a rapid...
COVID-19 and CVA: how are operational actors responding?
Blog Post
“The COVID-19 pandemic will have devastating consequences on people’s livelihoods and employment, especially in post-fragile, crisis and post-crisis environments.” Global Humanitarian Response Plan: COVID-19 We don’t yet know exactly how the COVID-19 pandemic will be experienced by the world’s...
Cash and Voucher Assistance and the Covid-19 Outbreak, Syria
Guidelines and Tools
This documents intents to provide guidance and advice on how to best adapt Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) programming during the current Covid-19 outbreak and specifically how to manage CVA during the outbreak and how to operate while reducing the risk of contamination
This document is a compilation of...
The CALP Network Venezuela Scoping Mission Findings
Report
In December 2019, a the CALP Network team interviewed operational actors involved in the implementation and coordination of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) in Venezuela. Given the unique challenges of the Venezuela context and the perception globally that risk is the primary barrier to the greater use...
East and Southern Africa Cash Working Group Leads meeting
Event
The Potential Mortality Effects of Physical Currency
Policy paper
The extent to which banknotes may or may not play a direct role in ‘the chain of communicable disease transmission’ has been questioned during the Covid-19 response. Whether they do or they don’t is perhaps less relevant than the belief among ‘at risk’ populations that they do. And this belief...
