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
Call for Action: Resolution of Cash Coordination within the Humanitarian Architecture
Report
Looking Through an Environmental Lens – Implications and opportunities for Cash Transfer Programming in humanitarian response
Report
This study reviews the tensions between the use of cash-like assistance and negative environmental impacts in the humanitarian assistance process and defines a diagnostic framework for assessing these impacts to define how to make assistance transfers in a way which minimizes the potential for negative...
Confidence and usage of ATMs
Report
For the reports click here The World Food Programme (WFP) supports Syrian refugee families living in extreme poverty in Lebanon by providing them with multi-purpose cash (MPC) transfers to meet their basic needs. WFP loads the assistance on an e-card, called the Red Card, each month and programme...
Enablers and Gaps: Gender Equality, Gender-Based Violence Response and Mitigation in Cash and Voucher Assistance at Response levels: analysis on three case studies
Report
The Gender and Cash Sub-Workstream identified three case studies that illustrate how Cash Working Groups, GBV Sub-Clusters, gender focal points (e.g. Gender in Humanitarian Action Working groups at country and regional level) and humanitarian partnerships can enable meaningful and wider engagement on...
Cashing in: Turning Challenges into Opportunities when Evaluating Humanitarian Cash Assistance
Report
The use of cash transfers in humanitarian action has implications for evaluative activity. On the one hand, the utility of some evaluations has been strengthened by the increased attention that has been paid to evaluating cash transfers, the agreement of common outcome indicators and the creation of...
Group Cash Transfers Guidance and Tools
Guidelines and Tools
This guidance highlights key steps and considerations to take to be able to design, implement and monitor GCTs. The guidance is accompanied by a set of tools, as well as references to existing tools, to help facilitating agencies and GCT-supported groups with implementing the approach. Furthermore, this...
Leveraging the Potential for Group Cash Transfers: A complementary report to the Group Cash Transfer: Guidance and Tools (pilot version)
Report
This report is an accompanying document to the GCT Guidance and Toolkit. The report identifies internal and institutional barriers to using and scaling GCTs, along with mitigation measures. These were identified through an online survey, literature review and interviews with key informants that engaged...
Tip-sheet: Engaging beyond CVA and GCT communities of practice: Supporting the uptake and scaling of Group Cash Transfers (GCTs)
Guidelines and Tools
The objective of this tip-sheet is to support facilitating agencies’1 staff, volunteers and associates in engaging beyond the Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and GCT Communities of Practice (CoPs) and to help address barriers in designing and implementing GCTs. The key actions are based on the “GCT...
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...
CCI COVID-19 Impacts on Prices and Markets in Iraq
Report
The COVID-19 crisis in Iraq has caused severe economic disruptions in Iraq that will affect vulnerable households the most. The Cash Consortium for Iraq (CCI) has two streams of ongoing data collection on prices and markets, monitoring the retailer and the consumer perspective across five governorates....
The Unblocked Cash Experience in Vanuatu
Case Study
This report provides details of the Vanuatu Business Resilience Council’s (VBRC) role and approach to supporting the businesses in the Oxfam UnBlocked Cash humanitarian programme in 2020-2021 in Vanuatu. While this report documents the learnings using blockchain technology, by sharing the key details...
Considerations for Cash and Voucher Assistance in Education in Emergencies Needs Assessments
Guidelines and Tools
This document presents some of the main considerations to keep in mind pertaining to Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) when conducting Education in Emergencies (EiE) needs assessments. Section 1 introduces some key CVA concepts within the needs assessment process and Section 2 serves as a checklist for...
Cash and Voucher Assistance Essentials for Nutrition Cluster Information Managers
Guidelines and Tools
CVA refers to all programmes where cash transfers or vouchers for goods or services are directly provided to recipients. In the context of humanitarian assistance, the term refers to the provision of cash transfers or vouchers directly to individuals, household or community recipients; not to governments...
Cash and Voucher Assistance Guidelines for Lao PDR
Guidelines and Tools
Cash and voucher assistance is becoming increasingly popular in Lao PDR in delivering humanitarian assistance, rehabilitation and development focused projects. In supporting the cash and voucher assistance agenda in Lao PDR, the Cash Working Group was established as a working group for local and regional...
How to Incorporate Cash and Voucher Assistance into a Nutrition Response
Guidelines and Tools
There is a growing recognition that Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA), i.e. the provision of cash transfers and vouchers to targeted beneficiaries, can contribute to improving maternal and child nutrition by impacting on the underlying determinants of adequate nutrition. The main purpose of this Guidance...
Beware of the Crocodile: Quantitative Evidence how Universal Old Age Grants distort the Social Assistance Systems of Low-Income Countries
Policy paper
This paper compares two approaches to establishing or improving social assistance systems in low and lower-middle income countries. Taking Eswatini and Lesotho as examples of the mainstream approach, it provides quantitative evidence on the social protection outcomes of social assistance systems that are...
Gender Equality and Gender-Based Violence Risk Mitigation in Cash and Voucher Assistance: Vanuatu Case study
Report
The case study was created with the inputs of Oxfam Vanuatu and UNFPA Vanuatu. It demonstrates the meaningful connection of cash and voucher assistance and gender at a response level. Vanuatu is one of the world’s most remote locations and particularly vulnerable to cyclones and other natural hazards....
Perception survey of aid recipients in Somalia
Report
Before the first case of COVID-19 was officially confirmed on 16 March 2020, Somalia was in a state of emergency resulting from the worst locust infestation in 25 years. With food supplies already under threat, the infestation was exacerbated by heavy floods, which not only displaced half a million...
Cash Barometer Nigeria
Case Study
After more than a decade of conflict and violent insurgency by the non-state armed group Boko Haram, some 7.9 million people in Nigeria’s Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states (collectively known as the BAY states) were expected to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2020. Since the onset of Covid-19,...
BIEP program 2020-2021 launch workshop
Training
