Multipurpose Cash Assistance
Multipurpose Cash (MPC) are unrestricted cash transfers that people affected by crises can use to cover their basic needs. By its nature, MPC is the assistance modality which offers people a maximum degree of choice, flexibility and dignity. There is also growing evidence that it is more cost-efficient and cost-effective to meet multiple needs.
But this requires new ways of collaborating between humanitarian actors, at all stages of the program cycle, and across sectors. While solid tools exist to support collaboration, they have not been widely adopted and MPC is still used in an ad-hoc way. Challenges remain to be addressed if we are to successfully fit MPC into the humanitarian system.
Featured content
Multipurpose cash outcome indicators and guidance
Guidelines and Tools
The indicators in this document, developed by the Grand Bargain Cash Workstream, focus on the primary objectives of humanitarian Multipurpose Cash Assistance (MPC), and the outcomes to which MPC can most strongly contribute in a given context.
Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) Decision Making Tools
Guidelines and Tools
Update: This publication was revised in 2022. Please read the revised publication here.
The purpose of this tipsheet is to accompany practitioners and decision makers through key stages in the process of calculating an MEB to: (a)
identify what is the most appropriate path to take in relation to their
particular context, identified objective, existing capacities and available
resources; and...
Operational Guidance and Toolkit for Multipurpose Cash Grants
Guidelines and Tools
This operational guidance and toolkit brings together worldwide expertise on cash-based interventions (CBIs). It provides comprehensive and practical guidance for humanitarian actors to assess the feasibility, conceptualise the design and structure the implementation of MPGs. The guidance focuses on MPGs whose primary objective is to meet basic needs as defined by affected people...
Definition of Minimum Expenditure Baskets (MEB) in West Africa
Report
Throughout 2017, five countries in West Africa have worked collectively to define minimum expenditure baskets, in order to better capture the contribution that humanitarian assistance is making to address the basic needs of affected populations, and improve the impact of assistance. This heavy process raises technical and coordination challenges. The CALP Network, with support from USAID /...
Thematic lead
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Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis: Linking humanitarian Cash and Social Protection in practise
Report
This paper seeks to demonstrate practical ways in which NGOs are linking their humanitarian work to social protection and the added importance of this in the context of COVID-19, following from the earlier work of CCD outlining the role of NGOs to
improve the access to and delivery of social protection in...
The Provision of Cash and Voucher Assistance in the Response to the Venezuela Refugee and Migrant Crisis: Findings and lessons learned, Executive summary
Report
This study, for which data was compiled between March and April 2020, seeks to document lessons and good practices in the delivery of CVA in Ecuador and Colombia by humanitarian organisations and governments, in response to migrants and refugees from Venezuela. The purpose of this analysis is...
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....
Identifying practical options for linking humanitarian assistance and social protection in the COVID-19 response
Guidelines and Tools
This short note examines the relationship between humanitarian assistance and social protection in response to COVID-19. Whilst a variety of guidance is being developed to support humanitarian practitioners around the response to the pandemic, less material exists that guides humanitarian practitioners on...
Review and analysis of identification and registration systems in protracted and recurrent crises
Report
This report presents findings from a study regarding Management and Information Systems (MIS) used to identify and register target populations in cash transfer and social protection programming. The research was conducted by DAI and Caribou Digital, and commissioned through DFID’s BASIC programme. The...
Cash Transfers and Social Protection: From Alignment to Integration
Policy paper
As the use of cash transfer programming grows in response to COVID-19, demands on the aid community’s own interventions and capacity to support state-led measures continue to grow in equal measure. Originally envisioned as a means of better coordinating parallel and remarkably similar humanitarian and...
Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) & Housing, Land, and Property Rights
Report
The right to adequate housing has been recognized as an essential component to an adequate standard of living.1 The centrality of the right to adequate housing, which encompasses concepts such as security of tenure, affordability and habitability, are intimately related to livelihood building.2...
COVID-19: Invest now in cash/voucher-social protection scale-up or children pay the price later
Report
Read the article here. Only socially accountable Social Protection Assistance beyond humanitarian cash/voucher programmes – if properly and quickly implemented – will protect generations of children from the aftershocks of COVID-19. Despite cash and voucher transfers becoming the tool of choice of...
Collaborative Cash Delivery Network – Grand Bargain – Collaboration Agreement Accomplishments 2020
Report
The Collaborative Cash Delivery (CCD) Network is pleased to present its achievements against the commitments made by our global members’ CEOs at the 2019 Grand Bargain Summit as part of our global collaboration agreement. We know we are better together, and in this time of increasing pressure on the...
Migrating with dignity: MPCA to Venezuelan families in Peru
Blog Post
Watch the video here In 2018, with the support of OFDA and FFP, Save the Children implemented a multi-purpose cash transfer ‘Plus’ program in response to the influx of Venezuelan into Peru. The program aimed at covering vulnerable household’s basic needs and prevent them from resorting to negative...
MPCA ‘Plus’ assistance to people on the move: the case of Venezuelans in Peru
Blog Post
Watch the video here This video documents the MPCA ‘Plus’ program implemented by Save the Children Peru in response to the Venezuelan crisis, and more specifically highlights the provision of assistance to families on the move, or ‘transiting’ through Peru. Beneficiaries were identified throughout...
MPCA ‘Plus’ assistance to people on the move: the case of Venezuelans in Peru
Video
Watch the video here This video documents the MPCA ‘Plus’ program implemented by Save the Children Peru in response to the Venezuelan crisis, and more specifically highlights the provision of assistance to families on the move, or ‘transiting’ through Peru. Beneficiaries were identified throughout...
Migrating with dignity: MPCA to Venezuelan families in Peru
Video
Watch the video here In 2018, with the support of OFDA and FFP, Save the Children implemented a multi-purpose cash transfer ‘Plus’ program in response to the influx of Venezuelan into Peru. The program aimed at covering vulnerable household’s basic needs and prevent them from resorting to negative...
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...
World Food Programme Multipurpose Cash Assistance in Lebanon: Social cohesion and stability between Syrian refugees and host communities
Report
Conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in partnership with the Cash Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Organisational Network (CAMEALEON). In 2018 and 2019, CAMEALEON partnered with ODI to examine the role of World Food Programme’s multi-purpose cash programme in shaping...
World Food Programme Multipurpose Cash Assistance in Lebanon: Protection outcomes for Syrian refugees
Report
Conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in partnership with the Cash Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Organisational Network (CAMEALEON). In 2018 and 2019, CAMEALEON partnered with ODI to examine the role of the World Food Programme’s Multipurpose Cash Assistance...
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...
Multi-purpose Cash Assistance in Lebanon – Impact evaluation on the well-being of Syrian refugees
Report
The two year study assessed the impact of MPC on the well-being of over 11,000 Syrian refugee households living in the Bekaa, North and Mount Lebanon. The study finds that most of the impact of MPC materializes in the long term (over 12 months), while limited impact materializes in the short term. The...
3 things to know about … Integrated Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and Child Protection (CP) during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Guidelines and Tools
This interactive tip sheet highlights why, what and how to integrate CVA and CP during the Covid-19. It provides key programmatic elements and links to relevant resources to inform the design and implementation of integrated programming. The tip sheet was developed to address most of the questions raised...
Webinar | Multi-purpose Cash Transfer and Child Protection: a case study (English and Spanish editions)
Webinar recording
Watch the webinar recording here. More information here. In 2018, with the support of OFDA and FFP, Save the Children implemented a multi-purpose cash transfer ‘Plus’ program in response to the influx of Venezuelan into Colombia. The program aimed at covering vulnerable household’s basic needs and...