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Sector-specific Cash and Voucher Assistance

As part of a sector-specific intervention, such as helping people affected by crises to access healthcare, or rebuild their livelihoods, cash and voucher assistance (CVA) may be provided as part of a package. But each sector requires different skills and considerations to ensure CVA is used and monitored effectively.

CVA can help people in crises address their needs within a specific humanitarian sector, such as water, food, health, shelter, livelihood, or protection. Sector-specific CVA can be restricted or unrestricted, and conditional or unconditional, and will typically be provided as part of a comprehensive package which may also include in-kind and service-based assistance.

Each sector has to consider different questions, challenges, advantages and risks when it comes to supporting people’s recovery within their area of expertise. This requires evidence, tools, guidance and capacity. Meeting sector-specific outcomes through CVA also requires a multi-sectoral understanding of needs and of household economic security – see Multipurpose Cash Assistance. While some sectors are very experienced in implementing CVA and have done so for many years, others are now catching up. Most humanitarian sectors are committed and have been increasing their efforts on sector-specific CVA. The Global Cluster Coordination Group (GCCG) is also coordinating cross-cluster work to improve the sectoral used of CVA.

Current priorities

The CALP Network works closely with the cash technical groups/task teams within the global clusters, who have been defining their 2020 priorities and workplans during their regular meetings. A general overview and specific details of these priorities across each global cluster is available here.

Latest

Response Options Analysis Planning Guide

Guidelines and Tools

The inter-sector Response Options Analysis and Planning (ROAP) is a structured decision-making process, which draws from the information generated through a multitude of needs and operational environment assessments. The ROAP gives way to the selection of the most appropriate, operationally feasible and...

2019

Cash for Shelter in Kenya – A Field Experience

Report

A study of a cash for shelter project in Kalobeyei that highlights how UNHCR uses cash assistance to help the refugees to transition to more durable solutions, in this case, integration with the host community. The project presents a paradigm shift from the traditional refugee camp planning process.

December 2018

Protecting Nutrition of Pregnant and Lactating Women and Children in Acute Food Crises

Report

This briefing sheet provides an overview of methods and findings from a study examing the impact of cash and voucher assistance on prevention of acute malnutrition among pregnant and lactating women and children in the context of the 2017/18 Somalia food crisis. Changes in diet and acute malnutrition were...

26 October 2018

“Min Ila” cash transfer program for displaced Syrian children in Lebanon

Report

“Min Ila” is a cash transfer program that was implemented by UNICEF and the United Nation’s World Food Program (WFP) in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE), between 2016 and 2018 covering two (and later three) Lebanese governorates. The program, also known as...

June 2018

Micro-level changes in market recovery and growth: The Ebola CTP experience

Webinar recording

Following our Ebola dissemination event in Dakar, the CALP Network hosted a webinar looking at the micro level effects of cash transfers on local economies during the Ebola crisis. Listen to the recording here.

17 May 2018

East and West Haraghe Multi-Sector Cash Based Response Guidance Note

Guidelines and Tools

Multi-sector cash assistance for IDPs in East and West Haraghe zones of Oromia region has been proposed as unrestricted cash transfers to conflict IDP recipients to meet their basic needs with flexibility and choice. Where the use of cash is feasible, unrestricted cash transfers can be implemented in...

May 2018

Review of Food for Peace Market-Based Emergency Food Assistance Programs: Democratic Republic of Congo Case Study Report

Report

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) case illustrates the complexity and diversity of contexts within which program design and implementation occurs. It highlights the need for provincial-scale assessments, local market monitoring, and flexibility to pivot to different modalities depending on changing...

January 2018

Review of Food for Peace Market-Based Emergency Food Assistance Programs: Haiti Case-Study Report

Report

Haiti is a very low-income country with a degraded ecological setting that faces repeated threats from multiple hazards. It is an excellent example of Food for Peace (FFP) linking emergency and development funding through the Kore Lavi Title II program that serves as a model for the national social...

January 2018

Addressing food insecurity: Does the choice of transfer modality matter?

Report

This operational study analyses the impact of multipurpose cash (MPC)—associated with a nutrition-sensitive training—on the food security and nutrition of the households affected by the drought in the Salvadoran Dry Corridor. Three quantitative and qualitative surveys—with a strong gender...

2018

Response options analysis and planning for Fafan zone (Somali region, Ethiopia)

Guidelines and Tools

Between October 2017 and March 2018, the Consortium began the pilot in Ethiopia with the aim of providing technical and strategic support to country-based humanitarian organisations, enabling them to engage in collaborative assessments and decision making. Whilst the Consortium has not been conceived to...

2018

The Role of Cash Transfers in Social Protection, Humanitarian Response and Shock-Responsive Social Protection

Guidelines and Tools

Cash transfers have expanded rapidly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) around the world in the past decade. The contexts in which they are implemented have also diversified; while cash transfers were mostly adopted initially as central elements of social protection systems, they have become...

2018

Mozambique Rapid Market Assessment

Report

Mozambique is a country prone to natural disasters, most markedly floods, cyclones, pest and disease outbreaks and frequent droughts. These regularly exacerbate the underlying poverty and food security situation and cause major damage and set back economic growth in disaster-affected areas. Meteorological...

2018

The 1.5 Billion People Question : Food, Vouchers, or Cash Transfers?

Report

Most of the people in low and middle-income countries covered by social protection receive assistance in the form of in-kind food. The origin of such support is rooted in countries’ historical pursuit of three interconnected objectives, namely attaining self-sufficiency in food, managing domestic food...

2018

E-Transfer implementation guide

Guidelines and Tools

This updated E-transfer Implementation Guide replaces the original guide published in 2014. In cash transfer programming (CTP), electronic transfers (e-transfers) are a digital replacement for paper vouchers or physical cash. E-transfers are a disbursement mechanism – a way of transferring money, goods...

2018

Shock Responsive Social Protection Systems Research: Synthesis Report

Report

This synthesis report consolidates the evidence and lessons learned from the research, drawing on all the case studies and other outputs, including the literature review as well as policy briefs on systems development and monitoring and evaluation. It highlights the key ways in which social protection...

2018