After years of growth, the total volume of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) in humanitarian responses declined in 2023 for the first time since 2015. In 2022, CVA peaked at US$10 billion, partly due to the Ukraine crisis, but it decreased to just over $9 billion in 2023. While this decline mirrors the overall reduction in international humanitarian funding from 2022 to 2023, a larger concern is the stagnation of CVA as a proportion of total humanitarian aid, despite strong evidence showing its ability to empower crisis-affected people and deliver a cost-effective response aligned with their preferences and priorities.
CVA globally accounts for around 23 per cent of humanitarian assistance—a proportion that has remained relatively static since 2022. At the same time, the distribution of CVA remains uneven, with over half of global CVA concentrated in just four countries—Bangladesh, Syria, Türkiye and Ukraine. However, within some of these countries, CVA is declining. In Ukraine, for example, a 2024 needs assessment found a strong preference for CVA across areas and households, yet the share of the humanitarian response implemented through CVA dropped from 42 per cent in 2022 to 22 per cent in early 2024.
Cash transfers in anticipatory action
Cash plays a key role in anticipatory action, due to its quick accessibility, flexible use and proven effectiveness. Since July 2020, of the $104 million CERF disbursed for anticipatory action, 24 per cent ($25.4 million), has been used for cash assistance, while 14 out of the 15 OCHA-facilitated anticipatory action frameworks have a cash component.
In 2024, cash played a pivotal role in anticipatory action triggered by flood risks in Bangladesh, Nepal and Chad, accounting for 48 per cent ($7 million) of the total funding disbursed by CERF. On 4 July 2024, following heavy monsoon rainfall in Bangladesh, the Anticipatory Action framework for floods in the Jamuna River basin was triggered at the Bahadurabad monitoring station. Just 16 minutes after the alert, CERF allocated $6.2 million, enabling the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to provide life-saving multi-purpose cash assistance, as well as agricultural and reproductive health support to 388,000 people. Within just five days, WFP provided a $43 cash transfer to families to help them stock up on goods and essential medicines, protect their assets and evacuate ahead of the floods.
These type of early interventions are also possible thanks to support for the CERF Climate Action Account, established at COP 28 (December 2023). This account offers donors a quick, efficient and impactful avenue to provide climate-related financing to CERF, helping to scale up anticipatory action and humanitarian responses to climate challenges, as well as climate-smart humanitarian action in conflict-affected and fragile contexts.
However, despite global stagnation, CVA is increasingly being used in highly complex and volatile emergencies, signifying its adaptability and effectiveness. Following the escalation of the conflict in Haiti in March 2024, 20 actors collaborated to deliver CVA, ensuring timely and effective assistance. By June 2024, cash transfer programmes in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince had reached over 25,500 households across 84 displacement sites, distributing a total of $6.2 million. In Yemen, significant progress has been made in promoting Multi-Purpose Cash (MPC) as a viable, efficient, effective and dignified response option, with the percentage of CVA funding allocated to MPC growing from 19 per cent in 2022 to 32 per cent in 2023, and 95 per cent by October 2024. In Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), preparedness measures taken by the Cash Working Group—such as pre-agreeing the approach and transfer values—enabled cash assistance to be deployed within days of the war’s onset in October 2023. In addition, mobile money and digital platforms were piloted to address liquidity challenges and group cash transfers were explored as a way to deliver more adaptable humanitarian assistance.
Looking ahead, new guidance on the inclusion of MPC in humanitarian plans provides an important opportunity to prioritize, track and scale CVA, particularly MPC, in the world’s most challenging crises. The guidance—adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) in July 2024—will, for the first time, ensure that all countries with a Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP) provide clear figures on the planned target and requirements for MPC, as well as a breakdown of planned sectoral CVA. This data could provide valuable insights into the barriers hindering the broader adoption of cash assistance. It may also help the humanitarian system overcome the 23 per cent plateau in order to meet its collective commitment to use CVA whenever feasible.
References
- Data for Haiti, OPT, Ukraine and Yemen provided by country teams.
- Anticipatory action is acting ahead of predicted hazards e.g., a flood, to prevent or reduce acute humanitarian impacts. This can be done through an anticipatory action framework, which combines pre-agreed triggers (i.e. thresholds and decision-making rules based on reliable and timely forecasts), pre-agreed activities and pre-arranged financing to facilitate anticipatory action.