Distribution by Region

Distribution by Organisation Type, Document Type, Region and Year

Cash occurs mostly in documents published in Europe, followed by North America, Asia and Oceania with similar but comparatively smaller contributions. Overall, the top five contributors in terms of occurrences are NGO, NGO_Fed, RC, IGO and C/B organisations.

NGO documents provide the greatest number of occurrences, primarily from activity reports published in Europe and Asia but to a lesser extent. Occurrences from NGO_Fed were mostly obtained from activity reports published in Europe, Occurrences from RC were mostly found in European and Oceanian activity reports.

Occurrences from IGO were obtained equally from genera documents as well as activity_report. Lastly, C/B also generates a considerable number of occurrences from European general documents almost exclusively.

Settlement risk is the risk of loss due to the failure of the counter-party to honour its obligations to deliver cash, securities or other assets as contractually agreed.

Cash is a short-term form of assistance and long-term benefits are not achieved unless these initiatives are combined with livelihood opportunities.

Through its North Syria Response Fund (NSRF), GOAL and its partner provided assistance to approximately 30,000 people through multiple supports, including the provision of cash, NFI kits and ready-to-eat (RTE) kits.

UNHCR implemented a multi-sector response, including biometric registration, cash , health, shelter, wash and livelihood support.

Interventions will integrate health and nutrition, food assistance, food security and livelihood support, including multi-purpose cash, water, sanitation, hygiene promotion, shelter, NFIs, protection and education.

Through food assistance, including general food distribution and cash or voucher transfers, 3.8 million people were reached.

Links to therapeutic care, health systems, HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) networks and food security programmes including food, cash or voucher transfers are important.

The use of a varied set of food assistance tools (such as food, cash or vouchers), complemented by innovations in how food is procured (including local purchase), helps to ensure that appropriate assistance is provided and to maximize the chance that humanitarian food assistance will serve as a strong basis for food security in the longer term.

Types of Cash

Cash-related concepts

Definitions for cash transfer

Cash transfers are a support system based on the premise that poverty causes malnutrition and stunted growth amongst children. Conditional cash transfers stipulate conditions that have to be met before the cash is handed over – including regular height and weight measurements, attendance of food and nutrition education sessions, measles immunisation and family planning clinics.

First, cash transfers can be a very effective and quick way to help people recover their livelihoods after disasters, whether through access to capital as a loan or grant, or through in-kind asset replacement and skills training.

Hence, although social cash transfers are a social protection instrument designed for longterm sustainable programming, they can also be interpreted as a tool for disaster risk reduction in the short and medium term.

Types of cash transfer

Parent concepts of cash transfer

Cash transfer-related concepts

The provision of humanitarian assistance is also changing, with new mechanisms and means of delivering aid. For example, there has been considerable progress over the last few years in institutionalizing the use of cash-transfer programming in humanitarian response. The question is no longer whether cash is an appropriate way of meeting the needs of crisis-affected people, but how organizations, donors and Governments can best use cash with, and in place of, in-kind humanitarian assistance. As the use of cash-transfer programming continues to grow, there is a need to better understand the potentially far-reaching implications this may have on the provision of humanitarian assistance

NRC will seek to better define when cash is the preferred response and when it may not be, guided by the question "why not cash ?" NRC will seek to better define its approach as a cash provider; potential niches where NRC can add value (e.g. in hard-to-reach areas); how to best combine cash-based interventions with sectorial or integrated programmes; and which capacities NRC should further develop in order to excel in cash-based programmes.

The benefits remain insufficient, as the transfer usually does not even cover the government-defined subsistence minimum. It is also not clear whether the impact of the benefit is high enough to justify the administrative costs involved in delivering a proxy means tested benefit. Such unconditional cash transfers are often criticized for weakening incentives for job search. A recent study (World Bank, 2015c) compared similar households just above and below the margin for receipt of the benefit (recipients and non-recipients), and concluded that the TSA can strengthen disincentives for labour market engagement. This seems to occur principally among rural women with children, who prefer to care for their children instead of working in subsistence agriculture ("disguised unemployment"), or who do not work because of the lack of affordable child care services.

Concerning the latter, the example given in the same chapter on cash transfers argues that using the new modality of cash in humanitarian response not only increases people's agency but also provides a natural link to the private sector, including banks, retailers and agents.

The second change is greater reliance on local and regional purchase of food aid, which has to some extent offset the heavy reliance on in-kind food aid shipped from donor countries. Despite the revolution in cash-transfer programming, there are times when in-kind food is still the preferred response – particularly when market disruptions or inefficiencies would cause cash transfers to lead to significant local food price inflation. But local and regional purchase of food is generally a more cost-efficient and timely way of getting food to affected populations (Barrett and Maxwell, 2005; GAO, 2009).

While research indicates that the preference for formal providers has grown over the last ten years, more time and effort needs to be invested (particularly in the preparedness stage) to understand and mitigate issues associated with transferring cash after major sudden-onset emergencies.

The lack of banking services and other financial institutions in rural Nepal made the delivery of cash a challenge .

Supporters of cash responses in emergencies argue that they can be more cost-effective and timely than commodity distribution, give the recipients greater choice and dignity and benefit the economies into which they are injected. Sceptics argue that cash responses are often not practical, particularly in complex emergencies, where security risks and the risk of corruption are deemed unacceptable. Even where cash responses may be feasible, there are concerns that women may be excluded, and that the cash may be spent in unwelcome or anti-social ways. A sudden access of cash may increase inflation and depress local markets, and may encourage conflict in areas of instability.

The chart below represents the distribution of cash between 2005 and 2019 in terms of the number of occurrences and relative frequency of occurrences. It also allows you to view the distribution across Regions, Organisations and Document types.