REPORTS

Doing Cash Differently: How Cash Transfers Can Transform Humanitarian Aid

by
The High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers
September 14, 2015

The 12 Recommendations of the High Level Panel on Cash Transfers

A. More cash transfers
1.  Give more unconditional cash transfers. The questions should always be asked: ‘why not cash?’ and ‘if not now, when?’.
2.  Invest in readiness for cash transfers in contingency planning and preparedness.
 
B. More efficient cash transfers, delivered through stronger, locally-accountable systems
3.  Measure how much aid is provided as cash transfers and explicitly distinguish this from vouchers and in-kind aid.
4.  Systematically analyse and benchmark other humanitarian responses against cash transfers.
5.  Leverage cash transfers to link humanitarian assistance to longer-term development and social protection systems.
6.  Capitalise on the private sector’s expertise in delivering payments.
7.  Where possible, deliver cash digitally and in a manner that furthers financial inclusion.
8.  Improve aid agencies’ data security, privacy systems and compliance with financial regulations.
9.  Improve coordination of cash transfers within the existing system.
10.  Implement cash programmes that are large-scale, coherent and unconditional, allowing for economies of scale, competition and avoiding duplication.
 
C. Different funding to transform the existing system and open up new opportunities
11.  Wherever possible, make humanitarian cash transfers central to humanitarian crisis response as a primary component of Strategic Response Plans, complemented by in-kind assistance if necessary.
12.  Finance the delivery of humanitarian cash transfers separately from assessment, targeting and monitoring.
 

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