Executive Summary
Background
The advance of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is arguably the most impactful change that has taken place in the humanitarian system over the past two decades. Its rise from less than 2% of humanitarian assistance in 2005 to 21% today involved a fundamental shift in mindset, and its story demonstrates just how fast change can happen when incentives align. This shift has been about more than innovation of a product or service. It has involved a multifaceted transformation across the humanitarian system with huge improvements in the effectiveness of aid and dignity for people affected by crisis.
For over a decade, CVA was one of the humanitarian sector’s lead protagonists, involving widely diverse stakeholders in unusual collaborations to give more choice to crisis-affected people. CVA has challenged the foundations of decision-making and partnership, offering efficiencies in time and costs in the process.
And yet, growth since 2020 suggests that, despite huge gains, the full transformative potential of CVA is at risk.
Through this study, CALP sought to explore the ‘unfinished business’ of CVA and what role it could play in revisiting its big promise: to enable choice and dignity for people affected by crisis. CALP has posed bold questions about CVA in the wider humanitarian system, as well as the Network’s own role in the future of CVA. It has brought to the forefront one of the most contentious and persistent tensions in the system: the issue of power sharing within the stretched and contested realm of humanitarian assistance.