Cash Transfer Programming in the Education and Child Protection Sectors: Literature Review and Evidence Maps

In recent years, cash transfer programming (CTP) has significantly increased as a proportion of humanitarian assistance. In the right circumstances, CTP can facilitate better use of scarce resources, stimulate local economies to assist recovery, and respect the dignity of people in crisis. While much research has been done on the use of CTP in development contexts, the humanitarian body of evidence is not as extensive.

Theory and practice make similar underlying arguments for the use of CTP in emergency contexts. The use of CTP finds support in Amartya Sen’s entitlement approach to humanitarian emergencies, which views them as socio- political phenomena which income support measures could help ameliorate (de Waal, 2006; Sen, 1999). There is strong evidence that CTP is an effective means of meeting the population’s needs, both in terms of increasing access to basic goods and services and integrating humanitarian response within the local economy (Gairdner et al., 2011). However, supply-side barriers, such as the lack of pre-existing commodities and services, as well as poorly functioning markets, can dampen the potential benefits of CTP and make its implementation more difficult.

As part of the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, major donors and agencies signed the Grand Bargain, which included public commitments to increase the use of CTP in humanitarian interventions and was a significant step in solidifying the global commitment to the role of CTP in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian action (IASC, 2016). The Global Framework for Action (GFA), compiled by CaLP, summarises this and other commitments.

CaLP, the global partnership of humanitarian actors engaged in policy, practice and research within CTP, has used the GFA to inform its strategy. Given the increased use of CTP across sectors, CaLP is keen to build evidence to support the commitments. This report aims to identify and analyse evidence gaps in CTP to inform future research agendas. More specifically, it will include an overview of the current state of knowledge on the use of CTP modalities (i.e. multipurpose cash grants, conditional cash transfers) in education and child protection through a critical review of the evidence and an evidence map that visualises the impact of CTP in emergencies on predefined outcomes.

Because of the nature of the humanitarian field and its particular challenges, more robust evidence is needed on when and how CTP can deliver desired outcomes. This paper accepts that cash and vouchers as a modality can be a useful tool that efficiently meets beneficiary needs and leads to improved choice and dignity (Arnold et al., 2011; Creti and Jaspars, 2006; Gairdner et al., 2011; Venton et al., 2015). Education and child protection were chosen as the pilot sectors, thanks to the technical support offered by the Global Clusters, as well as for their complementarity.