Actions taken:
Objective:
Pledge to establish Cash & Voucher Assistance (CVA) as an integral part of humanitarian assistance and as a standard modality in international cooperation.
Actions taken:
• The GRC has successfully integrated Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) into its planning processes, systems, programs and staff capacity with strong leadership commitment and a designated GRC CVA cluster contributing to CVA becoming a routine consideration in (GRC supported) humanitarian responses. The use of CVA has been increased significantly in GRC humanitarian responses with examples seen in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Turkey and Syria earthquake disaster. The routinised considerations to use CVA in new humanitarian projects resulted in a significant increase of GRC supported global projects implementing CVA. Around 33% percent of the GRC supported humanitarian projects integrated CVA as a modality (either to support National Societies to become “cash ready” or to distribute cash directly), implemented in 44% of GRC supported countries. The number of people reached directly with CVA through GRC supported humanitarian projects increased from 5% in 2022 to approximately 9.5% in 2023 much of which is attributable to the Turkey response to the Earthquake.
• Apart from full time staff and delegates with expertise in CVA, additional capacity for temporary surge deployments has been created through “GRCReady” a personnel database/ humanitarian surge roster with CVA profiles to alert and deploy qualified experts within 72 hours. As part of the GRC’s localization agenda, CVA experts are working with National Societies, supported by GRC technical CVA managers.
• The GRC is actively seeking partnerships and is strengthening inter-organizational and inter-sectoral cooperation around CVA and participates actively in existing Movement fora. Topics hereby include strengthening the link between CVA and social protection systems as well as the preparedness and readiness of partner organizations to implement CVA. The GRC is represented in the “German Working Group on Cash Assistance” and currently co-chairing the group for the year 2024 and, at divisional management level, in the “Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s Advisory Committee on Cash Assistance” as well as in the strategic level as a member of the “Red Cross Red Crescent Cash Peer Working Group”. GRC has actively participated in the global procurement process of a single framework agreement for data management system and financial service provider to be used for digital delivery of CVA within the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, and supported the review of RCRC Movement CVA Preparedness tools through the CVA-P Technical Working Group. GRC actively participated in the development, piloting and review of the self-registration application dubbed Access Red Cross, a registration tool meant to support quick scale up of cash transfers and other humanitarian assistance.
• The GRC provides technical support to partner organizations to develop their operational capacity to deliver high-quality CVA-based and forward-looking humanitarian assistance (“cash readiness”). These include technical, organizational and financial support on cash visioning to develop CVA plans of action, and to implement priority actions towards CVA preparedness as well as trainings of staff and volunteers to integrate CVA in sectors such as water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) and health. Examples include preparedness initiatives for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the Polish Red Cross, the Sudan Red Crescent Society and the Iraqi Red Crescent Society. GRC is also working with sister National Societies to explore opportunities to use CVA in anticipatory action and to extend CVA by linking it to social protection systems. This should enable an improved response to shocks, improve risk management regarding the humanitarian consequences of the climate crisis and generally strengthen resilience.
The activities in the action plan of the pledge are continuously being implemented and will continue to be sustained with efforts to continue to increase the volume of humanitarian aid delivered through CVA, further trainings to staff, contribute to learning and evidence in the use of CVA, advocacy among policy makers and partnerships with humanitarian actors, governments and private sector as well as supporting “cash preparedness” of National Societies. Considering the organizational dynamics such as staff turnover and emerging trends in complexities of disasters that may require adjusting processes, tools, approaches and capacities, CVA preparedness activities will continue to be implemented over a period. Furthermore, despite an increase in the volume of humanitarian aid delivered through CVA, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement is still far from achieving its target of delivering 50% of humanitarian aid through CVA, therefore, more efforts including policy adjustments and advocacy are still needed to continuously scale up the use of CVA.
Some of the challenges in fully achieving the indicators of progress to the pledge include: a shortfall in funding for CVA preparedness as part of humanitarian assistance. Some donors do not recognize capacity building in CVA preparedness. Further efforts are needed through advocacy, funding streams and partnerships to address CVA preparedness as part of humanitarian assistance requirements to realize the full potential of CVA.