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Just give them the money: Why are cash transfers only 6% of humanitarian aid?
// People, Spaces, Deliberation - Exploring the interactions among public opinion, governance, and the public sphere
Guest post from ODI's Paul Harvey
Giving people cash in emergencies makes sense and more of it is starting to happen. A recent high level panel report found that cash should radically disrupt the humanitarian system and that it's use should grow dramatically from the current guesstimate of 6% of humanitarian spend. And the Secretary General's report for the World Humanitarian Summit calls for using 'cash-based programming as the preferred and default method of support'.
But 6% is much less than it should be. Given the strong case for cash transfers, what's the hold-up in getting to 30%, 50% or even 70%? The hold-up isn't the strength of the evidence, which is increasingly clear and compelling. Cash transfers are among the most rigorously evaluated and researched humanitarian tools of the last decade. In most contexts, humanitarian cash transfers can be provided to people safely, efficiently and accountably. People spend cash sensibly: they are not likely to spend it anti-socially (for example, on alcohol) and cash is no more prone to diversion than in-kind assistance. Local markets from Somalia to the Philippines have responded to cash injections without causing inflation (a concern often raised by cash transfer sceptics). Cash supports livelihoods by enabling investment and builds markets through increasing demand for goods and services. And with the growth of digital payments systems, cash can be delivered in increasingly affordable, secure and transparent ways.
People usually prefer receiving cash because it gives them greater choice and control over how best to meet their own needs, and a greater sense of dignity. And if people receive in-kind aid that doesn't reflect their priorities they often have to sell it to buy what they really need as, for example, 70% of Syrian refugees in Iraq have done. The difference in what they can sell food or other goods for and what it costs to provide is a pure waste of limited resources. Unsurprisingly people are better than aid agencies at deciding what they most need.
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Onesimo Alvarez-Moro
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