Doing More Cash,
Better
February 2019

Introduction
The European Union’s humanitarian assistance is increasingly delivered in the form of cash,
replacing, where possible, traditional in-kind humanitarian aid. Cash assistance is not only
more efficient, but is also providing people in need with wider and more dignified assistance,
giving them the flexibility to choose what to purchase based on their preferences. It also
results in more aid directly reaching beneficiaries, which ultimately ensures the maximum
impact for those in need and better value-for-money for donors and taxpayers. Finally,
cash transfers support local markets, lay the foundations for communities’ recovery and
resilience, and can complement existing social safety protection systems.
Therefore, we believe that, where it is right for the context and in the best interests of
beneficiaries, cash represents the most effective and efficient modality to provide aid to
those who need it most.
This short publication starts at the eve of the World Humanitarian Summit, when the
world’s major donors and international organisations came together to sign the Grand
Bargain, of which cash represented a central part.
Since then, the EU has been committed to constantly scale up the use of cash in its
humanitarian operations, especially when cash is delivered in large-scale programmes
to people who are caught up in protracted crises. We owe it to beneficiaries, donors and
taxpayers to ensure that these operations are the best value possible. This is why we have
sought to put these big cash programmes under scrutiny to see if we can make them more
efficient, more transparent and more accountable – this is the rationale behind the Cash
Guidance Note, described in this Compendium.
Cash poses a series of challenges to the way we work. We are seeing a greater role for new
actors, such as private sector financial service providers, and perhaps a different role for
traditional humanitarian actors, who should focus more on assessments and monitoring
and less on the delivery itself. It was in this spirit that we launched a Preliminary Market
Consultation, to explore the feasibility of contracting large-scale cash delivery on a
commercial basis – also described in the EU Policy framework chapter.
The third part of this Cash Compendium contains a selection of some of our most prominent
experiences with cash assistance. Several case studies coming from all over the world
show that cash is a versatile, adaptable modality, which lends itself to a variety of contexts
and crises.
Against the backdrop of growing humanitarian needs and limited funding, we have a moral
obligation to improve the assistance we provide, as well as increasing efficiency and costeffectiveness. I believe that cash is a compelling tool that can make our limited resources
go further, while making us more accountable to the people we assist.