Cash Vouchers

Cash and Voucher Assistance that Works for Women: 6 Lessons from the Field

A brief summary from a multi-country study on "what does gender-sensitive cash and voucher assistance look like?".

The study adopted a user-centric approach to data collection. This ensured consistent reflection with crisis-affected people throughout the process and increased our ability to capture complexity and enhance accountability. Read More...

Cash and Voucher Assistance that Works for Women: 6 Lessons from the Field

A brief summary from a multi-country study on "what does gender-sensitive cash and voucher assistance look like?".

The study adopted a user-centric approach to data collection. This ensured consistent reflection with crisis-affected people throughout the process and increased our ability to capture complexity and enhance accountability. Read More...

Addressing Food Crisis in Yemen

In 2017, in response to the one of the world's worst manmade crises, a consortium of CARE and Action Contra La Faim (ACF) implemented a EU-Funded Multi-Purpose Cash program in Abyan and Amran governorates with a mean aim of enhancing food security (FS) as well as supporting livelihood activities, savings groups and the resilience of communities with the rehabilitation of critical community-identified shared assets. The program design was aligned to the Humanitarian Development Nexus framework, which focuses on a shift from supplying humanitarian assistance to those who need it, to reducing the demand for humanitarian assistance by addressing the root causes.

This report presents the evaluation findings from the project during over its full implementation period (October 2017- February 2019) in the targeted areas. It uses the DAC Evaluation Criteria: Relevance, Efficiency, Effectiveness, Impact and Sustainability. It also provides insight on the internal and external factors influencing the achievement (or non-achievement) of the project objectives. The analysis should inform decisions about replicating interventions, draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the implementation strategies, highlight lessons learned and lead to recommendations to inform future programming and policymaking. Read More...

Final Evaluation of Jordanian Community Development Support Program

This evaluation assessed the Jordanian Community Development and Support Program (JCDSP), which aimed to enhance the socio-economic well-being and quality of life for Jordanian host community members, especially for Jordanian women and young women and men (ultimate outcome). The Program was delivered by CARE Canada and CARE International in Jordan in two phases. Phase 1 spanned three years, from 2014 to 2017, and lent assistance to meet the most critical needs of vulnerable populations from communities in Irbid, Mafraq, Zarqa, and East Amman. Its objective was to augment and supplement overwhelmed government services brought on by the large scale migration of Syrian refugees within these four target communities. The Program’s second phase, lasting 18 months (April 2018 to September 2019), responded to the longer term challenges and opportunities as more and more of the Syrian refugees made the decision to permanently settle in these communities. Under this phase, the Program shifted focus from humanitarian assistance to women’s economic empowerment, social cohesion and safety net enhancements. Accordingly, under this second phase, only two out of the three intermediate outcomes were maintained. As part of the shut-down process of the Program, CARE Canada and CARE International commissioned this summative evaluation to look at the success and challenges derived from this process. Through the collection of primarily qualitative data and augmented with data collected by the Program, this evaluation: 1. Assessed the degree to which the program has achieved its outcome results (impact) and the relative relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of program activities to generate these outcome results as per the Program’s theory of change; and 2. Provide insight, analysis and recommendations to CARE Jordan, and the CARE federation regarding the strengths and challenges of the programming to inform and improve future programming. Read More...

Gender, Cash Assistance, and Conflict: Gendered Protection Implications of Cash and Voucher Assistance in Somalia/Somaliland

Protection issues are multi-dimensional in Somalia and Somaliland. Vulnerability is as much about physical violence as it is about drought and chronic food insecurity. The challenges that Somalia, Somaliland, and Puntland face can be roughly categorized into (a) environmental, or climate related, and (b) human-made crises. The recurring droughts of 2016 and 2017 left 5.4 million people in need of assistance and protection. Climate-related emergencies and increased violence with the rise of al-Shabaab and other violent non-state actors has led to migration internally and externally. Conflict shapes gender and protection issues across the region, increasing vulnerability, particularly for already marginalized groups like women, the disabled, and minority clans. The effects of conflict are not homogenous nor evenly distributed. Those living in the central and southern areas of Somalia have been particularly affected by the consequences of war, whereas those in the northeast (Somaliland) have experienced relative peace for almost a decade.

This study followed a five-phase empirical strategy that relied heavily on a multi-method approach. This empirical strategy involved the collection of original qualitative and quantitative data collected in Somaliland, Puntland, and Nairobi. Supplementing this primary data was a rigorous review of project data, ACLED violence datasets, and academic and practitioner literature. Issues which may not have strongly impacted the selected data collection locations— communities in Sool and Mudug—may in fact be some of the most prominent and challenging protection issues throughout Somalia and Somaliland as a whole. A structured review of primary data against the background of secondary data mitigates selection bias, whereby research findings are merely an artifact of the sample chosen to study. In a place like Somalia/land where there are high numbers internally displaced communities, the impact of violence—including gendered violence—is mobile, following survivors as they move from less secure areas to those that are more secure. Read More...

Cash and Voucher Assistance that Works for Women: 6 Lessons from the Field

A brief summary from a multi-country study on "what does gender-sensitive cash and voucher assistance look like?".

The study adopted a user-centric approach to data collection. This ensured consistent reflection with crisis-affected people throughout the process and increased our ability to capture complexity and enhance accountability. Read More...

What Does Gender-Sensitive Cash and Voucher Assistance Look Like?

CARE is committed to being “cash ready” to achieve breakthroughs for women and girls in its cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and to convene other stakeholders on the gendered aspects of CVA. Building that commitment, CARE commissioned a study on gender-sensitive CVA from its own project participants. The study aimed at understanding the:
- Extent to which women, men, boys, and girls have been involved in the design of CVA and the implications of this involvement.
- Potential for CVA to foster positive and sustainable gender roles and relations that contribute to gender equity.
- Gender-related barriers and risks associated with collecting and receiving CVA including social and cultural
attitudes and protection risks. Read More...

Women’s economic empowerment in emergency contexts: Niger case study

While discussion of the ‘Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus’ continues within the sector, there remains debate as to whether women’s economic empowerment is a luxury, or even feasible in humanitarian contexts where the priority is to keep people alive. Increasingly, however, humanitarians are seeing interventions aimed at women’s economic empowerment in emergency contexts as a key tool to increase protection and support people in crises to live in dignity. CARE set out to analyse whether financial inclusion strategies like community-led savings groups may in fact represent a way to not only respond to crises, but also to build resilience against them, even in highly fluid contexts.

In June 2018, CARE teams conducted fieldwork in two areas where it is implementing ongoing humanitarian interventions. CARE organised focus groups and interviews with communities and individuals in Diffa and Konni where it has delivered humanitarian assistance. The interventions combined blanket cash distributions, and the establishment of savings and credit groups which also provided women with life skills and business training to set up small businesses.

Within a crisis setting, combining a savings group structure including income generation support with humanitarian assistance such as food and non-food items (NFIs) helped women not only to meet basic needs in a more sustainable way, but also improved their independent access to and control over money.

During emergencies, providing women with humanitarian cash to cover basic needs allowed women in savings groups to continue saving and to invest in income generating activities (IGA), rather than using up capital on food.

If crises continue to hit, the positive impact of savings groups set up in emergencies can become strained. In this case, further cash interventions can preserve small businesses.

Membership of savings groups and receipt of IGAs and life skills training increased women’s income and confidence. Membership of a savings group provides psychosocial benefits to women who are suffering anxiety, depression or trauma by providing a social network that meets and talks regularly. Read More...

The Gendered Dimension of Multi-Purpose Cash Supporting Disaster Resilience (Arabic)

In 2017, in response to the mounting humanitarian crisis in Yemen, CARE Yemen and Action Contra la Faim (ACF) implemented a cash transfer program and community asset rehabilitation and skill building programing in the governorates of Abyan and Amran. This European Union (EU)-funded program integrated these interventions to enhance resilience building at household and community levels.
The overall objective of this study is to assess the impact of the Multi-Purpose Cash (MPC) on the resilience of households targeted by the program, with a focus on the experiences of female-headed households, their challenges with increasing their resilience, and barriers that male-headed households do not face. Read More...

Are there gendered impacts to multi-purpose cash transfers intended to build resilience?

STARTING IN 2017 CARE YEMEN, in partnership with Action Contre la Faim (ACF), implemented a European Union (EU) consortium-funded resilience program in Abyan and Amran governorates. The project used a “Cash Plus” approach, combining ten monthly multi-purpose cash (MPC) transfers with the rehabilitation of vital community assets and livelihoods skills support. The program focused on previously underserved areas to enhance food and nutrition security, promote livelihood recovery and resilience of vulnerable
households, and stimulate local markets. Both interventions were deliberately integrated to enhance resilience building at the household and community levels.
See full evaluation here: http://careevaluations.org/evaluation/the-gendered-dimension-of-multi-purpose-cash-supporting-disaster-resilience/ Read More...

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