Cash and Voucher Assistance and Protection

The Global Protection Cluster promotes the appropriate use of  Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) in humanitarian settings and ensuring that associated protection benefits are maximized and protection risks minimized through the coordination of CVA and Protection practitioners during the program cycle.

Mainstreaming protection in CVA is critical to the well-being and protection of vulnerable populations, ensuring adherence of rights and accountability to affected populations. On the other hand, within protection programming, CVA can be a flexible and cost-effective mechanism for delivery of assistance to help vulnerable populations meet their most pressing needs and reduce negative coping mechanisms such as child labour, transactional sex, or early marriage. When used as part of comprehensive protection interventions, including strong referral mechanisms to case management and psychosocial services, CVA has also shown the potential to contribute to specific protection outcomes such as GBV prevention and response, child protection, access to documentation, supporting access to national services, recovery of victims of explosive ordnance and furthering access to financial inclusion and livelihood opportunities – to name a few.

The following pages provide additional guidance and highlight key resources for GPC members and other humanitarian stakeholders to use CVA as a tool to help achieve protection outcomes and to better mainstream protection in CVA for affected populations.