Cash and Voucher Assistance for Protection

About the Issue

Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) is increasingly used across humanitarian responses because it provides crisis-affected people with greater flexibility, dignity, and choice. When designed with clear protection objectives, CVA can also contribute to reducing protection risks and supporting specific protection outcomes. This approach is commonly referred to as Cash for Protection (C4P).

Evidence from humanitarian responses has shown that appropriately designed cash assistance can help reduce harmful coping strategies such as child labour, early marriage, survival sex, family separation, unsafe movement, and other forms of exploitation and abuse. C4P can also support access to essential services, documentation, case management, psychosocial support, recovery assistance for survivors of violence or explosive ordnance, and pathways toward financial inclusion and livelihoods opportunities.

Despite growing interest and operational experience, the use of CVA to achieve protection outcomes remains inconsistent across contexts. Humanitarian actors continue to face challenges related to fragmented guidance, limited technical capacity, weak coordination between Protection Clusters and Cash Working Groups (CWGs), and insufficient comparable evidence on outcomes and good practices. 

The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) promotes the appropriate, safe, and coordinated use of CVA within protection programming to maximise protection benefits and minimise risks. Through inter-agency collaboration, the GPC supports the development of harmonised guidance, technical standards, evidence generation, and capacity strengthening initiatives to improve the quality, consistency, and accountability of C4P programming globally.

The Task Team on Cash for Protection (TTC4P)

The GPC Task Team on Cash for Protection was established in 2017 with the aim of increasing knowledge about the use of CVA in the protection sector and increasing the effectiveness and quality of programmes using CVA to achieve protection outcomes.  For more information see the Task Team on Cash for Protection Terms of Reference. 

The GPC Task Team on Cash for Protection serves as a key global platform for advancing inter-agency coordination, learning, technical support, and evidence-building on C4P. The TTC4P works closely with national and sub-national Protection Clusters, including focal points in specialised areas of protection, CWGs, CALP Network platforms, and operational partners to strengthen the integration of protection and CVA across humanitarian responses. 

C4P Global Dashboard

The C4P Global Dashboard will map and consolidate Cash for Protection programming and MEAL findings globally, helping practitioners identify trends, compare approaches, access relevant examples, and strengthen future programme design, learning, and evidence-building across the sector.

CVA for Protection Global Mapping