The use of cash and voucher assistance in humanitarian aid has more than doubled in the last five years. But for many, the question is not why cash is growing more popular in the sector, but why it’s taking so long.
Volumes of cash and voucher assistance — also known as CVA — stood at $10 billion in 2022, compared to $4.3 billion in 2017, according to The State of the World’s Cash 2023 report, published late last year by the CALP Network, a global network of organizations involved in the provision of CVA.
That increase is partly because humanitarian spending as a whole has skyrocketed in recent years, driven by the pandemic, war, and widespread food shortages caused by price inflation and debt.