Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on cash and voucher assistance
Photo: UNHCR
Covid-19 has sparked an economic crisis that will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable members of society, particularly in humanitarian contexts. The Cash Barometer project explores its economic impact, helping humanitarians to better understand its various effects, as well as to what extent recipients’ perspectives inform cash and voucher assistance (CVA) responses, on two levels: global and in-country.
Global
We are working with CaLP and CashCap to understand the impacts of Covid-19 on cash and voucher assistance. We analyse feedback from crisis-affected people and technical actors, then work to include their views in discussions and decision-making, aiming to make them central to the ongoing response.
We are also conducting online surveys with Financial Service Providers to better understand their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities brought by the current crisis, as key actors in the effort towards digital CVA at scale.
In-country
In CAR we are conducting qualitative User Voice interviews (download below) to bring the voices of people affected by crisis into the local, regional, and national response.
In Nigeria we are working with the Cash Working Group to ensure that the perceptions of people in hard to reach places or without connection to communications networks are considered in CVA design and inform the Covid-19 response.
In Somalia we are launching a citizens’ survey, which includes CVA recipients, to better understand perceptions of the Covid-19 response and the economic impacts of the pandemic.
