This paper outlines 10 principles for multi-purpose cash-based assistance to respond to humanitarian needs. The principles apply to humanitarian assistance as a whole, but take food assistance as the starting point. This is due to the scale of food assistance in humanitarian contexts, the perception by beneficiaries of food assistance as a means to meet other basic needs, and to policy developments, which have changed the approach to food.
The principles emerged from recent experiences with programmes that provide multi-purpose assistance and are intended to provide a common framework for the way donors and humanitarian partners provide multi-purpose assistance. The principles are also intended to reassure host governments that assistance is provided in a responsible way so that local markets and systems are not disrupted and to satisfy donors that multi-purpose assistance meets accountability standards and requirements.
The 10 principles:
- Responses to a humanitarian crisis should be effective and efficient, responding to the most pressing needs of affected people and representing the best value for money.
- Humanitarian responses require needs to be met across multiple sectors, assessed on a multi-sector basis and provided to meet basic needs.
- Humanitarian assistance must be provided in a way that enhances protection and upholds the safety, dignity and preferences of beneficiaries.
- Innovative approaches to meeting needs should be fostered.
- Multi-purpose assistance should be considered alongside other delivery modalities from the outset – we need to always ask the question ‘Why not cash?’
- A combination of transfer modalities and delivery mechanisms may be required depending on the nature and context of the crisis and used at various stages of the crisis – an optimum response may require them to be used in combination.
- An appropriately detailed assessment of the capacity of markets and services to meet humanitarian needs must be carried out at the outset of a crisis, integrated within the overall assessment and regularly monitored and reviewed.
- Agencies involved in responding to a crisis should establish, from the outset, a clear coordination and governance structure and streamline assessment, beneficiary registration, targeting and monitoring.
- Linkages with national social protection systems need to be exploited whenever possible.
- Accountability considerations require the use of robust impact and outcome indicators, which should be limited in number and which will be a combination of agency specific and broader indicators.
