Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is now a common tool in humanitarian action, used to meet the diverse needs of people displaced by crisis and conflict. Preliminary findings suggest an estimated 60% increase in cash and voucher delivery from 2016 to 2018. A substantial body of evidence shows that CVA allows people in crisis to meet a variety of needs with more dignity[1]. Consensus is that CVA is more efficient, effective, and better for communities in need than other forms of assistance; a market-based lens to programming can further increase the potential to accountably meet the needs of affected populations.

As the use of CVA matures, humanitarian and development actors have been looking at the best combination of modalities[2] to better meet the needs of crisis affected populations. 

While there is a growing body of evidence on the effect of CVA on women’s well-being and empowerment [2], in practice, an overwhelming amount of gender-sensitive CVA is currently designed using assumptions rather than evidence. Building on CARE’s commitment to be ‘cash ready’ to achieve breakthroughs with and for women and girl, CARE commissioned a study on gender-sensitive CVA that allowed actual CVA recipients to frame the discussion. These studies "What does gender-sensitve cash and voucher assistance look like?" and "Cash and voucher assitance that works for women: 6 lessons from the field" seek to inform the knowledge based on gender in CVA and to better inform CARE's programming.

[1] Sarah Bailey and Paul Harvey. (2015). “State of evidence on humanitarian cash transfers.” ODI.; Magdalena Mikulak. (2018) “Cost-effectiveness in humanitarian work: cash-based programming.”

[2] Catholic Relief Services, CaLP, Samaritan's Purse. (2017). “Cash Or In-Kind? Why Not Both? Response Analysis Lessons from Multimodal Programming.”

[3] Bailey, S., & Harvey, P. (2015). State of evidence on humanitarian cash transfers. ODI.; Mikulak, M. (2018). Cost-effectiveness in humanitarian work: cash-based programming.