Futures of Humanitarian Aid: Cash Assistance to People on the Move

Reported in numbers, international humanitarian organisations’ cash and voucher assistance has grown at an impressive rate, rising from under 8% to 19% of global humanitarian aid in 2021, coming to $6.7 billion dollars. At the same time, the numbers of people on the move continue to rise while the humanitarian aid levels have plateaued at $31.3 billion (2022). To respond to these pressures, humanitarian organisations have intensified their use of digital and communications technology to reach more people, to make aid distribution more efficient, and to monitor how that aid achieves humanitarian objectives.

This collection gathers together practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and academics grappling with the intersection of technology, aid, and mobility. We build on four sessions organised by Hanna Ruszczyk, Aila Spathopoulou, Glenda Garelli and Nadine Hassouneh at the 2021 International Humanitarian Studies Association Conference (Paris, 3-5 November 2021) and a workshop organised by Lauren Martin and Hanna Ruszczyk for Durham University’s Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience 2022 Annual Conference (Durham, UK, 12 October 2022). 

Table of Contents

Introduction to Futures of Humanitarian Aid: Cash Assistance to People on the Move

Lauren Martin

1 Leaving no-one behind? Digitalisation and cash assistance for refugees

A journey in time 

Hanna Mattinen

2 Action Cash Assistance in Times of Crises

Rita Aazan

3 The Migration Journey: CVA as a key tool to ensure choice and flexibility

 Flor Correa Angulo, Soraya Mesa, Gerardo Escaroz, Emilie Arnaud and Nick Anderson

4 The future of humanitarian aid: insights from the case of Venezuelan migration in Peru

Cécile Blouin

5 Embodying the hotspot/distributing cash in Greek bordered spaces

Aila Spathopoulou

6 When Growth Meets Resistance: Lessons from humanitarian experiences in Europe

William Plowright

7 Digital cash: a new frontier for what it means to be accountable to affected populations?

Liz Hendry

8 Digital/Cash Connector for Risk or Resilience-Choices for People on the Move: enabling or endangering humanitarian financial digital journeys?

Kathryn Taetzsch

9 Technological change is inevitable, let’s make it people-centred change

Karen Peachey

10 To be people-driven, the humanitarian business model requires transformations

Patrick Saez

11 Four key challenges for the humanitarian system

Juliet Parker

Afterword

Things to come: The future of the (digitalised) humanitarian sector

Hanna A Ruszczyk