CHSCM 3.0 - Unit 1 - SCM in the Humanitarian World

In the picture below, a market in downtown Beirut displays WFP’s logo, indicating that it accepts the
debit card WFP uses to distribute cash to refugees for food.
Lebanon, 2014. Photo credit: Nathalie Abramo
The American Red Cross has records of distributing cash as part of disaster relief as far back as the
1870’s; however, international humanitarian aid historically focused on in-kind assistance.
Starting with the response to the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26 th , 2004, cash and voucher
programs have been increasingly field tested for their efficacy, accepted, and even used in large
scale. From only using in-kind in the mid-2000s, WFP distributed US$680 million to approximately
9.6 million beneficiaries in 2015. (Source: http://www1.wfp.org/cash-based-transfers)
In 2015, DFID funded a high-level panel to research how CTP could transform aid. The report
concluded that increasing the use of cash transfers, in particular electronic payments, would:
• Align the humanitarian system better with what people need, rather than what humanitarian
organizations are mandated to provide;
• Increase transparency of humanitarian aid, including by showing how much aid really
reaches the target population;
• Increase accountability of humanitarian aid, both to affected populations and to the tax
paying public in donor countries;
• Reduce costs of delivering humanitarian aid and so make limited budgets go further;
• Support local markets, jobs, and incomes of local producers;
• Increase support for humanitarian aid from local populations;
• Increase the speed and flexibility of humanitarian response;
• Increase financial inclusion by linking people with payment systems; and