Literature review and evidence maps
The use of cash transfer programming (CTP) in humanitarian response continues to increase in scale and quality, as evidenced by the State of the World’s Cash Report.
This report examines the body of research that provides evidence of the impact of CTP on education and child protection outcomes and provides a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of existing evidence and identifies gaps in the knowledge base for future research prioritisation. The interventions used for this project include different modalities of CTP.
The sectoral outcomes were determined through a process of deliberation with the Global Education and Protection Clusters, and are based on broader sectoral outcomes, regardless of whether they had previously been delivered using CTP. As such, only studies containing these interventions and outcomes were considered. The number of studies included in this report is relatively small, a total of 35. However, given the high quality of the studies, the diversity of contexts and the consistency of findings, the body of literature is assessed to be of medium quality.
The most common intervention in the sample is multipurpose cash grants (MPGs), within which education and child protection outcomes were two of many outcomes tracked. Limited evidence was found for other interventions, such as mixed-modalities, conditional cash transfers, conditional vouchers, restricted transfers and cash-for-work programmes.