With the unprecedented scale of emergencies facing the humanitarian community, we are in urgent need of programs that enable households to meet their basic needs and avoid negative coping mechanisms, and which use our scarce resources efficiently. Unconditional cash transfer programs—in which beneficiaries receive cash or vouchers that they can use as they please, rather than in-kind food or shelter assistance—are rapidly gaining popularity as a means to reach large numbers of people in need. Not only are cash transfers generally cheaper in administrative cost per dollar of value transferred1 , they aim to give beneficiaries greater dignity and control to prioritize their own needs. Nonetheless, there are still many questions being worked out about the optimal method to target and deliver cash transfers in different environments. One aspect to understand about these different program design options is their cost implications—will some program design choices dramatically increase or decrease the efficiency with which we transfer money?
The IRC is committed to maximizing the impact of each dollar spent to improve our clients’ lives; our Best Use of Resources (BUR) Initiative specifically focuses on improving the reach and impact of IRC programs, by using cost analysis to identify the most cost efficient and cost effective ways to deliver programs. In this analysis, we have examined 8 unconditional cash transfer programs across 7 countries, using existing financial and administrative data to produce an estimate of each program’s cost efficiency.