As cash based initiatives (CBIs) become an essential part of humanitarian responses around the world, the humanitarian community has invested in substantial research on cash programming, as well as expanded its analysis and understanding of CBIs. However, there are still gaps in knowledge about the impacts of CBI, particularly with regards to how CBIs may affect individuals and communities beyond material considerations. Hence, there is a need to study CBIs’ protection and gender benefits and risks for those assisted, as well as on the wider community. This literature review examines existing research to determine whether the use of cash and vouchers is contributing to the promotion of protection and gender outcomes for beneficiary communities – following the World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) study (hereinafter the WFP/UNHCR study) (Berg, Mattinen, and Pattugalan, 2013). More specifically, this literature review focuses on the topics listed below – which are of particular interest to the humanitarian community.