Strengthening Humanitarian Impact through Cash, Localisation, and Community Engagement

Lessons from Nine Projects Across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe

Over the course of several humanitarian interventions across diverse and challenging crisis contexts, nine projects implemented in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe offer a rich and practical evidence base for understanding what works — and what doesn’t — in modern humanitarian programming. These initiatives varied in scope, from emergency responses to

protracted support efforts, and included interventions in health, nutrition, protection, livelihoods, and infrastructure.

What united them was their shared reliance on two powerful approaches: Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) and the meaningful localisation of aid delivery through trusted community-based partners. Together, these strategies not only improved the relevance and effectiveness of assistance but also strengthened local resilience and accountability — two pillars increasingly seen as essential for long-term impact in humanitarian action.

🌍 Projects Reviewed

The findings stem from in-depth reviews of projects implemented in Haiti, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala, and Ukraine. These initiatives ranged from cash-for-health and protection programs to livelihood recovery, nutrition responses, and infrastructure rehabilitation — all with a strong emphasis on community engagement and working through local actors.

From rural enclaves recovering from hurricanes to urban centers facing displacement and health emergencies, each project highlighted the added value of combining cash assistance with local leadership.

💡 Key Successes

• 1. Trusted Local Partners Were Key

  Across all projects, local organisations — such as parish networks, community-based groups, or national Red Cross branches — played a central role in the delivery of cash assistance. These actors brought not only operational capacity but deep-rooted trust, cultural competence, and responsiveness to local dynamics.
  
  Their presence before, during, and after the crisis helped ensure that interventions were both timely and sensitive to context, especially in fragile or hard-to-reach settings.

  Why local partners work better:

  • They have long-standing community presence
  • Understand local risks and power dynamics
  • Enable faster, more targeted responses
  • Strengthen local capacity and long-term resilience

• 2. Cash Assistance Was Highly Effective

  Cash transfers consistently emerged as a preferred, dignified, and flexible aid modality. Whether used for housing, health care, food, or income generation, cash enabled recipients to prioritize their own needs — particularly in protracted or rapidly changing crises.
  
  In multiple evaluations, beneficiaries emphasized how cash restored a sense of autonomy and allowed them to adapt assistance to their household’s unique challenges.

• 3. Integrated, People-Centered Approaches

  Projects combined cash with services like legal aid, psychosocial support, gender empowerment, and livelihoods training. This integrated approach addressed multiple vulnerabilities and had more sustainable outcomes.
  
  By layering services around cash assistance, these projects supported not only immediate survival but also medium-term recovery, especially among displaced and marginalized groups.

• 4. Community Participation Boosted Impact

  Projects that engaged affected people in design, implementation, and feedback mechanisms built trust, improved relevance, and strengthened accountability. Tools like community committees, complaints mechanisms, and joint monitoring enabled real-time course corrections and gave communities a voice in how aid was delivered.

📘 Lessons Learned: What’s Needed for Localised Cash Assistance to Succeed

Key Preconditions:

• Trusted local actors with strong governance and community legitimacy
• Capacity-building support in financial management, protection standards, and reporting
• Shared planning and flexible funding between donors and partners
• Access to functioning financial services
• Clear legal and regulatory frameworks for cash programming

Additionally, strong relationships between local and international actors — based on mutual respect and shared learning — were key to unlocking the full potential of localisation.

⚠️ Common Challenges in Working with Local Partners

Despite their advantages, some projects also revealed specific challenges tied to local implementation:

• Unequal institutional capacity across regions, requiring tailored technical support
• Political or elite interference in some communities, risking impartiality
• Weak sustainability planning, especially when donor funding ended abruptly
• Limited coordination with public authorities, which restricted scale or service continuity
• Delays in documentation and financial compliance, due to system constraints or administrative overload

In some cases, unclear roles or over-reliance on informal systems also caused bottlenecks. These challenges highlight the importance of not just working with local partners, but equipping them with the tools, space, and recognition needed to lead.

🧭 Final Reflections

Across nine contexts, one message is clear: cash assistance and localisation are most powerful when implemented together. When local partners lead, and communities are respected as agents of their own recovery, the result is more effective, dignified, and lasting humanitarian impact.

These findings underscore the shift needed in humanitarian systems — from top-down models to collaborative, locally grounded responses that value trust, flexibility, and inclusion.

As crises grow more complex and climate-driven, future aid systems must be faster, more inclusive, and closer to the ground. That means strengthening local capacity, trusting local knowledge, and supporting aid models that shift power, not just resources.

For donors and agencies committed to accountability and sustainability, investing in locally led CVA is not only a moral imperative — it’s a strategic advantage.

In short: cash works — and local works best.