UNHCR Cash Assistance: Improving Refugee Lives and Supporting Local Economies

UNHCR’s Cash-Based Interventions (CBI) support the most vulnerable Syrian refugees living within the host community in Jordan. Thanks to generous donor support last year, over 30,000 households received monthly cash assistance, winterisation cash, and cash for health, totalling nearly US $ 85 million. Families were chosen for assistance following a home visit. Using a humanitarian assessment model, the Vulnerability Assessment Framework (VAF), families received a ranking for vulnerability.

In 2016, UNHCR provided between 80 JOD and 155 JOD per month to refugee households in need (depending on household size). This contribution eased the family’s burden and enabled them to cover a part of their most urgent needs. The assistance also helped to ensure that many families were able to survive without needing to cope by depleting their savings, incurring debt, and taking their children out of school in order to work.

Beneficiaries of UNHCR’s cash assistance are able to access their cash directly from more than 90 iris-enabled Cairo Amman Bank ATM’s. Authentication for withdrawal takes place through a secure and encrypted network connection (known as EyeCloud®) that enables refugees’ identities to be verified at ATM’s linked to UNHCR’s iris database. This not only reduces costs while increasing efficiency and security, but also helps to preserve refugees’ dignity. In August 2016, UNHCR launched the Common Cash Facility (CCF) – a one-partner platform for cash delivery that shares the benefits of this innovative technology with nine partner organisations.

Since 2013, UNHCR has undertaken regular monitoring of its CBIs. This report presents the findings of the four post-distribution monitoring (PDM) exercises conducted in 2016. It analyses the results of home visits and phone interviews with a geographically representative sample of 1,690 beneficiary households.