Humanitarian Cash Transfers Monitoring and Evaluation Guidance

Monitoring is the process of collecting and analysing data to modify a project as needed. Monitoring is a primary means to verify how well a programme is being implemented, identify challenges that may hinder results and build an understanding of what it achieved. As such, monitoring plays a vital role in ensuring accountability, generating evidence and informing decisions on design and implementation. Monitoring data also provides a critical basis for any eventual evaluation. The basic principles and practices of monitoring are the same for programmes distributing cash transfers as with any other. However, cash transfers raise some unique monitoring issues for UNICEF:

• UNICEF often supports services, whereas HCT interventions focus much more at the level of the household or individual.

• Certain activities, such as delivering money and vouchers, require particular partnerships such as with financial service providers.

• The achievement of objectives depends on how individuals and households are able to access markets for goods and services and on household purchasing decisions (these are key assumptions in the theory of change).