The Other Side of the Coin: The Comparative Evidence of Cash and in-Kind Transfers in Humanitarian Situations?

Abstract

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The Evolution of Food as Social Assistance: An Overview

“…The 1 billion figure, for instance, does not include beneficiaries enrolled in programs like school feeding and labor-intensive "food-for-work" activities, which reach 368 million and 22 million beneficiaries, respectively (WFP 2013a(WFP , 2013b. Moreover, approximately 57 million people in European and other high-income countries are supported by informal mechanisms such as food banks, soup kitchens, and food pantries operated by civil society, communities, and faith-based organizations (Gentilini 2013).…”

“…Over the centuries, the relative merits of cash versus food continued to be debated. While others have recently discussed the quandary in more detail (Gentilini 2016a) we provide a succinct overview of key issues in order to frame the ensuing discussions on the evolution and design of foodbased programs. Additional considerations around theory and evidence are offered when discussing nutritional issues later in this chapter.…”

“…6 What does the empirical evidence reveal about the comparative effectiveness and efficiency of noncontributory cash assistance and in-kind food transfers? Results from 14 comparative, randomized and quasi-experimental trials in 11 low-and middle-income countries-all of which were designed to attain food security goals-showed mixed impacts; that is, the effectiveness of cash and food transfers was similar on average (Gentilini 2016a). Indeed, differences are often not statistically significant and tend to depend on objectives such as ensuring calorie availability and dietary diversity, and the indicators used to measure them (for example, food expenditures, food consumption scores, and dietary diversity index).…”

“…Modern policy making benefits not only from sweeping technological advances in cash delivery but also from evidence sparked by a revolution in empirical inquiry. In particular, the recent extension of experimental techniques to social protection evaluations shows that cash transfers are, on average, more cost-effective at delivering resources to households than are in-kind alternatives (Gentilini 2016a;Margolies and Hoddinott 2015). Yet those arguments alone have not always offered a convincing basis for fully replacing food and voucher schemes with cash.…”

“…While up to 94 percent of humanitarian aid is still provided in kind, the humanitarian landscape is transitioning decisively to cash assistance (Gentilini 2016b). Also, about 73 percent of donor-financed, multilateral food aid is now procured in low-and middle-income countries (WFP 2016), creating a local constituency for those measures to be institutionalized in government budgets.…”