CashCast: A podcast from the CALP Network - 1.6 (Sp): ¿Estamos listos para usar las transferencias monetarias para prepararnos para las crisis en América Latina y el Caribe?

1.6 (Sp): ¿Estamos listos para usar las transferencias monetarias para prepararnos para las crisis en América Latina y el Caribe?

05/04/22 • 33 min

CashCast: A podcast from the CALP Network

En este sexto episodio de CashCast exploramos esta pregunta junto a expertos, con años de experiencia en la región, para analizar las potenciales oportunidades, los beneficios y desafíos de vincular la protección social y las transferencias monetarias humanitarias para la preparación ante las crisis.

De acuerdo con un reporte de la Oficina de Coordinación de Asuntos Humanitarios de las Naciones Unidas (OCHA), entre los años 2000 y 2019 ocurrieron 1.200 desastres que afectaron a alrededor de 152 millones de personas en la región de América Latina y el Caribe. Además, en un reciente estudio de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL) se establece que hubo un incremento en la pobreza extrema que alcanzó a 86 millones de personas en 2021 debido a profundas crisis sociales y de salud.

Ante este contexto, en este episodio de CashCast nuestro panel de expertos explora las siguientes preguntas:

¿Cómo los programas de transferencias monetarias (PTM) pueden contribuir de forma efectiva a los sistemas de protección social con el fin de mejorar las vidas de millones de personas afectadas por las crisis?
¿Qué podemos aprender de programas en la región en los que ha existido un fuerte vínculo entre protección social y PTM humanitarios para la preparación ante las crisis?
¿Cuáles son los retos, factores facilitadores, barreras y oportunidades de usar estas modalidades en esta nueva forma?

El anfitrión e invitados son:

José Jodar (anfitrión) – Senior Technical Officer de la CALP Network
Celia Gonzalez – Iniciativa CashCap, actualmente se encuentra en Colombia apoyando la creación y consolidación de un grupo de trabajo sobre protección social dentro del marco del grupo de trabajo de transferencias monetarias.
Oscar Portillo – GOAL Internacional, trabaja en la preparación de sistemas nacionales de respuesta en cuatro países: Honduras, Guatemala, el Salvador y República Dominicana.
Florencia Alejandre – UNICEF, especialista en protección social en la Oficina Regional de este organismo para América Latina y el Caribe.

¡Le invitamos a escuchar esta fascinante y profunda conversación!

La idea para este episodio de CashCast surgió de nuestro reciente estudio, Programas de Transferencias Monetarias en el marco de los sistemas de protección social en la preparación ante las crisis en América Central, México y República Dominicana, comisionado por la CALP Network. Para ampliar aun más sobre este tema le invitamos a explorar la colección de recursos disponibles en torno al estudio, que incluyen dos estudios de casos (uno de Honduras y el otro de República Dominicana); un video explicativo sobre los principales hallazgos del estudio; infografías; la grabación del webinario del lanzamiento de este informe; además de un enlace a una entrada de Blog que aborda sobre este tema.
El CashCast es un podcast de la CALP Network que explora a profundidad los debates críticos sobre programas de transferencias monetarias (PTM) humanitarios.

Ante este contexto, en este episodio de CashCast nuestro panel de expertos explora las siguientes preguntas:

¿Cómo los programas de transferencias monetarias (PTM) pueden contribuir de forma efectiva a los sistemas de protección social con el fin de mejorar las vidas de millones de personas afectadas por las crisis?
¿Qué podemos aprender de programas en la región en los que ha existido un fuerte vínculo entre protección social y PTM humanitarios para la preparación ante las crisis?
¿Cuáles son los retos, factores facilitadores, barreras y oportunidades de usar estas modalidades en esta nueva forma?

El anfitrión e invitados son:

José Jodar (anfitrión) – Senior Technical Officer de la CALP Network
Celia Gonzalez – Iniciativa CashCap, actualmente se encuentra en Colombia apoyando la creación y consolidación de un grupo de trabajo sobre protección social dentro del marco del grupo de trabajo de transferencias monetarias.
Oscar Portillo – GOAL Internacional, trabaja en la preparación de sistemas nacionales de respuesta en cuatro países: Honduras, Guatemala, el Salvador y República Dominicana.
Florencia Alejandre – UNICEF, especialista en protección social en la Oficina Regional de este organismo para América Latina y el Caribe.

¡Le invitamos a escuchar esta fascinante y profunda conversación!

Previous Episode

1.5: A Short History of Cash and Voucher Assistance

In this episode we take a look back over the evolution of cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and then leap forward to explore where it’s going next.

15 years ago, the use of CVA was still seen as a fringe activity limited to a small number of scattered projects. Even 6 years ago, it made up less than 8% of international humanitarian assistance.

In the last few years, growth has been rapid. It is now an essential part of almost every response and accounted for a very significant one fifth of international humanitarian assistance in 2019.

With CaLP’s 15th anniversary only recently behind us, Karen Peachey, CaLP’s Director is joined by a panel of guests to discuss what’s changed in CVA and to share their hopes and fears for the future. Each guest has played a key role in the journey of CVA and collectively and have a wealth of insights to share.

Discussions touched on many themes including:

How cash rose from the fringes to arrive in its more established position today,
The role that evidence has played for CVA especially in comparisons to in-kind
The role of key governmental, political and humanitarian allies in advancing the growth of cash
The tendency to wrap CVA up in a language of innovation when fundamentally it is about enabling people impacted by crisis to be the agents of their own recovery
The need to work better with both private sector and humanitarian partners
An aspiration for the future to truly devolve power to people affected by crisis

Guests:

Dr Jemilah Mahmood has been a key player in some of the big political developments around cash. She is currently serving as the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health. Before that, she was Under-Secretary General at IFRC and led the Secretariat of the World Humanitarian Summit, where humanitarian actors were urged to ask “why not cash, and if not now -- when”.

Sarah Bailey has been instrumental in building the evidence base for cash. She is currently WFP’s Head of Programme in Barbados, and previously worked for ODI, generating much of the most influential evidence around the effectiveness, efficiency and transformational potential of CVA.

Nigel Timmins has been a key player in building and supporting the partnerships and networks that have helped cash to grow. He is the Humanitarian Director of Oxfam International, and served at the Chair of CaLP’s Board, for four years before stepping down in 2019.

Zehra Rizvi has been a passionate and motivated cash advocate from the start of this journey. She is a CVA and social protection specialist and currently works for UNICEF in the MENA region. Before that, she has worked on cash with many organisations and as an independent consultant. She was also a member of CaLP’s first Steering Committee in 2008 representing the British Red Cross.

Our guests join us to share their own thoughts and experiences and are not acting as spokespeople for any particular origination.

Keep an eye out for a blog summarising the discussions which will be published on the CaLP website: https://www.calpnetwork.org/blog/

Next Episode

1.7: How can we use cash and voucher assistance to support universal health goals?

In episode 7, we discuss how health needs, and the provision of health services, in humanitarian response works and where using Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) may help. What we know already is that CVA may be used for health outcomes but giving cash via Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) via the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) isn’t enough to meet health needs. We look at best practice on including health in the MEB, innovations in using CVA on the demand side, and exciting new hybrid approaches that are bridging demand and supply to improve access and quality.

Globally, meeting health needs is known to be an inherently complex challenge. This is because both the demand side (who needs care, what care do they need), and the supply side (hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacies – and their funding) of quality health care are critical factors. Within a humanitarian context, accessing quality health services when needed is generally difficult for socio-economically vulnerable people, since individual health needs are often unpredictable. At the same time, access and availability of quality health services is likely to be affected by the crisis. The results of post-distribution monitoring and other surveys show that people in receipt of cash, especially multipurpose cash, repeatedly spend a large proportion of the cash on accessing health services.

Given this context, in this episode of the CashCast, our panel of experts explore the following questions:

How do health cluster members approach meeting health needs in a humanitarian crisis?
Why are health needs and health services different to other needs and services? For example, food security and markets.
Should we include health needs in an MEB and thus in the MPCA transfer value?
Are there recent innovations in using CVA for health outcomes?

The host and guests are:

Julie Lawson-McDowall (host) – Technical Advisor at the CALP Network.
Andre Griekspoor – a medical doctor and public health expert with long experience in humanitarian health response. Andre is currently working in the Fragile, Conflict affected and Vulnerable settings unit of the World Health Organization' s department for Health Emergency Interventions. Among other things, he is responsible for health policy development in protracted crises, which includes approaches for health system strengthening in fragile contexts, and support to post conflict and disaster recovery planning processes.
Anna Gorter – a medical doctor with a PhD in epidemiology. She has 40 years of experience working in low- and middle-income countries as a public health expert. Since 1995, she has been involved in the development of various approaches for Results Based Financing (RBF) for Health, such as health vouchers, and cash transfers.
Corinne Grainger – an independent consultant working in health financing and health systems strengthening, with more than 20 years’ experience providing technical assistance across a range of intervention areas including Sexual and Reproductive Health, Family planning, MNH and adolescent health. In addition to support for programme design, management and evaluation, she has provided capacity development and strategic planning support for a range of government and NGOs.

We invite you to listen to this fascinating and in-depth conversation!

Further reading: there are associated resources produced by Global Health Cluster, WHO’s Cash Task Team and CALP. These include