Cash Assistance

UNHCR uses cash-based interventions to provide protection, assistance and services to the most vulnerable. Cash and vouchers help the displaced meet a variety of needs, including access to food, water, healthcare, shelter, that allow them to build and support livelihoods, and to facilitate voluntary repatriation.

Cash-based interventions (CBI) can be used in a variety of settings, provided there is a stable market and a safe way to provide cash or vouchers. The flexibility that CBI offer makes them a more dignified form of assistance, giving refugees the ability to immediately prioritize and choose the items they need. Having the means to satisfy basic needs can minimize survival sex, child labour and neglect, family separation, forced marriage, and other forms of exploitation and abuse.

In Egypt, refugees and asylum-seekers are among the most vulnerable of the urban poor. They have limited livelihood opportunities, and many struggle to make ends meet. Refugees and asylum-seekers live in an urban setting with access to markets and services, as do members of the local communities.

Providing refugees with sufficient cash enables them to fulfill their needs while also contributing to the local economy. Currently, around 16 per cent of the refugee population in Egypt receives monthly multi-purpose cash grants through the Egypt Post Office to meet their basic living expenses.

Key documents

• Year-End Post Distribution Monitoring Report (UNHCR’s Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance to Refugees in Egypt-2023)
• Mid-Year Post-Distribution Monitoring Report of UNHCR’s Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance to Refugees in Egypt
• Vulnerability Assessment for Refugees in Egypt – 2018
• 2016-2019 UNHCR Implementation of the Policy on Cash-Based Interventions
• Policy on Cash-Based Interventions
• UNHCR Strategy for the Institutionalisation of Cash-Based Interventions 2016-2020
• Basic Needs Approach in the Refugee Response
• Statement from the Principals of OCHA, UNHCR, WFP and UNICEF on Cash Assistance