Evaluation Report: Measuring the impact of cash on Child Protection outcomes

As humanitarian crises break down traditional protection mechanisms and the loss of income restricts access to basic resources, children become increasingly vulnerable to abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence. Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) is a critical modality that is increasingly being adopted to support the prevention and response to child protection (CP) risks. While the evidence base for assessing the benefits, impacts and risks of CVA in humanitarian contexts is mounting, it is growing faster in some sectors than others, such as protection. As such, the U.S. Bureau for Populations, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM) funded Save the Children and the Johns Hopkins University to conduct a quasi-experimental study in Colombia and Lebanon to better understand the effectiveness of CVA on reducing or mitigating child protection risks such as child labor and violence in the home in humanitarian settings. In both contexts, households with at-risk children received six (6) months of CVA combined with case management and CP services to reduce child labor and violence in the home.