Executive Summary: Cash and Voucher Assistance for Achieving Protection Outcomes in Mine Action

Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) can be a useful tool, where appropriate, to enhance the protection and resilience of individuals, households and communities affected by crisis. Yet CVA is not widely used within Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA). HMA agencies often focus on two of the pillars of mine action, namely i) land release – the survey and clearance of land contaminated by Explosive Ordnance (EO) and ii) Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE).

The new International Mine Action Standard (IMAS) 13.101 on Victim Assistance encourages HMA agencies to ensure that EO survivors are informed of the services they need and have access to them. The introduction of IMAS 13.10 states “… meeting the short, medium and long-term needs of women, girls, boys and men who have been injured by Explosive Ordnance (EO) and addressing affected families and communities requires an holistic and integrated multi-sector approach. The vast majority of Victim Assistance … is managed outside the sector, although the sector has important roles.” It clarifies the expectation that HMA agencies should support EO survivors if the state is unable to meet its responsibilities.

CVA could be a useful tool enabling HMA agencies or their partners to bridge any gap between service availability and service access. Barriers to meaningful access to humanitarian assistance should be analysed and addressed by all humanitarian actors. The provision of CVA to individuals to support protection outcomes should be part of a broader approach in line with recommendations provided by other AoRs (e.g. Genderbased Violence and Child Protection).

This study investigates the use of CVA in HMA and presents emerging and promising practices which use CVA to support vulnerable individuals, groups and communities for protection outcomes in Mine Action. It also addresses – to some extent – integrated protection programming. The report is based on a literature search, outreach to 140 practitioners and 13 key informant interviews with field practitioners and global advisors, culminating in 47 examples of CVA being used in EO-affected areas to improve protection outcomes. Each example is mapped by intervention modality and protection outcome into an evidence map