Much has been written about how best to make this choice, but when aid programmes are subsequently evaluated, decisions about the transfer modality are rarely reflected upon, making learning and improvement difficult both about the decisions made and the decision-making processes.
This publication is the first set of guidelines to help those commissioning evaluations and evaluators include an assessment of the decision on whether to give out in-kind aid, cash or vouchers.
The guidelines cover how to assess the quality of the decision making (i.e. what was reasonable without the benefit of hindsight) before looking at issues such as effectiveness, impact, cost-effectiveness, gender and protection concerns and risk management.
The guidelines are intended for use as a module within an evaluation. They do not discuss information gathering techniques, which are adequately covered by existing literature. Instead, they focus on the information and analysis needed to ensure that an evaluation includes useful insights on the modality through which emergency aid was given.
