Case Study: Building Cash Information Management Skills through a newly developed curriculum

The 121 Platform has been designed to help humanitarian INGOs and local NGOs to increase the quality and scale of Cash and Voucher Assistance. Through the 121 Platform they can ensure that people receive Cash and Voucher Assistance in an easy, safe and fast way. Local humanitarian actors are first to respond to emergencies, and they often have access to areas that other international actors do not. Localisation means increasing international investment and respect for the role of local actors, with the goal of reducing costs and increasing the reach of humanitarian action.

Maintaining quality whilst upscaling cash assistance is tackled through the 121 Platform, the Cash Program Design Wizard and providing Cash Information Management trainings. This case study will go into depth on the latter.         

The Cash Information Management trainings build the capacity for organisations to be more effective when it comes to data for cash projects. The goals of the training series can be formulated as:

• Improve the quality of Cash and Voucher Assistance implementation
• Increase Cash Information Management preparedness of ground member’s staff            
  (HQ and field staff)
• Stimulate knowledge exchange between organisations

The need for Cash Information Management trainings
Cash Information Management is not new, but Cash and Voucher Assistance is Information Management heavy. In Cash projects, significant amounts of personal information are gathered, stored, analysed and shared. Furthermore, there is more pressure from donors to do detailed Monitoring & Evaluation (such as reconciliation), for fraud and aid diversion detection.

Because Cash and Voucher Assistance projects are Information Management heavy, involved staff should be capable to deal with these significant amounts of data. However, this is not always the case and different staff have very different skill levels when it comes to Information Management. Therefore the training curriculum was designed: to bring all participants up to a base level of Information Management understanding.

The 121 Platform Information Management trainingThis training was conducted in 6 weekly sessions (of 2 hours) and was delivered online. The training methodology was a mix of presentations, group discussions, group and individual exercises, practical examples, and brainstorms. This allowed participants to engage with each other and facilitators in the online setting, as well as put the learned skills to practical use. For each session there were two facilitators, one with a cash background and one with an Information Management background to diversify the shared experiences.

The curriculum consisted out of the following sessions:

• Week 1: Cash Information Management introduction​
• Week 2: Introduction to data (collection)​
• Week 3: Basic Mobile data collection in the field​
• Week 4: Data cleaning​
• Week 5: Advanced Mobile data collection​
• Week 6: Data analysis and visualisation

We have trained over 50 people from 17 different organisations. Organisational focal points as facilitators aimed at creating a sustainable communication mechanism between participants and their focal points for addressing any future training needs.

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn and acquire the skills that will impact my organisation’s work for many years to come.”
(Munyimwa Tembo, Monitoring and Evaluation Office at Partners for Life Advancement and Education Promotion)

Main findings
On average, participants gave our training a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 8.5 (on the question of: How likely is it that you would recommend this training to your colleagues?). People in general were quite happy with the training provided. The learnings from delivering the training were that there is indeed a large need for capacity building around Cash Information Management.

The training series was designed by 510 and facilitated by Dorcas, Tearfund, ZOA and 510. The 510 Cash Information Management team will use the material to train other National Societies on Cash Information Management. In addition, all training materials will be made easily accessible on the Cash Hub. All consortium partners can provide Cash Information Management Training on request.

All learning materials are currently available through our Google Drive
Want to know more on the 121 platform? Visit www.121.global for more information or to sign in for information on all developments. You can also contact Anton van Wijk (Humanitarian Aid Expert at Dorcas) via a.vanwijk@dorcas.nl.

The consortium
The scaling up of the 121 platform by the consortium (Dorcas, ZOA, Help a Child, Tearfund, Cordaid and 510) is made possible by funding of the Dutch Relief Alliance through the DRA Innovation Fund. The Dutch Relief Alliance Innovation Fund is a fund created by the Dutch Relief Alliance with financial support of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Dutch Relief Alliance operates at a global level through an alliance of Dutch humanitarian organisations and in partnership with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2015. They work together with more than 100 local organisations. 

24 February 2022