Paper details
| Paper authors | Talita Cetinoglu |
| In panel on | Rethinking Cash Assistance within Humanitarian Response |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
This paper interrogates one of the key promises of cash-based programming for improved humanitarian action, the suggestion that ‘cash brings dignity’.
The study explores the major premises of an unconditional cash transfer programme for 1.3 million refugees, ‘the biggest humanitarian project’ the European Union (EU) ‘has ever funded’ (European Commission 2016a). The Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) emerged as a product of an agreement the EU and Turkey signed in 2016, which aimed to end the ‘irregular migration’ from Turkey to Europe, notably as an instrument to contain the movement of Syrian refugees.
ESSN addresses the ‘basic needs’ of people registered under temporary protection status in Turkey, providing monthly cash payments to eligible households. The policy preference for addressing basic needs with cash assistance is explained as ‘an acknowledgement that, despite their hardships, refugees should have the right to choose how to manage their lives’ (ESSN 2017).
This paper analyses the protection environment within which cash assistance sits and the dilemmas through which refugees manage their lives. It examines how ESSN construes basic needs and choices and what dignity stands for and how it is exercised in this specific humanitarian setting.
