Layering cash into market systems programs

The Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) is an MSD programme in northern Nigeria.

In response to COVID-19, RRA layered on a short-term cash transfer activity to help households cope, jumpstart local economies, and prevent further backsliding among the businesses that marginalised groups rely on most.

This combination of approaches enabled Mercy Corps to assess the impact that cash transfers can have on MSD programming, including both operational lessons and insights into how cash affects market actor incentives and behaviour.

The brief highlights:

• The positive impact of Northeast Nigeria’s short-term cash response, particularly in improving coping and recovery for marginalised groups,
• The importance of pre-existing market knowledge, networks, and partnerships to the design and impact of humanitarian interventions,
• Operational lessons for implementing direct-delivery interventions alongside market facilitation strategies, and
• Ideas for how to leverage cash responses to support inclusive change in local economies.