- Target and register households.
- Organise payments safely.
- Monitor results and markets.
1Targeting and registration
- Clear vulnerability criteria, known to the community (for example female-headed households, persons with disabilities, lack of income).
- Combined methods: socio-economic criteria, household verification visits, involvement of community committees, with checks to prevent favouritism.
- Digital registration with informed consent, data minimisation and protection of personal data (restricted access, encryption, controlled sharing).
- Prevent duplication and coordinate lists with other organisations through the cash working group.
2Payments
- Choose the financial service provider (mobile money operator, bank, money transfer agent) after competitive bidding and due diligence.
- Plan solutions for people without a phone or without identity documents.
- Reconcile payments: the list paid by the provider must match the approved list; discrepancies are explained.
- Security: avoid predictable and visible cash distributions, inform people about scams (no one should ask for part of the money), protect PINs.
- Communicate clearly: amount, date, duration, how to complain.
3Monitoring and accountability
- Post-distribution monitoring (PDM): was the money received, in full? How was it spent? What problems arose (hidden fees, pressure, tensions)?
- Market and price monitoring to detect inflation and adjust the transfer value.
- An accessible complaints mechanism, including for sensitive complaints (requests for money or favours in exchange for registration).
- Common indicators: percentage of households that received the full amount on time, Food Consumption Score, negative coping strategies, share of expenditure covered.
Payment day
Mobile money programme
You are supervising the first payment cycle for 1,200 households.
The operator's report shows 1,172 successful payments. On the phone, several beneficiaries say that an agent took 10% from them as “fees”.
Decision 1 of 3What do you do about the 28 missing payments?
Decision 2 of 3What do you do about the 10% fees charged by the agent?
Decision 3 of 3A month later, what does post-distribution monitoring check?
Key takeaways
A successful payment is verified: reconciliation, handling of abuses and post-distribution monitoring.
Exercise: preparing a post-distribution monitoring questionnaire
Write ten questions for post-distribution monitoring of a mobile money programme: receipt, amount, timeliness, fees, use, safety, satisfaction, awareness of the complaints mechanism. State how you will protect the data of the people interviewed.
Key points
- Clear, known and verified targeting criteria.
- Consent and data protection from registration onwards.
- Reconcile every payment with the approved list.
- Post-distribution monitoring, price monitoring and a complaints mechanism.
Further reading: course references
- CALP Network (2024). CALP Network library and standards (Cash Learning Partnership). www.calpnetwork.org/fr
- CALP Network (2017). Minimum Standard for Market Analysis (MISMA). www.calpnetwork.org
- Sphere Association (2018). The Sphere Handbook: Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Response. spherestandards.org/fr/manuel-2018
- CALP / Cash working groups (2019). Minimum Expenditure Basket: guidance document. www.calpnetwork.org
Daily quiz
3 questions to check what you have learned. Answer them all to complete the day.