Cash Working Groups (CWGs) have become some of the most consequential coordination spaces in humanitarian response. Who leads them shapes what can be achieved. The 2022 IASC-endorsed cash coordination model emphasized the importance of local and national actor leadership[1]. By 2025, seven Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies were co-chairing national CWGs under IASC and refugee frameworks, with a further seven leading coordination outside these settings. This is not just a structural arrangement. It represents a fundamental shift in who speaks for coordination, and whose priorities get set.

The case for National Society (NS) leadership is rooted in a kind of trust that takes decades to build: permanent in-country presence, auxiliary relationships with government, and community credibility that no short-term deployment can replicate. When that legitimacy arrives at a coordination table, shaping agendas, setting standards, bridging communities and programmes, this contributes to the effectiveness, responsiveness, and accountability of the whole CWG. Yet this shift is happening at a difficult moment. The humanitarian system contracted 20% in 2025, the biggest absolute decline ever recorded, leaving it 30% smaller than in 2023. Funding to local and national actors fell even harder, down 27%, outstripping the overall cuts[2]. At a moment when effective cash coordination has never mattered more, local ownership of it has never been more urgent.

For this article, five National Societies currently or recently holding CWG co-chair positions were asked to share their experiences: the Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS), Romanian Red Cross, Turkish Red Crescent (TRC), Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS), and Chad Red Cross. Their reflections, alongside insights from the Global Cash Advisory Group’s (CAG)[3] Quality Cash Coordination Framework (QCCF)[4] covering 41 active CWGs globally, reveal what local leadership in cash coordination looks like in practice: the value it creates, the demands it places on organizations, and what makes it last.

Key Learnings

Representatives of IFRC, UNHCR, Romanian Red Cross, Save the Children, the Department for Emergency Situations (DSU), and the CALP Network participated in a CVA Lessons Learned workshop, which took place in Bucharest September 3^rd 2024, to reflect on the response to the Ukraine crisis. © Romanian Red Cross

1. National Societies bring a unique bridge function to cash coordination. The Dignity in Action 2024 report highlighted National Societies as uniquely placed to bridge national and local coordination structures. The five experiences here show what that bridging looks like when NS step fully into the co-chair seat. In Ethiopia, ERCS’s co-chair role has become the humanitarian community’s main channel to the Ethiopian government on cash issues — including a direct intervention with the National Bank of Ethiopia during a liquidity crisis that threatened cash distributions across the country. In Chad, the National Society’s CWG visibility and
auxiliary role with government helped the negotiations with the Ministry of Social Action on a formal social protection cooperation agreement with Chad Red Cross. It is a bridging role between national coordination spaces and local realities that few other actors are placed to fill.

2. The co-chair role is a gateway to direct funding, if backed by operational credibility. Visibility at the coordination table opens doors to donor relationships that would otherwise stay closed. ERCS received a direct GBP 3.5 million grant from FCDO, disbursed without international intermediaries, to deliver multipurpose cash to 52,000 households. Following the successful completion of this intervention, ERCS was granted additional GBP 4.5 million only for multipurpose cash assistance. Uganda Red Cross became a partner that donors now actively seek out. But these outcomes are not automatic, because coordination influence and implementation credibility reinforce each other. The programmatic co-chair seat requires active cash implementation, but what determines real influence at the table is the depth and credibility of what the NS is delivering. Investing in CVA capacity alongside the coordination role is what converts visibility into stronger positioning and greater access to direct funding.

3. Leadership buy-in is essential, and it tends to follow from visible results. The Dignity in Action 2024 report identified leadership support as critical for National Societies to take a leading role in cash coordination. The five experiences here add an important nuance: that support does not have to come first. In none of the five cases did senior management arrive fully committed. In some, NS staff had to advocate internally before standing for election. In others, leadership was broadly supportive but took the role more seriously as results arrived. The pattern across all five was the consistent: senior leaders who were initially neutral or cautious became vocal advocates once the benefits became concrete — new donor relationships, stronger government access, better organizational positioning. The practical implication for NS considering the step: don’t wait for full leadership endorsement. Make results visible early and frame them in terms of the organization’s own strategic interests, not just the coordination body’s interests.

4. The time commitment is significant and mostly unfunded. Plan for it. The co-chair role is absorbing work. Meeting preparation, follow-up, technical workstreams, stakeholder liaison all add up fast. The Dignity in Action 2024 report flagged time commitment as a general barrier to coordination engagement. For NS in co-chair roles specifically, the evidence is sharper. Formal time allocations consistently underestimate actual demands. QCCF data shows that time dedicated by RCRC co-chairs ranges from less than 20% to over 40% of working time, with no single band representing the majority. Ukraine, Chad and Türkiye were the only three of the seven RCRC co-chairs to have had some dedicated support through CashCap, a partner specifically committed to strengthening local actors in cash coordination. The remaining four carry the full cost themselves. This poses real challenges for NS in the co-chair seat. Resourcing the function does not have to mean a fully funded position (although ideal), but it does require deliberate planning. Several approaches are already in use: partner NS funding specific CWG activities rather than the role itself, as British Red Cross did in Chad and Netherlands Red Cross in Uganda; embedded expert models where an external coordinator supports the NS from within, as with CashCap; or formally protecting a percentage of staff time for coordination within NS operational plans rather than leaving it as an informal extra. What is common is that coordination must be treated as a function that requires resourcing, not a cost silently absorbed into already full workloads.

5. Skills are built by doing, but structured support makes a real difference. None of the five National Societies received formal cash coordination training before taking on the co-chair role. Learning happened through mentoring, observation, and peer exchange. The most effective model has been embedding an experienced cash coordinator directly within the NS working alongside staff, building skills and coordination literacy from within, and gradually handing over ownership of CWG functions. The Dignity in Action 2024 report noted the emerging CashCap partnership as a route to greater NS exposure to coordination roles. Experiences since then have shown what the most effective version of that support looks like. CashCap embedded experts in Ukraine and Syria in 2022, then expanded to Türkiye in 2023 and Chad in 2024. The aim is not simply to place an NS in a co-chair seat. It is to build the kind of grounded understanding of cash coordination that makes any level of CWG participation genuinely meaningful, whether as a member, a technical contributor, or a leader. The CAG has also developed a cash coordination training course, though so far it has reached only three countries. Wider rollout, and a structured peer exchange forum for NS co-chairs, would address a gap that all five National Societies named as significant.

National Society experiences

Ethiopian Red Cross Society

Ethiopia presents one of the most complex coordination environments in the world and simultaneous crises spanning drought, conflict, floods, and landslides. The National CWG has over 130 members according to the QCCF. ERCS entered the CWG as a programmatic local actor programmatic co-chair alongside Save the Children and UNHCR. Learning happened entirely on the job: no formal preparation, and an initial 20% time allocation that bore no relationship to actual demands. The trajectory since has been one of growing impact. ERCS has built a dedicated CVA team at headquarters and established focal points across thirteen regional branches and more than 32 zonal/district branches. It has used the co-chair platform to bring local actors into a space that had been dominated by international organizations. This local leadership complementing the good programme delivery of the NS helped open a direct funding relationship between ERCS and FCDO, resulting in a total of GBP 8 million grant disbursed without international intermediaries to deliver multipurpose cash to 71,000 households. ERCS has also emerged as an early mover on anticipatory action cash transfers, using the co-chair platform to bring this agenda into the CWG and build broader sector support for scaling it.

“Initially we allocated 20% of my time for the CWG role, but the activities which you have to fulfil are a lot. So allocating 20% is like a joke. It is not enough.” — Endale Zenebe, ERCS

Romanian Red Cross

The Romanian Red Cross co-chair role was born of speed: a coordination structure assembled almost overnight in response to the 2022 Ukrainian refugee influx, in a country with no prior experience of large-scale humanitarian cash coordination. At its peak the CWG brought together UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, Save the Children, and the Salvation Army to coordinate multipurpose cash for displaced populations, with Romanian Red Cross as co-chair. As the acute phase wound down and cash operations reduced, the CWG merged with the broader Basic Needs Group. The honest reflection from this experience is of untapped opportunities — particularly on advocacy toward government social assistance systems and on building organizational readiness to absorb direct funding at scale. Even in a scaling-down phase, the co-chair experience built networks, peer knowledge, and coordination competency that strengthened the NS’s own programming quality.

“As a cash focal point in any national society in our Movement, I think it’s not only good practice — I think it’s absolutely necessary. It will bring so much added value to be part of a national cash working group.” — Razvan Cateriniuc, Romanian Red Cross

Turkish Red Crescent

Turkiye hosts one of the world’s most substantial cash coordination environments. TRC — as the primary implementer of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), the largest humanitarian cash programmes ever run globally — brings unparalleled operational scale to its co-chair role alongside UNHCR. TRC formally took on the CWG co-chair position in March 2023, initially supported by a CashCap deployment that enabled a structured and progressive handover to a TRC national staff member with deep institutional knowledge. The CWG has developed structural innovations worth examining: a Technical Advisory Group handles specialist workstreams — MEB development, MPCA guidance, reporting tools — freeing the co-chairs for strategic leadership, while simultaneous Turkish-English translation ensures local expertise is not lost to language barriers. When the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes struck in 2023, the coordination structure proved its value under extreme pressure: maintaining structured cash coordination during a major emergency response was described as more necessary, not less.

“We don’t just represent our own organization — we act as a bridge for the entire local civil society sector in Turkiye. Having a local actor in this leadership position allows us to integrate our national perspective and real operational experiences directly into the coordination mechanisms.” — Burcu Ayvazoğlu, TRC

Uganda Red Cross Society

Uganda CWG covers all 13 refugee settlements — one of Africa’s largest refugee-hosting contexts — with over 122 member organizations and UNHCR as chair. URCS took on the co-chair role in 2023 and has since been renewed for a second two-year term, a marker of the trust it has earned. The change has been tangible: URCS is now recognized as a serious cash actor — invited to review donor funding proposals, influential on transfer value standardization across both refugee and national settings, and pushing to bring anticipatory action into CWG agenda. URCS has also pushed to expand the CWG’s mandate beyond the refugee frame to reflect the full national context. CVA is now embedded in URCS’s disaster response and emergency strategic plan, and 2024 saw the highest number of CVA interventions in any single year in the organization’s history.

“There was a concern that most local actor co-chairs are more of tokenism. I can confidently say, at least for the Ugandan context, that’s not the case. We’ve been given the room and opportunity to actually make meaningful contribution.” — Vanessa Lubowa, URCS

Chad Red Cross

Cash distribution in Adré, Chad on 23 May 2026. © Chad Red Cross.

Chad’s CWG is in an earlier stage of development with low member engagement despite having a sizable members list. The recurring constraints from security and limited financial service provider infrastructure are a challenge. Chad Red Cross entered the co-chair role supported by a CashCap coordinator embedded directly within the National Society, working alongside the cash focal point with an explicit handover plan targeting full NS-led co-chair role by end of deployment. British Red Cross provided a dedicated budget line for CWG activities: when UN agencies lacked funds to update the national Minimum Expenditure Basket, Chad Red Cross contributed 75% of the cost and deployed its volunteer network for data collection. The co-chair role has opened a new relationship with the Ministry of Social Protection and the NS, with discussions on a formal cooperation framework now underway — a development the NS directly traces to the visibility it built through the CWG. An early-stage experience, but a clear illustration of how Movement-backed resourcing can create the conditions for local leadership to take root.

“I’m embedded within the National Society and with them in the same office. It gives you not only consistency, but a better appreciation of their real needs, and how to build something not only accurate, but appropriate to the context.” — Daniel Fowo, CashCap coordinator supporting Chad Red Cross, Chad

---

This article including latest updates and analysis on Cash and Voucher Assistance in the Movement will be included in the upcoming Dignity in Action report that will be published by the CashHub. Keep informed and visit https://cash-hub.org/

[1] https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/global-cash-advisory-group/new-cash-coordination-model

[2] https://alnap.org/help-library/resources/global-humanitarian-assistance-gha-report-2026/

[3] https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/global-cash-advisory-group

[4] https://reliefweb.int/topic/quality-cash-coordination-framework-qccf

Key resources and further reading

• Dignity in Action: Key data and learning on cash assistance in the RCRC Movement (IFRC, July 2024)
• CashCap Support to Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies Pilot Review (CALP Network, 2024)
• Quality Cash Coordination Framework (QCCF) — CAG assessment tool for cash working groups
• IASC New Cash Coordination Model and Global Cash Advisory Group, including FAQs
• Cash and Coordination at a Crossroads: Reflections from CashCap’s 10 Years (CALP Network)