Philippines: Expanding the Evidence Base on Cash, Protection, GBV and Health in Humanitarian Settings

In 2021-2022, the United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) in the Philippines introduced Cash for Maternal Health - Emergency Fund in the conflict-affected Maguindanao province. The Cash for Maternal Health project was designed to facilitate safe pregnancy and delivery. Cash was provided after delivery in a health facility to 850 women as a means of encouraging facility delivery, most often at a rural primary level health facility. Cash for deliveries was part of a holistic emergency response that also supported maternal health programming via numerous interventions including the provision of equipment and kits to facilities, the conduct of medical missions, and the provision of communitybased maternal health information sessions.

To assess the impacts of the maternal cash transfer program, UNFPA and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health collaborated to conduct a mixedmethods evaluation from December 2021 to June 2022. A total of 330 Cash for Maternal Health cash transfer recipients were compared to 316 pregnant women and adolescents who were registered to deliver in facilities but did not receive cash assistance in six different municipalities. The evaluation included questionnairebased interviews pre-delivery (baseline) and postdelivery (end line) for all participants in addition to qualitative interviews with 20 women who received the cash assistance. The evaluation is intended to provide new evidence to inform planning of maternal health programmes with cash components, both in the Philippines and beyond.