Humanitarian and social protection agencies now deliver a growing share of assistance as cash or vouchers. This brings speed and dignity of choice for recipients, but it also creates large datasets: registration lists, targeting scores, payment files, market prices, complaints and surveys. Teams that cannot manage and interpret this information risk exclusion errors, duplicate payments and weak accountability to the people they serve and to donors.

This programme shows participants how to treat data as part of programme design rather than an afterthought. It starts with the CVA cycle and the data needed at each stage, then covers designing registration tools, cleaning and validating records, deduplication and reconciliation with payment providers. Later sessions deal with monitoring and evaluation of cash programmes, including market and price analysis, post-distribution monitoring, indicators for multipurpose cash, and the use of feedback mechanisms to improve delivery.

Participants work on a simulated caseload throughout, moving from raw registration data to a finished dashboard and brief. Data protection, informed consent and safe sharing with vendors and partners sit alongside the technical content, so that analysis never puts recipients at risk. Each person leaves with a data workflow for their own programme.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Map the data requirements at each stage of the cash and voucher assistance cycle.
• Design registration and assessment forms that collect usable, minimal data.
• Clean, validate and deduplicate beneficiary lists using spreadsheet techniques.
• Reconcile transfer records with payment providers and resolve discrepancies.
• Analyse market prices, minimum expenditure basket costs and transfer value adequacy.
• Build post-distribution monitoring tools and analyse outcome and satisfaction data.
• Create dashboards that show reach, delivery and risk indicators to decision makers.
• Apply data protection and responsible data principles when sharing information.

This course is designed for staff who run or support cash-based programmes, such as:

• Cash and voucher assistance coordinators and officers
• Monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning officers
• Information management and database officers
• Programme managers in humanitarian and development NGOs
• Finance officers who reconcile transfers with financial service providers
• Social protection and safety net programme staff in government
• Donor and cluster coordination staff reviewing CVA performance
• Fraud, risk and compliance officers in aid agencies

Participants finish with usable products, including:

• A registration form design and data dictionary for a cash programme.
• A repeatable cleaning and deduplication routine in Excel.
• A reconciliation template to match payment files against distribution lists.
• A working post-distribution monitoring questionnaire and analysis plan.
• A dashboard prototype that tracks reach, payments, complaints and prices.
• A short data protection checklist for agreements with vendors and partners.

Learning is hands-on and based on one running case across the week:

• A simulated caseload of several thousand households used in every lab
• Guided Excel and Power BI sessions with step-by-step handouts
• Group critique of real registration forms and dashboards
• Short scenarios on data protection dilemmas in the field
• Trainer coaching as each participant drafts a data workflow for their own programme

Attendance of all sessions and completion of the lab exercises earns a CPD-accredited Certificate of Completion, issued by Vision Reach Global Consultancy.