Are CfW programmes generally recommendable as an instrument of support in the contexts of migration

and conflict? Are other instruments recommendable alternatives?

We recommend the use of CfW programmes in contexts where social cohesion between different population groups is under strain and needs to be strengthened, as the programmes contain the potential to reconcile groups or to integrate people into a (host) society. This holds for situations of international and internal migration, rising tensions between resident population groups, and other contexts. However, of course, violent conflict should not be imminent because the effectiveness of CfW programmes requires a reliable administration, a minimum of safety and some trust for the unfolding of more indirect effects. In Jordan, the fact that Jordanians and Syrians already had strong ties before the war in Syria considerably eased the setting up of CfW programmes.²⁸ Nonetheless, we believe that CfW programmes can also be used in countries with less favourable conditions.

Here, CfW programmes would have to be carefully designed, for instance with regard to employing mixed teams, in order to make sure that they do not have adverse effects (Cherrier, in press).

Just as in in Jordan, implementing CfW programmes may also be recommendable for political goals in other contexts. Foreign donors have set up CfW programmes (and also some cash transfer schemes) in order to protect the livelihoods of Syrian refugees and their Jordanian neighbours in the host communities through employment. Implicit secondary goals have been (i) to improve the acceptability of Syrians refugees being hosted in

28 As our sampling focused on smaller, semi-rural field sites (see subsection 5.2.2) our study cannot provide conclusive evidence as to whether the presence of other refugee and migrant populations in Jordan (see subsection 3.2), also working mainly in unskilled and labour-intensive sectors, has any (adverse?) impact on CfW programmes’ community effects. On this issue, more research is required.

Jordan; and thereby (ii) to lower the number of Syrians having reason to continue their flight towards Europe.

Of course, there are alternatives to CfW programmes. For example, the primary goal – protecting the livelihoods of refugees and their neighbours – can also be pursued by

• active labour market policies (ALMPs), which are meant to help specific groups of workers find a job on the primary labour market through training, job placement services, or incentives given to employers (for example, wage subsidies and tax holidays),

• social in-kind transfers (such as the provision of food rations, public transportation vouchers, and social housing), and

• social cash transfers (conditional or unconditional).

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) can be hard to implement in conflict-affected countries for several reasons. For instance, in the Jordanian context it was clear that they would have little effect because the Jordanian government only allowed a small number of Syrians to work officially (that is, in formal employment) – and also only in a few economic sectors. In addition, unemployment and underemployment rates are so high in Jordan that Syrians have hardly any chance to get a sufficiently well paid job anywhere in the formal or informal sector in any case. The situation is likely to be quite similar for refugee populations in most other contexts of flight and migration.

Social in-kind transfers have their own challenges because, though feasible and effective, they are often highly inefficient. There is broad consensus now among researchers and practitioners that the transportation of in-kind goods to the target group is too expensive. UNRWA has experienced these challenges as it has been delivering packages of goods every month to Palestinian refugee families in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon since 1948.

Social cash transfer schemes may be an interesting alternative to CfW programmes in terms of achieving the primary goal of donors for three reasons:

• Their overhead costs are lower than those of CfW schemes because they do not require infrastructure gaps to be identified, work schemes to be designed, building material to be provided, and work to be monitored by project managers and engineers.

• If a country already has an effective cash transfer scheme – as Jordan does – it may find it easier to extend it to additional population groups rather than to set up parallel structures. Through this the results could become more coherent, which may be the reason why in 2018 the UK Department for International Development (DFID) stopped its CfW engagement in Jordan and considered supporting the NAF financially and technically in the inclusion of Syrians as a target group in its cash transfer scheme.

• And, most importantly, social cash transfers can also be given to people who are work-disabled for whatever reason (for instance because of age, bad health or care duties), while they are excluded by definition from the benefits provided by CfW programmes.

At the same time, CfW programmes have several advantages:

• Social cash transfer schemes do not contribute to the building of infrastructure or the upgrading of skills, self-esteem, or motivation among beneficiaries. And even if CfW programmes make no major contribution to the building of infrastructure, they can still make a difference, such as the waste collection programmes in Jordan which generate important awareness for cleaner streets and the recycling of waste.

• Conditional and unconditional social cash transfer schemes provide purchasing power without work. For various psychological and psychosocial reasons, this is objectively a disadvantage: The provision of work is sometimes just as important as the provision of cash because (i) many recipients want to give back something in exchange for the support they get as a matter of dignity (even if the work they do does not make much sense at all); (ii) the employment keeps people busy, distracts them from their day-to day worries, and guards against feelings of boredom, frustration or anger; (iii) the employment brings people together and helps them against feeling lonely, isolated and useless.

• Cash transfer schemes perform less well on targeting. While cash transfer schemes mostly rely on proxy means-tests which always involve large errors of inclusion and exclusion, CfW programmes benefit from the in-built self-targeting mechanism: only poor and vulnerable households apply because better-off households are not willing to do the hard work that CfW programmes offer. (Admittedly, this mechanism functions less well for refugees who are almost by definition poor and, even if they

are highly qualified, willing to accept whatever work is available. But the self-targeting mechanism works quite well for the national resident population – in our case the Jordanians.)

• CfW programmes have very comprehensive positive community/

indirect effects in addition to their individual/direct effects, as has been demonstrated by our research. Cash transfers can also have positive effects on local economic development through multiplier and investment effects, but they cannot compare with CfW programmes in the improvement of social cohesion. This is because cash transfer schemes do not bring people together to one place and do not create a joint product that all population groups may in the end consider as a common good which different population groups have built together.

7.2 Are there trade-offs between indirect and direct effects