Layering Cash Into Market Systems Programs: Catalyzing Market-Driven Recovery in Nigeria

This paper examines the case of the Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (RRA) within the states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, and Gombe in North Eastern Nigeria. In response to COVID-19, RRA layered on a short-term cash transfer activity to help households cope, jumpstart local economies, and prevent further backsliding among the businesses that marginalized groups rely on most. This brief highlights the positive impact of Northeast Nigeria’s short-term cash response, the importance of pre-existing market knowledge, networks, and partnerships to the design and impact of humanitarian interventions, operational lessons for implementing direct-delivery interventions alongside market facilitation strategies, and ideas for how to leverage cash responses to support inclusive change in local economies.