The recent annual trade fair known as Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week is always a good time for a temperature check on trends and developments in the sector. Geneva’s conference rooms were brimming with passionate people and energetic discussion, but the conversations around climate felt all too familiar: the humanitarian system providing what it can most easily provide, even though people consistently tell us that’s not what they need; an over-reliance on clunky frameworks and slow-moving sub-committees to bring about change; individual agencies moving fast all in different directions without sharing what they are learning; insiders questioning the need for any change at all.

To me, the former head of policy at the CaLP Network – a global network of organisations working to expand cash and voucher assistance in the humanitarian realm – it sounded a lot like the early days of moving cash from what was once a fringe project to becoming a mainstay of humanitarian response. Building a humanitarian system fit for the climate crisis requires far more fundamental changes, and it needs to happen in a fraction of the time. But cash shows the system can change, and gives us a playbook for how to make this happen.