UNHCR works with its Greece Cash Alliance partners to provide monthly cash assistance to refugees and asylum-seekers in Greece. Cash encourages self-reliance, provides dignity and allows choice. Refugees use cash to meet their most basic needs (food, clothes, hygiene, communication, transport and school supplies for children), while at the same time contributing to the local economy. Since April 2017, more than 49,000 refugees and asylum-seekers are estimated to have received cash assistance in Greece at least once.
Cash assistance is part of the Emergency Support to Integration & Accommodation – ESTIA programme funded by the European Union Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO). It is implemented by UNHCR and Greece Cash Alliance partners in coordination with the Greek Ministry of Migration Policy.