Humanitarian crises in cities require responses that reflect the urban context, address urban challenges, and provide urbanised solutions. This paper focuses on providing guidance on good practice in cash for work (CfW) programmes. Focusing on Lebanon and the Syrian refugee crisis, the paper provides nine principles for better programming outcomes. The principles include issues such as addressing fear of movement within cities, prevention of child labour, guarding against corruption, the need to insure project participants, and the importance of linking CfW to municipal and ministry strategies. The nine principles are preceded by a discussion on the context of Lebanon, with a focus on the effects of the Syrian crisis on the Lebanese labour market, the key sectors absorbing the Syrian workforce, the government of Lebanon’s priorities within the response, and relevant laws and policies that impact humanitarian programming in Lebanon.