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Landscape Study on Cash Transfer Programming
– Current Practices and Recommendations
The opinions expressed in this document represent the views of the authors, which are not necessarily shared by the European Commission.
Bangladesh Cash Working Group
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Key findings from the review of existing CTP application ............................................................................ 5
Key findings from the analysis of the environment of CTP in Bangladesh ................................................... 6
Key Recommendations developed through the study for agencies involved in CTP implementation ........ 7
Background, methodology and limitations of the study ............................................................................. 8
1. Review of existing CTP application
• Results of the stock taking analysis ............................................................................................................ 11
• Assessment for CTP implementation ......................................................................................................... 12
• Types of CTP implemented in Bangladesh ............................................................................................... 14
• Type of delivery mechanisms used ............................................................................................................. 16
• Monitoring and evaluation ............................................................................................................................ 17
2. Identification of various supporting system for development of CTP
• Environment of CTP and stakeholder analysis of the CWG. .............................................................. 19
• Challenges To CTP Implementation, Institutionalization and Scale Up ......................................... 21
3. Recommendations
3. 1 Recommendation for individual agencies ...................................................................................................... 24
• Improving the response analysis process ................................................................................................. 24
• Mainstreaming cross cutting issues ........................................................................................................... 26
• Measuring the outcomes of the interventions ....................................................................................... 28 3.2. Measures that could be taken collectively by the community of practice ........................................ 30
• Package definition ............................................................................................................................................ 30
• Coordination ....................................................................................................................................................... 31
• Capacity building & Research ....................................................................................................................... 31
Conclusions and Next Step ........................................................................................................................ 35
Table of Annexes
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Acknowledgements
The Cash Working Group produced this Landscape Study in collaboration with many people and organizations. It was made possible by funding from ECHO. Regis Dantin, independent consultant, provided the most writing of this study. ECHO colleagues from the region and country read drafts and offered thoughts under demanding deadlines. Advice and input were provided by ACF, Action Aid, Concern World Wide, Concern Universal, Solidarité International, CARE, Muslim Aid, Plan Int, World Vision, WFP, FAO, UNICEF, ECHO, DFID, BRAC, Save the Children, Oxfam, German Red Cross, Department of Disaster Management, and bKash.
Many thanks to all active CWG members who believed in the group’s value from the beginning and were instrumental in our development to now.
Eun Jung Yi
Cash Working Group Coordinator
August 2015
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Abbreviations
BRC British Red Cross BRAC Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee CaLP Cash Learning Partnership CBO Community-‐based organization CTP Cash transfer program/programming (includes cash or vouchers delivered
by multiple means) CWG Cash Working Group DFID Department for International Development (UK) ECB Project Emergency Capacity Building Project ECHO European Community Humanitarian Office (now the European
Commission Directorate Generale for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection)
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FSL Food Security and Livelihoods HQ Headquarters IASC Inter-‐Agency Standing Committee IFRC International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies INGO International non-‐governmental organization LNGO Local non-‐government organization MFI Micro Finance Institution MoU Memorandum of Understanding NGO Non-‐governmental organization SOP Standard Operating Procedure ToR Terms of Reference UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Program UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USAID United States Agency for International Development WASH Water, sanitation and hygiene WFP World Food Program
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Executive Summary
Background
The core purpose of this review, commissioned by the Bangladesh Cash Working Group (CWG), is to diagnose cash transfer programs in Bangladesh. The CWG is a dynamic forum, composed of 23 INGOs, 3 national NGOs, 3 UN agencies, donor and government of Bangladesh.
As a disaster-‐prone country, Bangladesh faces small and medium scale disasters that justify humanitarian assistance almost every year. These disasters are typically flash floods, cyclones or waterlogging. These small-‐medium scale events come today with a higher frequency and severity, which is predicted according to the reports disclosure by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to continue to increase in the coming years and affect severely the resilience capacities of the most vulnerable people who are living in these areas. For example, ECHO and DFID, considered as the main humanitarian donors in Bangladesh, funded humanitarian response for waterlogging events in the southwest every year since 2010.
CTP in Bangladesh became the main part of the humanitarian response to the recurrent disaster faced by the country and for whom humanitarian assistance is needed, according to the type of projects funded by the main humanitarian donors in Bangladesh.
As in other part of the world, cash based approaches became an established1 option for the humanitarian response. In the recent past, humanitarian agencies have been increasingly incorporating cash transfers2 within their disaster response to deliver multi-‐sector objectives, and respond to different types of emergencies including seasonal disasters, rapid-‐onset disasters and slow-‐onset chronic disasters.
At the same time, expectations become higher and higher from institutional donors and communities of practice, to improve the quality of humanitarian actions and to have a holistic view on how these interventions is useful, inclusive and resilience oriented.4 Systematic integration of cross-‐cutting considerations such as gender and protection, market integration and resilience are now a must have for all agencies that want to implement humanitarian actions, and particularly CTP. The adoption by ECHO of two mandatory markers (age and gender, resilience) from 2013 is a relevant example to illustrate this point.
As a tool for humanitarian response, the quality of these interventions has improved in the last years, either through lessons learned analyzed and integrated by the implementing agencies. The newly created CWG provides a space where agencies could discuss and challenge their practices in order to improve the quality and the coordination of their actions.
1 Global Humanitarian Assistance, 2013, Bangladesh country profile, 2 There is no accurate and solid existing data regarding the percentage of cash based assistance in the overall international humanitarian budget. Tracking funding to CTP is difficult because they are often integrated into larger contributions and not distinctly labelled. According to the available data (Cash Atlas and Financial Tracking Services), around 3% of the global humanitarian assistance is pure cash based. (Background Note for the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers; Paul Harvey and Sarah Bailey; March 2015. ) However, for the period between 2009 to 2013 there is a shift in UN intervention from 0 to 30% in favor of cash intervention and main humanitarian donors operated the same shift during this period.
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This study intends to give insight to the main practices are in term of CTP in Bangladesh, where improvements are needed, and recommended actions to improve the way cash transfers are implemented. It aims to provide food for thought for agencies, and to encourage them to continue this reflection inside their organizations. This study has to be seen as a living document that can serve as a basis for agencies to build up their reflection. In addition, the study suggests the CWG collective actions in term of coordination, research and advocacy.
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Key findings from the review of existing CTP application
• Many lessons learned are available. Even in the topics identified as weaknesses, such as gender analysis, working with traders or measuring the impact of CTP, some positive lessons exist. The humanitarian architecture in Bangladesh and the existence of permanent consortia encourage a strong dialogue between the different actors.
• Lack of consideration and collaboration with market players. Market analysis is often overlooked during program design due to resource constraints and absence of coordination with market actors. The lack of economic stakeholder analysis reduces the possibility to implement real conditioned cash activities, and does not allow agencies to monitor the impact of their interventions on market players and market functionality. Some tools like Emergency Market Mapping Analysis are sometimes used by the agencies, but there is still a lack of capacity building for field team and local partners to systematize their use.
• When it comes to measuring the resilience of communities, there is a lack of understanding of the interaction between households and markets, and by this way a lack of understanding on how market contributes to people resilience capacities.
• Lack of thematic diversity. In Bangladesh, CTP are mostly focused on food security and livelihood and largely ignored for other sectors.
• Delivery mechanisms used are mainstreamed by donor’s prescription. Almost all agencies are switching from direct cash distribution to the use of remittance companies based on good enough penetration rates of these services in disaster affected areas and successful pilots by a few in 2013 for Mahasen response. Other delivery mechanisms including post office or microfinance institution have not been fully explored despite agencies’ intention to reach remotest areas.
• Gender and protection. ECHO’s Gender Marker is seen to have promoted the gender and protection aspects of program but in field level it is not systematically implemented. There is also a lack of information about risks of targeting only women. There is a general lack of understanding of the perception of cash transfer by the communities. Post distribution monitoring is regular process for CTPs and agencies measure the utilization, process and results of cash distribution.3 However it is not common for agencies to assess potential impact of these programs on social links and traditional solidarity mechanisms. The use of mobile money transfer (MMT) reduced the risk of corruption by community leaders and agencies’4 staff, but did not reduce the risk of exclusion and conflicts due to the targeting methods used. This is critical for do no harm approach, particularly for multipurpose and unconditional cash approaches.
3 CWG compiled the PDM forms in use by member agencies and developed a simple 2 pages (November, 2014) 4 Bangladesh Cash Working Group, 2014, lessons learnt on cash deliveries through mobile money transfer (February, 2015)
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Key findings from the analysis of the environment of CTP in Bangladesh
• A strong coordinated structure with robust methodology for assessment. When the official mechanism is triggered, the different tools developed for need and vulnerability assessment by the clusters are now robust and can cover all the topics needed to design a humanitarian program. This is important to highlight as it means there is not a lack of tools when agencies want to conduct an analysis. The weaknesses identified are more related to a lack of capacity building and efforts given on response analysis to ensure a proper appropriation of these tools.
• A favourable environment for CTP. CTP are recognized as a good response option in order to respond to many humanitarian situations. Humanitarian donors are very supportive to help the development of CTP in future and to help agencies to improve the quality of their analysis and implementation.
• New opportunities enhance the interest of the private sector for developing new delivery mechanisms. The development of new technologies in Bangladesh is currently increasing considerably not only in term of coverage but also in terms of services proposed by these enterprises. They continue to show an important interest by collaborating with humanitarian agencies, and these alliances between humanitarian and private sector should accelerate the development of technologies in country and their appropriation by people.
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Key Recommendations developed through the study for agencies involved in CTP implementation
• Improving response analysis process. After a disaster, gap analysis is normally done during the Joint Needs Assessment (JNA) and technical assessments implemented by the clusters5. Considered as a JNA phase 3, this analysis provides an accurate estimation regarding the loss of incomes and assets due to the disaster. However it is recognized by agencies and clusters that there is a lack of analysis about the threshold, and about how this money should be injected to have the best impact.
• Research and advocacy is strongly expected by the respondents of this research to tackle the organizational barriers some respondents identified in their own structure. The topics highlighted as priority are around cross-‐cutting issues (gender and market integration) and about how to evaluate the impact of CTP.
• Guidance and popularization of existing tools and methods. Through the study, it was highlighted that most of the agencies are interested to improve their response analysis and mainstreaming of cross-‐cutting issues, but affirm they lack practical and field based tools and methods to switch from policy to practice. It was also a strong demand from ECHO and agencies present in the workshop organized during the study to propose practical guidance and tools already tested in the field that could be appropriated by the agencies, and to help agencies to diversify the type of activities implemented in the field in order to be more specific to identify needs and objectives of the intervention.
• Capacity building and quality control. As working through local partners is the case for almost all the CWG members6, capacity building should be expanded further.
5 Food security cluster, 2013, Tools package for assessment,: http://foodsecuritycluster.net/countries/bangladesh 6 Out of the 14 respondents of the stock taking analysis done through this study only one agency is not working through partners as part of its main way of working.
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Background, methodology and limitations of the study
Purpose and scope of the study
The key focus areas for this review are:
• To review existing CTP applications and identification of key learning points for recommendation in improving future intervention in Bangladesh;
• Identification of various supporting system such as market, delivery mechanism, etc for CTP application;
• Recommendations including identification of risks and opportunities of existing CTP project for future programs.
These three points above are considered as the core objectives of the study and will structure of the report. As a demand from participant of the study, an emphasis was given on the recommendation side to propose some tools, guidance and inputs for agencies and community of practices.
The key questions designed as assumptions at the beginning of the study are:
Regarding the review of existing CTP applications
• What kind of specific know-‐how is available in Bangladesh that can improve the global level of the community of practices?
• Which process could be improved in term of design, implementation and monitoring for the cash based activities currently implemented?
The answers to these questions came mainly from the update of the stock taking analysis and through the consultation of the secondary literature available.
Regarding the identification of supporting systems
• What are the key critical points that need a specific attention and follow up for the quality of the CTP intervention?
• For the modalities identified as useful to implement/improve, what are the critical points that needs a proper wrap up and detailed methodology?
The responses came from the review of existing secondary information and interview of main stakeholders involve in CTP (donors, cluster lead, governmental services and private sector actors).
Regarding the design of recommendations
• Which areas needs improvement for currently implemented cash based interventions?
• Which gap could be filled by new/ innovative cash based intervention?
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• Which new activities could be introduced to improve the reactivity and sustainability of the interventions?
• What is the minimum assessment and response analysis package needed to identify the key risk of the Implementation of these modalities, and what can be the related mitigation measures?
• What are the risks of the implementation of these modalities, and what can be done to prevent/ mitigate these risks?
• Which researches are needed to cover some knowledge gap regarding the impact of CTP in Bangladesh?
The responses came mainly from a workshop organized with the participants, and from the experiences of the consultant in Bangladesh and in CTP.
The consultants conducted the review and, in consultation with the coordinator of the CWG, defined each of the review components above. The primary data collection method was semi-‐structured qualitative interviews (solo, roundtable and email), complemented by the update of the stock taking analysis and the conduction of a workshop where 5 members of the CWG participated.
The main steps implemented were:
• Literature review of the main document produced recently by the CWG and the main agencies involved in CTP.
• Update of the stock taking analysis. A first version was done in December 2014. Through this study, an updated version was produced.
• Interview of key actors inside the cash community of practices (INGO with innovative practices, government, donors, private sector)
• Organization of a workshop with the main actors involved to wrap up the conclusion and propose some actions for future.
The whole study was conducted over 15 working days in Dhaka.
Limitations of the study
This study reflects the current practices and recommendation for improvement from the partners who participated in the consultations and workshop conducted, with addition to the critical analysis of the qualitative data generated through interviews, literature review and workshop. However, a few challenges were faced during this study:
• Lack of participation: The questionnaire used was sent to all the 39 members of the CWG, and only 15 answers from 10 different organizations were collected. This
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however represents the most active members of the CWG, and the ones that are most involved in CTP.
• Credibility of the answers. The questionnaires and interview were administrated in Dhaka to people involved mostly in coordination. It is likely that the answers don’t reflect exactly the reality with a tendency to emphasis more what is well done and minimize what is not, as most of people who answered these questions are not in charge of program implementation. This is why the analysis proposed doesn’t every time reflect the figures showed in the graphs.
• More assumptions than fact checking. At the time of the study, there were not any emergencies. For their reference, most of agencies referred to the intervention (still on-‐going) implemented after the last flood event in the north of the country in August 2014 or the one currently on-‐going in Sathkira7, implemented after the last waterlogging event.
By reading this document, it could give the impression that positive things done individually and collectively by organizations are not reflected and some may be disagree about the conclusion. At this step, this study reflects the preoccupation and debate existing among the community of practice around CTP. It is agreed that the points highlighted by this study will be handover by the agencies to continue the reflection and debate about the quality improvement of CTP implemented.
7 ECHO funded an humanitarian response for 5 agencies (UNDP, WFP and FAO funded as a consortium led by WFP and two INGO, ACF and Solidarites International) from February 2015.
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1. Review of existing CTP application In this section the status of CTP in the humanitarian sector in Bangladesh will be discussed. The outcomes rely on the stock taking analysis updated during the study, on the workshop, and on the interviews with the members of the CWG. 8
Out of the 46 questions to the participants the ones triggering the most debate during the workshop, and considered as a priority by agencies, are highlighted and presented.
RESULTS OF THE STOCK TAKING ANALYSIS
The focus of this review is to examine whether CTP is broadly accepted, routinely considered, growing in importance and being used “at scale” to help meet changing and increasing humanitarian needs. CTP in Bangladesh have been implemented routinely since Cyclone Sidr in 2007 mainly with activities like cash for work or unconditional cash grant.
The overwhelming opinion of the stakeholders consulted for this study is that CTP is generally increasing across the humanitarian sector. For humanitarian interventions in Bangladesh, the accepted principle is to go with CTP, and to justify based on filed analysis if it looks needed by the agency to implement another modality only if this paradigm is accurate for INGOs and UN agencies. Regarding governmental actions through social transfer programs, in-‐kind distribution remain the main modality.
CTP have been used as an effective and appropriate response in a wide variety of contexts, especially when markets are functioning and resilient that is generally the case in Bangladesh according to the JNA reports available since 2012.
The elements below extracted from the stock taking analysis are discussed based on the feedback from the participant of the workshop organized during this study9. The graphs related to the stock taking are presented in annex 1.
An important element of debate is regarding who is or should be the initiator of change in term of practice and methods for the implementation of CTP. It is agreed by all the agencies interviewed that propositions based on field analysis should come from agencies to donors. However, it is also recognized that most agencies are facing resistances to change, and move to innovation when it becomes imposed or strongly encouraged by donors at national level or by their line management from their head quarter. Few elements are highlighted to explain this situation:
• Most agencies have guidelines and tools on all crucial topics developed at general or national level. To change it from policy to practice, the middle management (project managers and field supervisors) need to be informed, trained and supervised.
8 The first version of stocktaking was done in 2014. This update focused on the current practices of agencies regarding the design and implementation of cash transfer activities. Questionnaire is attached in annex 1. 9 The agencies who participated to this workshop were: Oxfam/ WFP/ FAO/ Concern Worldwide/ Solidarities International/ Care/ German Red Cross.
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However, this is identified as the weak side from interviewee (mostly people involved in coordination at national level).
• It was expressed by several interviewees that to involve attention and resources in the field on CTP and general programmatic issues like reinforcing analytical tools for design or monitoring, most practitioners need to be incentive or encouraged by their management or donors. e.g. before the implementation of the gender marker by ECHO, most agencies had policy papers, but without doing real field based gender analysis during the design’s phase.
• CTP implemented for humanitarian purpose are generally implemented on a short term basis (3 to 9 months). For this timeline, it is generally considered as difficult for agencies to budget impact evaluation of the programs implemented. An exception has to be mentioned in Shakira’s area, in the south west. In this area, some programs are implemented almost every year and a dynamic was started to measure the evolution of economic situation of people and the impact of humanitarian program on it.
ASSESSMENT FOR CTP IMPLEMENTATION
It is important to note that in Bangladesh all agencies interviewed are part of the Joint need assessment (JNA) process and rely on the results of the coordinated assessment to design their response. As said by one participant but agreed by others:
“After a disaster, we are part of the JNA process, but we don’t conduct directly our own assessment. However, we complete this coordinated assessment by our own analysis on some topics ignored like gender or market analysis.”(Interviewee).
Complementary analyses like market analysis are not systematically implemented by all agencies even if it is globally agreed that is needed, and considered as a pre-‐requisite for CTP implementation.
In spite of recent improvement, the current form and process of JNA do not provide all necessary information for agencies to be able to base their CTP design. One of the challenges is around response analysis and cross cutting issues, as demonstrated in the following quote.
“Even if market analysis is part of the package implemented by the coordinated assessments, we never sit around a market map to identify the best way of intervention.” (A participant, Workshop)
Generally speaking, it was agreed by the participants that the main part of the coordinated assessment is the package analysis.
“The last coordinated assessment for North Flood was more than one hundred pages of analysis, but at the end we only used the package calculated to design our response”. (WFP, FS Cluster Lead)
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As mentioned by most of the agencies interviewed, they choose modalities according to the recommendations of ECHO or the consortium they are part of.
ECHO for example, assumes this fact:
“We are in favor of coordinated approach to ensure consistency and avoid overlap in the interventions. However we want to encourage innovations from agencies that could improve the response quality by others”. (ECHO, during the interview)
All the members of the CWG see the fact that assessments are led by a coordinated structure as a progress:
“Recently, we invested quite a lot to develop an assessment tool box and to include other clusters in order to have a result as holistic as possible. We also realized big studies that can be used as a baseline in prone disaster areas usable by all agencies. However our responsibility stop after the assessments and there is a gap in term of coordinated response analysis.” (WFP, Food Security Cluster Lead).
However, there is still a lack of clarity about where stop the responsibility of the cluster in term of response analysis. It was mentioned several time that after the gap analysis phase handled by the clusters, consortium and working groups should manage the response analysis phase. The main difficulty identified by the participant for the cluster, is the potential conflict of interest from the cluster lead as they can be at the same time prescripts for other agencies and implementers on their own. As it looks that where the responsibilities stop are not totally clear, it is likely a point to follow up further.
According to point of view and regular evaluation done by ECHO, the main areas where an additional analytical effort should be done are in term of market analysis to be used as a real tool for designing activities, gender and protection analysis, and resilience analysis.
For these different topics, several agencies highlighted that they adapted or created some tools that allow them to obtain additional qualitative information directly usable for program design also with the constraints of humanitarian intervention10. As an example11, Oxfam is using “48 hours assessment tool” and rapid market mapping analysis, Solidarités International developed a rapid gender analysis tool based on the 24 hour gender calendar.
In order to improve the response analysis process, the CWG developed recently a decision tree based on market to be used in order to quickly choose what kind of approach could be used. According to the participant of the workshop done, this tool is not really used. This opinion from a participant reflects the majority:
“This kind of tools could be very useful to make a discussion with other agencies, but when we are designing a new program inside our agencies, we already have a number of tools and process we have to use and this one looks competing.“ (CWG participant)
10 These constraints frequently mentioned to justify a lack of analysis are the timeline, the access to affected population and the number of trained people to conduct these assessments. 11 In the part recommendation of this study, these tools are detailed and a proposition is done for their endorsement and use by other agencies.
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TYPES OF CTP IMPLEMENTED IN BANGLADESH
As mentioned by all respondents during the study,
“When we want to go for a humanitarian response few weeks after a disaster12, CTP are now our mainstream. Justifications and debate are needed in case we don’t want to go to cash activities”.
Using cash as an option for humanitarian intervention looks now totally integrated by all the agencies. According to the debates taken, no participant faces resistance inside their agency to go for CTP.
If using cash as an option for intervention is now accepted by all agencies, the type of modalities implemented is quite limited. As mentioned by ECHO:
“The first reflex of agencies when they want to go for humanitarian intervention is to go with cash for work activities and cash grant distribution, considered as a “magic bullet”, usable at the same time to cover needs and build community assets. We are not reluctant to cash for work but we would like to see more analysis to take in account some cross cutting aspects, and also a better balance between the humanitarian objectives and the assets building ones”. (ECHO, during interview)
At the same time, there is a tendency for humanitarian basic needs assistance, to go to multipurpose cash package. As mentioned by the cluster leads of WASH and food security
“According to the timeline available to implement an emergency program, and the pushing factor from donors to be multi-‐sector oriented, the best we can do is to push for multipurpose cash envelop. That’s why we try to make joint assessment to evaluate the global needs of affected people, but of course, when it comes to prioritising the sectors some other factors are coming. “(Food Security and wash cluster coordinators, during interview).
This tendency is also supported by ECHO with recent guidelines13 regarding the 10 good principles for the use of multipurpose unconditional cash transfer.
In parallel, it is recognised by the participants that markets and economic actors are not enough analysed in Bangladesh. As mentioned by several participants of the workshop:
“When we do market analysis, it is mostly considered as a risk analysis to see if it can absorb the cash injected. We don’t use it to identify with which traders we should work or if they could be considered as beneficiaries or not” (One participant, workshop). This is also confirmed by ECHO.
“It is important for us to find a balance between giving the choice to beneficiaries in the way they can spend the assistance, ensuring the quality of items and services finally provided, and
12 Inside the contingency plans designed by the different clusters, there is a timeline for different kind of intervention, with pre—designed package. According to food security cluster contingency plan, cash interventions should come by the second week after a disaster in combination with food and NFI (Non Food Items) support. When cash is mentioned, it is only about unconditional cash transfer. 13 These 10 principles repeat mostly the good practices already present in the guidelines related to the design and implementation of cash and voucher programming with an emphasis on multipurpose cash envelop. http://ec.europa.eu/ECHO/files/policies/sectoral/concept_paper_common_top_line_principles_en.pdf.
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strengthening the markets. Unconditional cash grant and cash for work cannot meet all objectives alone, and more options should be explored. “(ECHO, Interview).
This opinion also confirms the point 6 of the 10 principle for multipurpose cash assistance outed globally by ECHO:
“A combination of transfer modalities and delivery mechanisms may be required depending on the nature and context of the crisis and used at various stages of the crisis an optimum response may require them to be used in combination”.
However, there are also few examples from agencies who tried to work with traders and experiment some alternative approach to unconditional cash transfer. WFP for example, have some voucher activities in Cox Bazar area. These interventions are judged as interesting by other participants and deserve to be followed up in term of lessons learned. However, it has to be noted that the context in this area of intervention is very specific with a lot of constraint liaised with intervention in refugee camp.
Agencies are interested to put some higher conditionality for their cash transfer program, according to the general timeline of intervention and the objectives expected by this kind of project. As mentioned by all the agencies interviewed:
“The cash transfer intervention generally come 3 to 5 month after the targeted disaster. In this timeline we want to revitalise the livelihood activities and restore local economy. However as our only option is cash distribution, the only thing we can do is to ensure a strong monitoring through business plan and follow up.”(One participant agreed by others, workshop).
This also meet the recommendation of the food security cluster through the contingency plan done to privilege conditional assistance when it comes to make an intervention more than two month after the disaster.
In the past, most of agencies were also implementing cash for training activities. These activities were highly questioned by ECHO and it’s implementing partners in 201314. The reasons were that conditioning a cash distribution with the participation to training did not encourage agencies to pay attention to the quality of the training and did not develop the appropriation of the training by beneficiaries. This is confirmed by one of the participant to this program:
“At this time, the main objective was to distribute cash. Delivering training was seen as secondary objectives and without paying all the attention needed to provide a quality one. “Beneficiaries were generally not very motivated by these trainings and just came to sign the attendance list” (A participant, workshop).
14 Program FRIEND, implemented by Islamic Relief, Oxfam and Solidarites International in 2013.
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TYPE OF DELIVERY MECHANISMS USED
Currently almost all the agencies interviewed are implementing money mobile transfer. As mentioned by Oxfam:
“Before the Mahasen intervention in 2013, we were the only ones to work with remittance companies. After the Mahasen intervention all agencies started to do it and it is now considered as a standard” (OXFAM representative, Interview).
Several lessons learned workshops and comparisons were done15, so it will not be detailed, but the main added value of MMT for humanitarian interventions are to:
• Transfer the risks of corruption (once the beneficiaries are selected) from authorities and local staff to MMT agent. This risk is considered by practitioners as easier controllable and reduced the corruption level. However, as mentioned by one agency:
“It was a heavy negotiation at the beginning of working with MMT to make them accept that they have to take the responsibility of their agent and have to ensure there is no corruption possible at this level.” (Solidarités International, Interview).
The fact that there are now several competitors on this market eases the negotiations between the agencies and the remittance companies. This is confirmed by one of the remittance company:
“We had to revise our service contract and to adapt it to the exigency of humanitarian organizations. We are interested to increase our work with them as it is a way for us to reach new costumers, but it asks us to every time reduce our costs and improve our services.” (Remittance company representative, Interview).
• Splitting instalment in smaller amount and not one-‐off disbursement. This reduces the security and protection threat, and encourages savings. This is also confirmed by one agency and confirmed by others:
“Through our monitoring, we saw a quite big difference in the use of money by beneficiaries regarding the type of transfer done. With direct distribution, there was a tendency to use the entire amount in the first week mostly for food and paying back the debt. Now it is frequent to see that a good percentage of the amount is kept for future purpose”. (Debater among agencies, workshop)16
• Inclusion of beneficiaries in financial services. This was the main interest of remittance and phone companies to be involved in these activities in order to develop their client portfolio. However, according to one Telecom Company that provided SIM cards:
16 Disclaimer by authors: this tendency may have been caused by additional factors such as cash distribution timing, amount and in-‐kind or service provided by other actors.
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“We are still interested to work with humanitarian, but after several transfer, it looks like only half of the beneficiaries use these services after the humanitarian program is finished. This is a low rate for the investment we did by giving free cards.” (Banglalink representative, interview)
The advantages listed above are important and justify continuing to work with these companies. However, there was at the beginning some assumptions that working through MMT will be cost effective and will improve the timeline of the response. This was not demonstrated and doesn’t look being the case, at least for “one shot” humanitarian interventions. This is confirmed by agencies that participated to several MMT activities:
“With MMT, we reduced the workload of our team in term of administrative work to prepare the cash distribution. However, this increased the time our teams are spending for beneficiaries’ orientation and to fill the different questionnaire asked by the companies. As there is also a cost for transfer and needs more involvement from our administrative department, at the end we cannot say it is cost or time effective. Advantages are more in term of risk control” (debate among agencies, workshop).
However, the cost effectiveness of MMT comparing to direct distribution was not analysed in depth, and there is a lack of evidence to confirm or not these affirmations.As mentioned by a remittance company17 representing and confirmed by BRAC, it could be possible to work with post offices and micro-‐finance institutions for cash distribution:
“These structures are present at Union level, so close enough to beneficiaries, are well respected and have their own network to receive and store money. They can also offer other services related to financial inclusion to beneficiaries like saving, credit or insurance products and could encourage synergies between emergency needs and longer term prospective”(Brac representative, interview).
This idea was presented to the agencies present during the workshop and was quite well received. However, working with MFI is for now new in Bangladesh and further analysis should be needed to confirm this opportunity.
It was also mentioned during the workshop the possibility to use traders as agent for money delivery. However, after debate the added value of this option was not very obvious and could involve additional risks for beneficiaries. Working with traders is an option envisaged by agencies, but for commodity or cash vouchers given to beneficiaries, not as cash transfer agent.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
In term of monitoring, agencies are generally implementing a baseline and end-‐line focused on food security indicators (e.g. Food Consumption Score, Coping Strategy Index) completed with a Post Distribution Monitoring focused on the level of satisfaction of beneficiaries regarding the cash distribution and the use of the cash. As mentioned by several participant, monitoring can be quite time consuming, especially when the programs are implemented through consortium: 17 bKash
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“Through consortium, it is generally imposed to realise some quantitative survey with 5 or 10% of the global number of beneficiaries. This is quite heavy and the results can be used only for evaluation purpose, not to reorient the on-‐going programs.” (A participant to consortium, workshop).
After reviewing the type of indicators used by agencies, it appears that indicators are focused on food security, but generally not on the evolution of the resilience level of the communities. This is also confirmed by ECHO:
“Humanitarian agencies are following quite well their outputs or results indicators. We currently have a quite good idea about how the money is used or by the type of schemes realised. This was also reinforced last year by the implementation of the KRI18. However, we have difficulties to measure the outcomes of these programs and the impact of the repetitive program we are implementing since years in the same areas.” (ECHO representative, Interview).
It is recognised by agencies that they are lacking tools and methods to evaluate the outcomes of their intervention, but also as it is sometimes not feasible according to the timeline of intervention. As mentioned by WFP, there is also an administrative constraint:
“For short term humanitarian program, government is reluctant to give an authorisation (FD6) if the biggest part of the money is not directly going to the beneficiaries, even if an outcome monitoring is recognised as a way to improve responses” (WFP representative, Interview).
In addition, some other biases were identified by the participants to implement proper monitoring usable for operational decision making:
• According to the timeline of disasters and humanitarian responses, the baseline is generally implemented during the lean season, and the end line at harvest time, without control group to correct the seasonal effect.
• Studies about impact of cash on resilience, protection, nutrition, social structure or markets are rare and not implemented systematically. It is true that with the scope of this projects (from 3 to 9 month), it is difficult to budget and implement this kind of studies. When agencies have more long term approach, they should be implemented.
• It is agreed that most of the intervention implemented, even the short ones focused on food security, aim to strengthen the resilience capacities of households and communities, or at least to limit the negative coping strategies19. However, there is a lack of tools to measure the resilience20. This could be useful during the targeting phase, the response analysis, about also to measure and evaluate with more
18 Key Results Indicators. In 2013 ECHO developed a list of standardized indicators related to Sphere standards that agencies need to use (at least one per result) when they design their logical framework. 19 As mentioned in the regular HIP edited by ECHO emphasis that humanitarian interventions need to aim to strengthen the local capacities and enhance the resilience of affected population. 20 As mentioned in the report of the last « Sendai conference » in March 2015, the agencies and government working on Disaster Risk Reduction need to set up some contextualized tools and indicators to measure the level of resilience of population affected by risks: http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/wcdrr. At this time, several research are ongoing (eg. URD, IFRC, ODI), but nothing really operational and contextualized for Bangladesh.
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accuracy the impact of cash on the improvement of community and household assets.
• The perception of cash by population and how they cope with this new approach was not really investigated. Through the monitoring reports done after implementation, acceptance of people about cash is judged positive and could justify an extension of these programs. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the impact of cash transfer on traditional solidarity mechanisms and coping strategies implemented by people.
In final, it looks quite understandable that the agencies are more focused on process than impact during emergency, but some indicators linked with resilience capacities should ease to link and to understand short term and long-‐term impact of emergency programs. Agencies present in the workshop are not reluctant to use impact indicators, but need additional guidance and capacity building in order to achieve it.
2. Identification of various supporting system for development of CTP
This part aims to map some factors which influence the feasibility of scaling up CTPs in Bangladesh. Several factors identified as weakness for the implementation or scaling up of CTP will be discussed according to the preoccupation of practitioners.
1. a. ENVIRONMENT OF CTP AND STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS OF THE CWG.
Before entering in the details of the analysis, it looks useful to have an overview of the sector in Bangladesh, and to analyse the level of involvement of the different stakeholders inside the cash transfer community of practices.
For CTP in humanitarian sector, the main donors are ECHO and DFID. There is in Bangladesh a quite good coordination between these donors, and in the past, there were several joint actions (eg. Sathkira). Around US$100 million21are spent every year by the different donors for humanitarian activities. Food and commodities distributions are mostly implemented by the government and UN agencies when cash is mostly implemented by INGO and UN agencies.
Out of the 113 NGOs registered by the NGO Affairs Bureau, 36 are members of the CWG and 15 are considered as actively participating agencies.
As this study relies mostly on the members of the CWG, it is important to provide few elements of analysis concerning the stakeholders and their level of involvement inside the CWG: This group gather all humanitarian NGOs who receive funds from the main donors like DFID and ECHO, and almost all agencies who are delivering CTP for humanitarian sector.
21 Global and humanitarian country profile: http://www.globalhumanitarianassistance.org/countryprofile/bangladesh
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• Strong involvement of humanitarian donors, especially ECHO and DFID. Strong recognition of the CWG as the relevant forum to decide collectively the harmonised packages and processes that should be deployed in the field during emergencies.
• Low representation of government agencies and low involvement of government to improve the quality of interventions and to participate to homogenisation processes. The Head of Disaster Management demonstrated an interest to be involved in the discussion around CTP, but the participation of government representative is quite unequal. This point was highlighted by WFP as a difficulty to harmonise the package of intervention when working with the government:
“As partner, we have a room to discuss the package, but quite limited as the different rates could be renegotiated only once a year” (WFP representative, interview).
• The government has numerous safety net programs implemented in the field22. In 2012, annual outlay on safety net programs amount to 1,64 US billion split in 30 major operations. 44% of this amount is dedicated to food security and disaster assistance programmes. Main UN agencies are involved to fund and ease the implementation of these programs. However, there is a lack of knowledge from the agencies members of the CWG about the precise implementation of these programs, and a quite low coordination between these stakeholders. There is a high demand from the members of the CWG to have a better coordination with governmental operations in term of coverage and package, but there is still an important window to improve it. To ensure an absence of overlap between governmental and humanitarian programs, agencies generally consider the involvement of beneficiaries in governmental operations as an exclusion criterion.
• Low representation of other sectors than food security and livelihood. These represent the current landscape of cash intervention in Bangladesh, mostly focus on these topics. The representative of wash cluster interviewed during the study mentioned that potentially it could be interesting for wash actors to be part of the discussion regarding cash but most of wash related interventions are linked to in-‐kind distribution.
• Frequent questioning about the positioning of the CWG inside the humanitarian architecture. Currently, the CWG try to stay independent from the official architecture, with a cross cutting and transversal approach. It is agreed from the members of the CWG to be careful regarding the positioning and to stay independent from the humanitarian architecture in order to not be exposed inside some political issues existing among UN agencies and government.
• Low involvement of the private sector inside the CWG, except the remittance companies who are coming as potential service providers. It was also highlighted that a higher involvement of traders representative and micro finance
22 PPRC – UNDP research initiative, 2012, social safety nets in Bangladesh.
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representative should help for wider debate and for the creation of opportunities of collaboration between humanitarian agencies and private sector, especially social business sector.
• Lack of collaboration with university and research centres, especially the ones working on social and economic science23. This was mentioned by DFID and ECHO as a way to improve the inclusion with these actors to conduct research projects, to measure some impact and prepare the new students to the humanitarian labour market.
• Weak connection between humanitarian and development actors, even sometimes inside the same organisation. This is not really specific to Bangladesh, but was highlighted by several organisations during the study, especially by the big ones:
“We cannot say we have a real coordination between our humanitarian programmes. Through development programming, we are establishing and working with community group, we are involving private sector in some actions, and we follow the resilience of communities. However when it comes to emergency programming, it is like we restart from scratch without using this background.” (NGO representative, interview).
CHALLENGES TO CTP IMPLEMENTATION, INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND SCALE UP
This part will reflect the practices highlighted through the stock taking analysis and the debate taken during the workshop. The focus is also to identify while there are specific obstacles to implementing CTP at scale. For example skills, capacity and institutional knowledge gaps persist at all levels of humanitarian organizations, in host governments, and in all parts of the lifecycle of a humanitarian response.
This was highlighted as particularly critical in Bangladesh in term of mainstreaming of crosscutting issues like market, gender and resilience. As example, this assertion is representative to several organizations:
“We are mostly implementing our intervention through local partners. This is clear that they don’t have enough skills and resource to conduct a proper gender or market analysis and we train them for this. However, we are also lacking tools and process to do it properly, and specifically to ensure that the findings are used for decision making.” (NGO members, debate during workshop)
Organizational culture within many humanitarian agencies is sometime s not up-‐to-‐date to adapt such multi sector approach as CTP. Programming decisions are often driven by what is quick, familiar and within perceived mandates. This is seen as particularly accurate by UN agencies.
23 In addition of the different departments that could be useful for cash transfer researches (economic and social sciences), there is also a research center that could be involved for specific researche : http://www.du.ac.bd/academics.php
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“NGOs can be more flexible and cross-‐cutting oriented than us. The number of modalities we can implement is limited and we have a strict mandate.”(WFP representative, interview)
Market analysis is part of the assessment package of food security cluster, but not really used by agencies for their response analysis. There is a view that market analyses are complex and require specific expertise and timeline. However, it was clearly highlighted by Oxfam that using a simple market map can be done in few days and could really help the implementation without complex investigation24.
• Even in very remote place, there is an extensive network of small and medium traders that provide essential resources to the population. They are generally trusted by the people due to the proximity, but also as they provide extra services to people (credit, key information, gathering centres, …)
• Markets and supply chains are strong and generally did not stop working even during the last disasters analysed by JNA reports. This is quite well identified during assessment, but mostly only used as an assumption to affirm that a cash injection will not disturb the market system. It was highlighted by ngo consortium leads that during the debate around project design, the question regarding market is mostly envisaged as a risk analysis, not a way to design the intervention.
• After a disaster, small scale traders can be severely affected by the lack of demand from their customers, the loss of assets, but also their fragile position as they mostly rely on middle men in monopolistic position for their supply. During the Mahasen response there was a monopoly in seeds market that can compromise the planned activity of cash for seeds. Finally it was decided to go with direct seed distribution due to the risk of inflation.
Technological barriers include: the need for more and better financial instruments, reliance on local technology and hardware for e-‐transfers, which does not always exist or exist equally; and data management protection. This includes guidelines, organizational policies and capabilities, and laws within countries. In Bangladesh, Oxfam is currently using a digital tool and software for emergency data collection and other agencies for development projects. As mentioned by remittance companies representing, the governmental regulation that currently rule their activity is not updated for privacy data protection.
There are some relevant lessons learned captured during the 7th phase of Dipecho25 about how to mainstream resilience and DRR through disaster management schemes. For several years, the governmental disaster preparedness program26 was implemented in the country. That
24 Based on quick market analysis realized by the food security cluster. As an example, here the link to a rapid market assessment done after the recent floods in North West: http://foodsecuritycluster.net/document/rapid-‐market-‐assessment-‐flood-‐affected-‐areas-‐north-‐western-‐bangladesh-‐0 25 DIPECHO is a regional program from European commission that aim to institutionalize the disaster management principles. More information about this program are available on the website of NARRI as this consortium was implementing partner with the European Commission: http://www.narri-‐bd.org/index.php/projects/dipECHO 26 At the government level, the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief was set up in November 2012 following enactment of the Disaster Management Act 2012. Website of the DDM: http://www.ddm.gov.bd/. In order to facilitate the implementation of the disaster management act a large program was
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means, in most of place the humanitarian agencies are working, there are some existing CRA (Community Risk Analysis) and RRAP (Risk Reduction Action Plan), available at union and sometimes at ward level. For example, as highlighted by a member of Dipecho 8:
“The Dipecho program is an excellent opportunity for us to develop an in-‐depth knowledge and acceptance in areas we are working. This program involves a close collaboration with governmental services at local level and encourages synergies. However, our management schemes are very different when it comes to implementing emergency based intervention and most of this knowledge is not really used.” (NGO representative, interview)
As a conclusion, it is possible to say that the key barriers to the growth and quality improvement of CTP in Bangladesh are primarily systemic and organizational issues within humanitarian agencies. With the development of multipurpose approaches, considering response analysis as a key step of project cycle management will become more and more crucial. Mainstreaming cross cutting issues like gender, market integration and resilience cannot be considered as optional and the donors in Bangladesh (considered as the main pushing factor) are willing to ensure that interventions will improve qualitatively.
It is recognized by all agencies interviewed that there is no lack of guidance and policy paper in Bangladesh to improve response and risk analysis. A certain number of agencies (Care, Oxfam, save the children), are present in country since decades and develop extensive guiding papers usable by others. The main challenge identified is to shift from policy to practice by strengthening the response analysis process, and the accountability to beneficiaries and communities.
The next section will detail some practical recommendations identified as priority by CWG members.
implemented by UNDP and the government, the “Comprehensive Disaster Management Program (CDMP)”: http://www.cdmp.org.bd/
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3. Recommendations
This section will focus on a set of recommendations to be taken by individual agencies and also collectively as a community of practice. As there is a strong demand for agencies to have technical and practical tools and guidance to strengthen their practices in term of CTP, the methodologies are deeply detailed.
3. 1 RECOMMENDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL AGENCIES
Improving the response analysis process
• Examples of CTP that can be done in non-‐food security sector where in kind is generally used (WASH, shelter, protection) and consider voucher or trader support
• Using HEA approach for gap analysis
Mainstreaming cross cutting issues
• Defining following measures to implement CTP (for cash for work, vouchers, and cash for livelihood).
• Minimum requirement for gender and protection analysis and monitoring
• Minimum requirement for market analysis
Measuring the outcomes of the interventions
• Evaluation of cash on community and household resilience
IMPROVING THE RESPONSE ANALYSIS PROCESS
This will involve enlarging the reflexion around CTP out of food security topics to see how CTP could be relevant in other sectors, to explore more in depth how it could be possible to work with traders and to consider them as levers and potentially beneficiaries of humanitarian intervention. In parallel, this will involve to see how to go beyond a basic gap analysis for package design by analysing qualitatively household economy aspects.
As mentioned, food security is still the main sector where CTP are used. During a crisis it is recognised in Bangladesh that the first needs are generally in WASH27 and health sectors, where cash based interventions are mostly not envisaged. It is however recognised that markets are every time working in these sectors, and maintaining stocks and warehouse as a contingency plan is generally costly and difficult as by nature, the place hit by natural disaster are unpredictable. A few examples where some cash based intervention could be suitable and relevant to speed up the process and strengthen the markets are: vouchers for water purifiers,
27 Cf. « Country Briefing and previous JNA reports » available on the food security cluster website (link in previous notes)
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contracting micro-‐insurance companies, support the DMC system, using conditional cash grants or vouchers to target specific female needs.
Scaling up vouchers and working with traders
As mentioned in the diagnosis, vouchers and fairs could be suitable options for humanitarian28interventions, but largely not explored in Bangladesh.
The opportunity to develop vouchers intervention should be analysed through the response analysis process, and particularly through market analysis. The main added value of this modality could be to:
• Involve small traders and market players, especially when they are affected by the disasters. In this case, they could be considered as beneficiaries of the program.
• Ensure a higher conditionality of the intervention than cash distribution with a bigger choice offered to beneficiaries than in-‐kind distribution.
However, switching to this modality involve also a proper response analysis based on the assessment of key criteria like cost efficiency, market impact, flexibility, security, corruption, etc.
Using Household Economy Analysis approach for gap analysis 29
During and after an emergency, a regular question is to design the cash package based on a gap analysis. This is a big expectation from all agencies and donor to design a package based on household economy to determine the amount needed by the people in each sector. The standardised approach to do this is to conduct a Household Economy Approach.
At individual agency level, it is recommended to:
• Develop an in-‐house know how in Bangladesh to realise rapid HEA survey, especially in areas agencies are implemented since a long time. Mixed with a rapid market analysis, this should allow a stronger response analysis process from the agencies.
• Establish a multi-‐sector task force (could be piloted by the CWG) to define in the main disaster prone areas of the country the thresholds on the main sectors at household level (food, agriculture, business development, education) according to local perception. This exercise was done from the Shelter Cluster and, for example, determined that €1000 is enough for a transitional shelter, and could be segregated with part in cash and part in-‐kind. The same kind of information should be very useful to know the average cost of starting a small business, sending one child to school, re-‐cultivating a field etc.
28 As part of the main guidelines available ( ECHO, CaLP, DFID), vouchers and fairs should be considered as a good options for affected people when market are functioning, when there is an interest to consider some traders as beneficiaries, and when the assistance want to be targeted on specific products and services. 29 Full resources and documentation about the rational and how to implement an HEA study are available on the Food Economy Group website: http://www.feg-‐consulting.com/. This approach is part of the “tool box” of ECHO, and developed by “Save the Children”.
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Globally and also in Bangladesh, Save the Children developed this approach and is considered as the main expert on this side. Coordination with them should be useful to see how they can lead the development of this tool in Bangladesh. It has also to be mentioned that a group was formed and trained by the Food Economy Group (FEG) via the FSC to continue the implementation of HEA studies.
MAINSTREAMING CROSS CUTTING ISSUES
Defining following measures to implement CTP (for cash for work, vouchers, cash for livelihood). With examples and recommendations
During the phases where agencies are discussing the intervention package, the main attention is focused on the amount design and on the value for money of the potentials intervention. However, this value for money analysis is mostly focused on the cost of money delivery, and aim to have the best ratio as possible between cash delivered to beneficiaries and total cost of the intervention.
This can be relevant in the prospective of a pure unconditional cash grant, but as most of the programs are implemented few months after a disaster, a more specific approach is generally needed. However, during the assessment lead by the clusters, there is a lack of space to challenge the approaches and processes, and to define what should be the best methodology to implement activities. As a result, donor attention became much more on the possibility to reach as many people as possible with the available amount that maximising the impact by targeted approach.
It is also recommended to open a discussion space inside each agency, but also on a coordinated way to define what should be the good or minimum bill of quantity for a proper implementation of each activity. An exercise like this was done by the CWG on cash for work to propose some actions to be taken. This is a good start and should be continued, as it will be a way, by agencies but also collectively, to advocate the donors in order to accept qualitative packages. These discussions could focus on:
• Ratio between manpower and materials in cash for work and livelihood activities
• Number of staff needed (per ratio) for the training and orientation of the beneficiaries to ensure a proper appropriation.
• Cost of training and learning event for the staff
• Technical expertise needed
• Environmental studies needed
• Cost of services needed for a good female involvement in activities they are generally excluded
• Hygiene and security during the work: breast feeding corner/ latrines/ water/ health insurance/ security equipment
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• Time and resources needed for a proper involvement of the local authorities.
Minimum requirement for gender and protection analysis and monitoring
Gender and protection are part of core humanitarian principles and highlighted as part of the mandate of all the agencies. There is also in Dhaka a Gender Working Group30, mostly focus on advocacy and human right, but humanitarian actors are mostly absent to this forum. There is still a big lack of analysis of gender and protection considerations for the implementation of CTP. When the analysis is done, it is generally not followed up, and the conclusions are not used to design the activities or to mitigate some risks. Some measures are taken (selection of only females for cash for work activities, livelihood support focus on females, training session focused on breast feeding or nutrition) but generally without a strong rationale.
This problem will become more and more an issue of protection with the generalization of multipurpose cash transfer31 as targeting becomes key for the success of these projects and the respect of “do no harm” principles. Moreover, gender and protection analysis are absent from the JNA tools, and no guidance is provided by the humanitarian coordination bodies.
One tool that could be used because of its simplicity of use and relevance is the 24 hour clock32 mixed with a basic force power analysis based on control and access. (E.g. from Solidarites International in annex 7). This kind of analysis becomes critical when the interventions areas are conservative.
According to the new CaLP protection website33, the key questions that agencies should be answer regarding cash and protections are:
• How do programs are using cash or voucher transfers articulate protection and gender objectives, and to what extent cash and voucher transfers were able to achieve them?
• What are the potential protection or gender impacts unique to cash and voucher transfers (as opposed to in-‐kind assistance) for persons with specific needs (PSN)?
• What are the potential protection or gender impacts of cash and vouchers when combined with other programming, such as financial literacy, livelihoods, and community services
30 The gender working group in Bangladesh is headed by Hellen Keller International. A presentation of the group is available by following the link: http://fsnnetwork.org/sites/default/files/communities_of_practice_how_linking_development_practitioners_is_transforming_food_security_programming_ridolfi.pdf 31 In March 2015, ECHO published “10 common principles for multi-‐purpose cash based assistance to respond to humanitarian needs”. This policy paper complete the existing guidelines and remind the good principles for cash based assistance: http://ec.europa.eu/ECHO/files/policies/sectoral/concept_paper_common_top_line_principles_en.pdf
32 The 24 hours clock for gender analysis purpose was initially developed by IASC (Interagency Standing Committee). The full guidance is available by following the link: https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/product-‐categories/gender 33 This is a new section created by the CaLP related to issues related between cash intervention and protection: http://www.cashlearning.org/cash-‐and-‐protection/protection
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MEASURING THE OUTCOMES OF THE INTERVENTIONS
During emergencies interventions, agencies are generally deploying some monitoring measures to follow and evaluate the outputs of their actions, with a specific focus on how the money is used by the beneficiaries. At the same time, it is identified that there is a lack of knowledge and evidence based analysis when it comes to evaluating the outcomes of these actions.
Minimum requirement for market analysis34
There are various tools and methods to assess markets. Different tool exists but one of the most useful and popular is market mapping. Designing and exploring a market map is the basis of the “EMMA methodology”35 but could be adapted a lot according to the objectives and resources.
The main steps that can be considered as the minimum requirement in term of market analysis are:
• Selection of critical markets and their analysis before and after a rapid onset crisis. This allows the definition of assumptions and objectives.
• Gap Analysis: to understand the needs, livelihood strategies, emergency situation and preferences of the target population. It identifies the ‘gap’ faced by the targeted population. This can be done through a rapid household economy analysis (HEA) to identify the gaps and the coping strategies that could be strengthened.
• Baseline Mapping: to develop a profile of the 'normal' pre-‐crisis market-‐system. Seasonal analysis is included. After a first map designed through secondary literature review, a set of questions can be designed (cf. annex 6) to understand the links between the market actors, what are the most force power relations in place, and which influence factors impact the markets.
• Emergency Mapping: to understand the crisis situation, the impacts on the market system, its constraints and capabilities in playing a role in a humanitarian response. Through additional questions, this aim to understand which links between actors are impacted by the crisis (affected or destroyed), and to identify if the main problem comes from the demand or the supply side.
• Response Analysis: to explore different opportunities for humanitarian assistance: their respective feasibility, likely outcomes, benefits and risks. This is the occasion to re-‐question the initial assumption, to list some options and to select the best ones through a risk analysis. This is a pure analytical phase and should not be neglected. As a bridge from analysis to action, this phase is crucial to build up a proposal for intervention.
34 As part of the CaLP library, several guidance and document are existing to propose the minimum requirement for market analysis : http://www.cashlearning.org/2012-‐2014/minimum-‐requirements-‐for-‐market-‐analysis-‐in-‐emergencies 35 The EMMA ( Emergency Market Mapping Analysis) is available for download by following the link: http://emma-‐toolkit.org/
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Evaluation of cash on community and household resilience
In Bangladesh as globally, the measure of the impact of cash on resilience36 is largely unknown as the monitoring are not holistic and measure the outputs rather than the outcomes. Measuring the resilience involves determine the characteristics of each livelihood assets according to standards locally accepted. This help later on to design a more relevant program by focusing on the strength of households and communities or by targeting the needs more precisely. For CTP agencies are expected to identify the strength and weakness of each community assets and from this, the ability to use this analysis for the activity design, the risk management plan, and the identification of specific indicators.
For now, there are no standardised tools usable during or after an emergency to measure the level of resilience at household or community level, and additional action research will be needed. Once these indicators are standardised, it becomes easy to scale the communities and to have an overview about their strength and weaknesses. Choosing the priorities and identifying the risks become easy.
As an example, the table below presents37 the contextualised indicators elaborated for the livelihood topics. Similar adapted indicators could be developed for the other assets (financial, social, human, and natural). An example of standardised indicators is presented in annex 4.
Eg. of ranking tool to measure livelihood resilience. Community highly resilient Community moderately resilient Community low resilient
HH livelihoods are diversified, are able to meet the income needs of the HH during non-‐disaster periods as well as return to normal levels within X weeks of a disaster occurring.
HH livelihoods are mostly dependent on mono-‐agricultural income-‐generating activities and are able to meeting the income needs of the HH during non-‐disaster periods as well as return to normal levels.
HH livelihoods are highly vulnerable to disasters and are heavily based around agriculture.
Resilience-‐enhancing practices can be described by individuals and the majority of HH’s are implementing one or more strategy in their livelihoods.
X number of resilience-‐enhancing practices can be described by individuals and approx. 50% of HH’s are implementing one or more strategy in their livelihoods.
No/very few resilience-‐enhancing practices can be described by individuals and no/very few HH's have been purposefully introduced.
Post-‐disaster agriculturally-‐based livelihood practices are able to return to pre-‐disaster period crop yields within X weeks/months of an event.
Post-‐disaster agriculturally-‐based livelihood practices are able to return to pre-‐disaster period crop yields within X weeks/months of an event.
Post-‐disaster agriculturally-‐based livelihood practices are able to return to pre-‐disaster period crop yields within X months of an event, if at all.
HH’s are able to avoid resorting to negative coping strategies to supplement their HH income needs in
HH’s are forced to resort to negative coping strategies to supplement their HH income needs in post-‐disaster settings for only X
HH’s are forced to resort to negative coping strategies to supplement their HH income needs in post-‐disaster settings
36 According to the ”UNISDR Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction (2009)”, resilience is defined as t“The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner including the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.” 37 Solidarites International, 2014, “DRR community KAP survey”.
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post-‐disaster settings. weeks. for X weeks/months.
During disaster periods, livestock are able to be moved to a safe area.
During disaster periods, livestock preparedness measures are taken but there are no/few possibilities to move them to safe areas
During disaster periods, livestock are often killed/in high risk.
Total (out of 15) 0 Total (out of 10) 0 Total (out of 5) 0
3.2. MEASURES THAT COULD BE TAKEN COLLECTIVELY BY THE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
The first demand of agencies is to strengthen and formalise more the package definition process. It is agreed that gap analysis is led by the clusters after an emergency, but there is a gap to be filled in term of coordinated response analysis. As summed up by a lead of the Food Security Cluster:
“Through the coordinated assessment we can define how much has to be injected, working group and agencies have after this to define how this money should be used”. (Food security cluster representative, interview)
It is proposed below to detail few actions that should encourage agencies to improve their practices, and to evolve some mentalities around cash transfer programing. However, it is not proposed to go in depth regarding the questions of positioning and inclusion of the CWG inside the humanitarian architecture in Bangladesh.
PACKAGE DEFINITION
During the last emergencies, the CWG took an active part in the coordination and homogenization of the interventions. Based on the recommendation of the Food Security Cluster, a harmonised package was proposed through the CWG. Moreover, the plan of each agency for the response was followed up closely in “real time” and avoided overlap among the agencies.
However, this coordination was more reactive than proactive, and mostly focused on package and geography. It is recommended to open more space for debate and decision making on the response analysis, once the key information of the “phase 3 assessments” are identified by the Food Security Cluster. The debate should focus to produce key analytical recommendation for project design based on the following tools used during the JNA “phase 3”:
• Market map: It will be very useful to organise a small working session around a market map to discuss and identify collectively the significant drivers for activities based on market actors. In addition, a collective identification of the main risks and point of attention should have strengthened the strategy developed by the agencies.
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• Household Economy: The production of different threshold agreed collectively in the most prone disasters areas (food security, health, education, livelihood) should ease also a lot the debate on package elaboration.
On these topics, the CWG cannot do more than offering a space for discussion based on the analytical tools produced. However, it is recommended to have an active leadership in the facilitation of the debates in order to ease common analysis and decision from agencies regarding package definition.
COORDINATION
As debated with CWG members about response analysis, there is a need to explore more options in term of market based approach, impact, private sector engagement. The CWG should play a role on this by organizing field exchange visit in places where some of the members implemented innovative approaches and are ready to share their lessons learned with others.
There is also an identified demand to promote the lessons learned and developed by several agencies, and to encourage a more horizontal coordination and learning process. As an example, it was identified that Oxfam has a good experience in digitalized monitoring systems and working with micro insurance companies, SI in gender analysis, WFP and SI in voucher approach. On each of these topics, this could be useful if one agency want to take the lead and organize a learning event. The CWG should just help with the network and coordination.
There is currently a lack of representation of economic actors inside the CWG except the remittance companies. The participation of the traders and private sector representative should be encouraged as they can help the humanitarian agencies present in CWG to develop new approaches “out of the box”.
CAPACITY BUILDING & RESEARCH
There is a big demand from the CWG members to receive training and guidance about market mapping analysis. This demand appears in all questionnaires returned by agencies. A process is on track to implement a Pre crisis market mapping analysis training. Several agencies, especially the less experienced ones in emergency response, are also in demand of capacity building in general training about cash training activities. These demands are mostly formulated to strengthen the local team based in the field and the national NGOs partners to these agencies.
“The humanitarian system is very centralized and top down oriented in Bangladesh. When there is an initiative of delivering a training (especially if this involve an external consultant), the
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training generally delivered in Dhaka for the coordinators and focal pointers of the agencies and doesn’t reach the people in the field, more in need of training.”(NGO representative, interview).
There are two options to tackle this issue. It should be by organizing training of trainers to a selected group with mission for them to replicate it, or to authorize only project managers or supervisors to participate to these trainings.
In terms of research, there are many possible topics as there are few strong studies done with CTPs in the country. Among them this study has identified three as relevant themes: developing easy to use synthesis of existing analytics tools, evaluating the impact of CTP, and exploring the opportunity to collaborate with a wider group of stakeholders in expanding CTPs, namely Government to link with social safety net and private sectors to find out how to bring out more effectiveness and efficiency with CTPs.
Developing synthesis of existing analytics tools
For NGOs and UN agencies, there is an important demand of popularization for thematic areas, like market analysis, gender and protection analysis and working with remittance companies. This was mentioned several times during the survey:
“We don’t have time or in-‐house expertise to implement a big methodology like EMMA38. We would like to have a synthesis through an easy step by steps method to develop our know how on these topics.” (Debate among agencies, workshop).
Evaluating the impact of cash transfer program in community level
At the same time, there is demand identified mostly to develop additional knowledge to evaluate the impact of CTP. As mentioned by a development actor:
“In Bangladesh, there is a big research gap on social perception of CTP. The beneficiaries and non-‐beneficiaries point of view are not taken in account in depth enough , and there is a lack of qualitative data to know if some of the top down assumptions from agencies are good or not”. (Representative of development organization, interview).
At global level39, there is ongoing research that highlights the importance of anthropological based point of view. It could be possible to develop a joint research protocol with Dhaka University (sociology department). This study should be really anthropological based, with a positive criticism about the indicators used by agencies. The research should focus on
38 Emergency mapping market analysis.
39Jean Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Oumarou Hamani, Nana Issaley, Younoussi Issa, Hannatou Adamou and Issaka Oumarou.2015, Cash transfers in Niger: the manna, the norms and the suspicions ;
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interaction of CTP with traditional social mechanisms and should answer the following core questions:
• What is the perception of CTP by households?
• How the targeting process and the communication around the CTP are seen by the beneficiaries/ non beneficiaries?
• What is the influence of repetitive cash injection on traditional solidarity mechanisms and social relation?
In parallel, it is identified, particularly by the food security cluster that:
“There is a lack of knowledge in Bangladesh about the impact of cash intervention on resilience. There is currently several research planned about how to measure resilience, and CWG should take this opportunity to propose an action research focus on the role of cash on resilience factors” (DFID representative, interview).
This is also highlighted by ECHO and DFID who are interested to have a better knowledge on the impact of cash assistance on resilience and nutrition. One of the outputs of this study should be to propose a tool to rank the level of resilience of each community based on a livelihood assets analysis. The livelihood assets considered are the human, social, natural, financial and physical assets of community and households.
The core questions that this study should answer are:
• What are the key components of each livelihood assets at community level?
• Locally, and for the components identified, what are the characteristics of a high resilient/ moderately resilient and low resilient community?
• Which indicators for each asset make the difference between a resilient community/ household and a non-‐resilient one?
• How disasters affect the different livelihood assets for each wealth group identified?
• How the cash distributed strengthen or disturb the main livelihood assets, and particularly the social and human components?
• Which indicators could be used to measure the outcomes of humanitarian cash based intervention on resilience?
Linking with a wider group of stakeholders in expanding CTPs
One area to investigate is how to link emergency cash transfer with the existing social safety net of the Government. The Bangladesh Government provides cash based assistance to the ultra-‐poor of which man reside in disaster-‐prone areas.
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Collaboration with microfinance sector
In most places in Bangladesh where natural disasters are recurrent, people’s resilience capacities are mostly based on individual and community assets. Most of the people targeted by humanitarian program are excluded from financial systems, and sometimes, even from microfinance sector. However, as any risks, natural disasters could be covered by insurance schemes. This should limit a lot the vulnerability of people to natural disasters, and encourage investment.
An experience was conducted by Oxfam in this topic40 to develop an insurance product, and involve this part of the private sector to develop an offer. This is still in a piloting stage, but insurance companies demonstrated their interest in this kind of product, and would like to explore more opportunities.
For humanitarian sector, this should be a good opportunity to:
• Prevent the negative impact of natural disasters on people’s livelihood by minimizing the negative financial impact and by this way improving the resilience capacity.
• Encourage financial inclusion of the less resilient people, and encourage the investment of insurance companies in financial services in prone disaster areas.
• Put this kind of option as part of the contingency plan of humanitarian agencies. As beneficiaries are pre-‐targeted, this could also ease the release of an additional amount very quickly in case of disaster.
At the same time, it is mentioned by the participant that there is almost no collaboration between micro finance sector and humanitarian one. As it is regularly highlighted by the post distribution monitoring that one of the first use of the money given to beneficiaries is to pay back their debt, there is likely some synergies to explore. In addition, the micro finance institutions have an extensive network in the field, with a strong presence in remote and prone disasters areas. However, some conflict of interest could exist between humanitarian and micro finance agencies and moving in this way should be done with caution. Firstly it is recommended to set up a research activity to explore what could be the risk and opportunities of collaboration between humanitarian and micro-‐finance sector.
40 Clémence Tatin-‐Jaleran, MicroInsurance Centre, 2014, Evaluation Pilot Project – Oxfam UK, Bangladesh, Developing Alternative Risk Transfer Mechanism of Disaster & Climate Vulnerable Communities
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Conclusions and Next Step
This study was conducted to provide the landscape of CTPs in Bangladesh and to explore areas to improve for the CWG and its members.
As highlighted, CTPs in Bangladesh are now considered as the main response tool for humanitarian interventions. Many organizations are investing in developing guidelines for designing and implementing CTPs. A lot of lessons learnt are documented and available in Bangladesh especially regarding the implementation’s methodology of CTP, and the existing forum are effective for organisations to share their issues and discuss intervention modalities.
However, the main challenge identified is the lack of effort, resource, and time paid on response analysis of different modalities. Also it is recognised that market and gender consideration are not systematically analysed at a ground level and not integrated well enough from the designing and monitoring. The current practices are more focused on the CTP process per se and outputs of the intervention than on outcomes and impacts. The risk analysis and the inclusion of cross cuttings aspects are not often found in discussion.
Through this study, the importance of existing forum for coordination and capacity building such as the CWG, FSC or NGO consortia was confirmed. The high level of involvement of the humanitarian donors is also an important pushing factor for agencies to coordinate.
The lack of coordination with governmental bodies and programs was highlighted as a weakness. Agencies intend to work closely with the government to complete their intervention in term of post disaster intervention and social protection. However, even basic information sharing has been often found difficult.
Way forward
The first area of recommendation is to improve the response and risk analysis with CTPs through systematic integration of market and other crosscutting aspects as gender. Agencies can develop or adapt available checklists to ensure that the crosscutting aspects are taken in consideration and followed up.41 In addition, there are a number of areas where research could be useful to assess risk and opportunities of scaling up CTPs with market actors and also to better measure the impact of different CTP modalities and deliveries.
Even if it is recognised that the agencies are firstly responsible of the quality of their intervention, it is also agreed that in addition of pushing factors like donors or HQ injunctions, interaction between agencies and capacity building actions are essential to improve the response design and monitoring.
41 Annex 4 and 5
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In order to move forward after this study, the CWG is proposed to undertake advocacy, capacity building and research on best practices to next level by promoting market analysis, gender integration, response and risk analysis and integrating market actors in response planning.
The community of cash transfer in Bangladesh is at cross road. More agencies and sectors are putting cash in their emergency response toolbox. This tendency can go down if agencies do not internalize the CTP process in every aspect of planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating. The existing coordination structures should serve to add value in this regard by mainstreaming cross cutting issues and finding mechanisms to measure and evaluate impacts of CTPs at outcome level. These points of improvement are not specific to cash alone, but as the scale of cash based intervention in Bangladesh is seen to grow rapidly, the Bangladesh humanitarian community should put efforts to understand successes, struggles and opportunities with cash transfer mehcanisms.
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Table of Annexes
Annex 1 CWG Bangladesh Terms of Reference Landscape study consultancy
Annex 2 stock taking questionnaires 1
Annex 3 stock taking results
Annex 4 Community Resilience measuring tool 2
Annex 5 Community Assets Packet
Annex 6 Cross Cutting Themes Control List
Annex 7 Ex SI Gender calendar and analysis
Annex 8 Eg. Of rapid HEA tool
The annexes are located at http://www.cashlearning.org/bangladesh-‐cwg/bangladesh-‐cash-‐working-‐group