Information and stories about aid effectiveness and reform

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Voucher Programs: Way to Transfer Humanitarian Dollars

Voucher Programs: A Better Way to Transfer Humanitarian Dollars?
When it comes to helping the world’s poor, sometimes questions come up that the average person might never have considered.

Once there is an organization or a group that is willing to provide help, how will they do it? What does “providing resources” mean? How are “resources” defined?

There’re a few different ways for aid to be brought in the direct transfer of goods, such as food, clothing and other necessities, from humanitarian groups to the people in need.

However, there are also the methods of providing the impoverished with cash so that they can purchase the goods they deem necessary for themselves.

As Owen Barder, chair of the High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers puts out, “A good starting point for our work is the acknowledgment that people are a good judge of what they need, and we should always think twice before putting our judgment ahead of theirs.”

Providing cash-based aid also has the potential to stimulate local economies, as recipients spend the money at small businesses and help their communities to thrive.

According to a study in the Journal of Development Effectiveness published last year, direct provision of cash is the cheapest way to bring aid, with costs coming to $2.99 per transfer. To put this in perspective, providing food directly came out to $11.46 per transfer because of all of the costs to store, package and distribute the food.

To some, it might seem unnecessarily expensive to provide food and other materials directly to those in need. To others, the idea of giving destitute, uneducated people a set sum of cash to spend whatever way they would like doesn’t make much sense, either.voucher_programs

Even assuming every recipient is perfectly ethical, is it safe to assume all of those in need have enough knowledge of nutrition and savvy spending?

Voucher programs, theoretically, are sort of a happy medium between the benefits of cash transfer and direct resource provision. Only slightly more expensive than direct cash at $3.27 per transfer, in the study, vouchers are like certificates redeemable for specific items, usually food.

Vouchers have the benefit of stimulating local economies without the corruption and security risk present with cash transfers. Voucher programs allow those in need to receive the most nutritious food available without the expense associated with food aid.

Vouchers are not the ultimate, game-ending form of humanitarian aid. Different situations will call for different ways to provide aid. (For example, when providing immunizations, it makes far more sense to simply provide the immunizations themselves en masse, rather than money for each individual to get immunized.)

However, it seems that this form of help is relatively underrated when compared to food and cash aid.

They can be used locally, they are relatively cheap to provide and when they are used at events such as voucher fairs, they offer recipients freedom to spend the aid on what they choose, within a specific context of essential items. Fairs like these can even help to address issues like gender inequality.

Said one woman at a voucher fair held by UNICEF in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “Before we came here, my husband and I discussed what we need. In the past, he did what he wanted with our money, but here it’s me who takes the final decision.”

Paul Harvey and Sarah Bailey said it well in a brief for The Overseas Development Institute (ODI). “Humanitarian organizations provide assistance based on agreed principles and standards. At its heart is the principle of humanity – the universal impulse to seek assistance and to provide it to those in need.”

– Emily Dieckman

Sources: CGDEV, Europa , ODI, Research Gate, TUFTS, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr1, Flickr2

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Kabul City: On the Road to Improvement

Kabul City: On the Road to Improvement
When we think of a “bad road,” often times we conjure an image of driving over narrow, uneven or pot-holed ridden paths, usually in the heart of a city or perhaps out in the middle of nowhere. But what if the main road we traversed in our walk to school every day or commute to work was in a state of even worse condition—unpaved and muddy, invisible beneath a cloud of dust?

For residents living in the Qala-e-Zaman Khan neighborhood in Kabul, traveling on roads which match this description was an everyday occurrence. A five minute walk to school became a 20 minute one, with students changing out of their mud-caked clothing several times a day, while also becoming more susceptible to illness as a result of breathing in the perpetual dust.

Left almost untouched for nearly half a century, the need for infrastructural improvements for roads in the neighborhood of Qala-e-Zaman Khan was dire. Fortunately, with the support of the Kabul Municipal Development Program (KMDP), implemented by the Kabul Municipality, a project to build and pave roads could finally begin.

This program was funded by a grant equaling $110 million from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF). Established in 2002, the ARTF provides a financial vehicle for the government of Afghanistan’s budget, allowing them to make a significant difference in areas such as education, health, agriculture, rural development, infrastructure and governance.

Aside from improving street conditions, an article from The World Bank states that the KMDP organization has more goals in store.

“KMDP’s objectives are to increase access to basic municipal services in selected residential areas of Kabul city; redesign Kabul Municipality’s Financial Management System to support better service delivery; and enable early response in the event of a relevant emergency.”

Since the creation of newly paved roads in this area of Kabul, the quality of living has improved for its people. Shopkeepers have seen their income double now that dust no longer settles on food. Children don’t dread the mud-splattered walks to school, taxi cabs have reduced their fares and those seeking hospitals save time on the newly constructed streets.

The KMDP plans to reach at least 770,000 people with their services throughout the 1,770 hectares of government-owned land. So far, at least 618 hectares have been improved.

The organization has also funded over 310,000 beneficiaries comprising over 100,000 from upgraded roads and more than 210,000 from trunk roads. At least 76,000 indirect beneficiaries have also benefited, including students and staff of schools and institutions of higher education.

With the construction of asphalt roads in neighborhoods that have only known dust and mud-covered paths, residents embrace the positive outcomes that continue to surface with each new step.

– Nikki Schaffer

Sources: World Bank, ARTF
Photo: Flickr

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Big Gains Seen in Socially Responsible Investments

New Report Reveals Dramatic Growth in Impact Investments
Socially Responsible Investments (SRI), those that pay attention to the environmental and social impacts of what they fund while still turning a profit, have ballooned. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, an association for professionals and organizations engaged in sustainable, responsible, and impact investing, recently released a report detailing the growth of SRI in the United States, showing huge increases in funding.

Coming in at over $6.5 trillion in 2014, the Socially Responsible Investments market in the United States has shown a 76 percent increase since 2012 and has grown nearly tenfold from 1995. “These assets account for more than one out of every six dollars under professional management in the United States,” the report states. The dollar amount is over 200 times larger than the annual flow of Official Development Assistance from the United States.

The growth in SRI is not limited to the United States. The Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, a worldwide collaboration of sustainable investment organizations takes a broader view, looking at the amount of money invested in SRI around the world by region.

In 2014, $21.4 trillion was tied up in SRI around the globe, an increase of $8.1 trillion from two years previously. Europe leads the pack, with 63.7 percent of the total, more than doubling the amount held by the United States. Canada contributes 4.4 of the share, an impressive number considering its relatively small population. In fact, per capita SRI in Canada is higher than the United States. These three regions contribute 99 percent of the total, with Asia and Australia/New Zealand taking .2 and .8 percent respectively.

Europe also has the highest proportion of SRI to total managed assets, with 58.8 percent of all investments channeled towards socially beneficial growth. The global average is just over 30 percent and has grown nearly 50 percent in the last two years.

To be sure, foreign investment by governments to aid developing nations must also be strong. “The global challenges are so complex and the size of the funding that’s needed is so large, traditional funding sources like philanthropy are probably not going to be sufficient to meet it,” said Anna Kearney, associate director for corporate social responsibility at the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), in July.

In addition, the issue of how much of SRI ends up aiding environmental and social development in the developing world is unclear.

However, the Global Impact Investing Network — a nonprofit working to scale up impact investing — sheds some light on the answer. The group surveyed 146 SRI firms around the globe and found that 48 percent of the $60 billion under management by these firms was invested in emerging markets. That may be a proxy for the ratio of the $21.4 trillion in SRI that is invested in developing economies.

The trajectory for SRI remains promising. As more consumers look to put their money toward helping the planet and the poor while earning a profit, a growth in investment options that offer this will follow.

– John Wachter

Sources: Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment 1, Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment 2, Global Impact Investing Network, Global Sustainable Investment Alliance, The Guardian, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Photo: Flickr

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St. George’s Crypt Makes Progress to Help those in Need

St. George’s Crypt Makes Progress to Help those in Need
Founded in the 1930s, St. George’s Crypt became a charitable group that has helped local people for generations. In its beginnings, the small church began charitable functions and fundraising from local people, run by Reverend Percy Donald, known as the Don.

Throughout its existence the function of the organization has shifted to satisfy the needs of the people and the events occurring around the neighborhood, such as assistance for those affected by war, illness, and the impact of a devastating economic downturn.

As the group’s website states, one of the objectives of the organization is to assist in “the relief of poverty, hardship, sickness and distress among needy and destitute persons,” and recently St. George’s Crypt has taken their efforts to help people even further.

In 2011, The Crypt set up purchase shops that would benefit more people in the area. More recently, the organization has done even more as it has invested more money into building homes for struggling families in the area.

A development project recently gave the group £1.5 million to spend on infrastructure, and the building of 20 new homes for those in need. These properties will act as “halfway houses” to help individuals as well as families get back on their feet, and create more sustainable lifestyles, and smarter economic practices.

The outreach of support for those in need knows no limits, helping those that are homeless, ill, suffering the vulnerabilities of recent catastrophes, and even those suffering from addiction. One of these housing developments will include a hostel in Hyde Park, which will house a larger number of people at a time for a shorter period of time.

When small organizations such as these expand over the years, even over 85 years such as the St. George’s Crypt, it gives hope that there is potential for anyone to make a difference in their communities. To learn more about St. George’s Crypt and the work they continue to do for those in need in their community, go to their website.

– Alexandrea Jacinto

Sources: St. George’s Crypt, BBC
Photo: Flickr

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Humanitarian Response Faces Increasing Pressure to Reform

Humanitarian_Response
The humanitarian system is facing increasing demand to reform its approach to crisis response. The demands are for the system to become more flexible and transparent in order to better meet needs, utilize resources more efficiently as well as improve local capacity. But, why now?

Our world is changing rapidly and there is an increasing demand to solve new problems in an ever-changing world of ongoing conflict. As a result, UN’s Secretary-General has initiated the World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul on May 23-24, 2016, where he seeks to challenge the ways humanitarian organizations work together to deliver aid and save lives.

In 2014, $23 billion was spent on crisis response. Yet, the international emergency aid system is still failing vulnerable regions such as Syria and Ukraine.

IRIN, an independent, nonprofit news organization, suggested various ways UN humanitarianism could change to Ertharin Cousin, head of the World Food Programme (WFP), and Kyung-wha Kang, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN’s humanitarian coordination body, OCHA.

Among the many ideas for reform is localizing the humanitarian response system. This not only involves having the local communities making crisis response decisions, but also changing the humanitarian funding methods. Currently, larger organizations such as OCHA and WFP receive the vast majority of the funding, while local organizations receive little funding.

Another important reform proposal, is making the top jobs available to everyone, not just permanent members of the Security Council. This is something the UN has been heavily criticized for.

Having only people on the inside of the organization and not bringing an outside perspective is definitely not conducive to change. It’s also not conducive to avoiding politicisation, one of the many causes of humanitarian problems.

Despite all of these ideas, the question still remains – is reform the answer to a more efficacious humanitarian response system or should we get rid of the system all together?

– Paula Acevedo

Sources: IRIN News, World Humanitarian Summit
Photo: Flickr

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Education and the Sustainable Development Goals

Education and the Sustainable Development GoalsLong idolized were the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets created and adopted by the United Nations in 2000. Central to their aim was the eradication of global poverty by improving maternal health and access to clean water, food and education while reducing the number of people living on under $1.25 a day across the developing world.

However, the days of the Millennium Development Goals are over. They expired this year after 15 years mixed with success and failure. A new set of global development goals is now on the horizon: the Sustainable Development Goals. Once again, there will be a specific goal tailored to improve equal education access for all. But before delving into how that goal is currently shaping up, it is worth examining how education fared with the Millennium Development Goals.

Goal two of The Millennium Development Goals aimed to achieve universal primary education. The goal only had one target: “ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.”

Unfortunately, this target was not met. On the bright side, the number of children globally that now attend primary school has risen dramatically since 1990. Enrollment in the developing world has risen to 91 percent, but the goal was for universal primary education, meaning all children everywhere. There is also still a fairly large gender gap in some areas. Of the 57 million kids out of school, 33 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa and 55 percent of those 33 million children are girls.

So where are the Sustainable Development Goals heading in terms of education development in the next 15 years? First off, education gets another specific goal for itself. The target this time is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all,” not all that different from the Millennium Development Goal before it.

The Sustainable Development Goals’ “vision is to transform lives through education, recognizing the important role of education as a main driver of development.” Looking to continue with the progress created by the Millennium Development Goals, goal four of the Sustainable Development Goals will look to expand access to all by providing 12 years of free, publicly-funded, high-quality equal education. Nine of these years will be compulsory.

Particular emphasis is put on the quality of education going forward. By increasing quality of education, the 100-year education gap between the developed and developing has the potential to be reduced. Another benefit of an improvement in the quality of education is that it will improve learning outcomes. How can this be done? By “strengthening inputs, processes and evaluation of outcomes and mechanisms to measure progress.”

Another facet to quality education is ensuring that the teachers are well trained, empowered, motivated and supported. This ensures a higher level of quality when it comes to education.

Often seen as a gateway out of poverty, education is an extremely important issue when it comes to development in the developing world. It will be interesting to track the evolution of the Sustainable Development Goals’ development toward a fully-fledged goal. Hopefully, it can continue the inroads created by the Millennium Development Goals and improve education for the millions of children without it.

– Gregory Baker

Sources: UNDP, UNESCO UN Millennium Goals, UN Sustainable Development,
Photo: Flickr

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United Nations Relief for Underfunded Emergencies

United_nations_reliefCurrently, 60 million people have been forcibly displaced globally. Ongoing conflict around the world has led to large populations to flee and start over with nothing, creating a situation where humanitarian relief agencies can’t keep up with the amount of services and funding they need.

Fortunately, in early August, UN under-secretary-general of humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien, announced that $70 million had been allocated for the worst kinds of under-funded emergencies. The money comes from grants from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and is viewed as a last resort for aid operations.

The United Nations relief will provide much-needed resources to those who have fled their homes, in Bangladesh, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Somalia and Sudan.

Each country faces varying challenges, most of which have to do with conflict. Sudan and Chad, for example, will receive $20 million for basic services and protection from Sudan’s Darfur region which has endured 13 years of conflict.

Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia will receive $33 million, to deal with the recurring conflicts and climate shocks in its region. Somalia has more than 730,000 people continuously needing emergency food and nutrition assistance, also a result of the Yemen conflict with the number of people fleeing their homes.

Myanmar and Bangladesh, will receive $8 million. Both of these countries have some of the world’s most neglected communities and displaced people that need access to emergency shelter and healthcare.

Afghanistan will receive $8 million for humanitarian operations, where relief agencies have decreased services due to underfunding, although they really need to increase their services as a result of ongoing conflict.

CERF was created in 2006, has 125 member states, totaling $4.1 billion to support 95 countries and territories since 2006. It receives most of its funding from governments, as well as foundations, companies, charities and individuals by placing it into a single fund and then distributing the funds in emergency situations.

Considering the alarming amount of people that have been forcibly displaced and desperately need basic services, we should all be doing more to not only meet the basic human demands they so desperately need, but also help stabilize these areas.

– Paula Acevedo

Sources: UN News Centre, Xinhua
Photo: Flickr

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Changes to US Food for Peace to Increase Sustainability

Changes to Food for Peace to Increase Sustainability
Sixty years after being put into effect, the Food for Peace program faces congressional reform that will lower costs and provide sustainable support for those living in conflict-ridden countries. Currently, law requires that food aid be grown in and shipped from the U.S. – a mandate that increases costs 25-50 percent more than they would be on the current market. Advocates for reform criticize the program for its inefficiency and helping American shipping and farming businesses profit from such programs.

Shipping firms, farms and some NGOs form an “iron triangle of special interests” that have benefited from international aid and attracted criticism from politicians in both parties. Between 2004 and 2013, 88 percent of USAID funding was used to harvest and ship food- a huge cost that decreased the amount of food the organization was able to provide by 64 percent.

A system designed this way is not only inefficient in properly allocating resources, but also counterproductive in affecting any kind of change in the countries that need it most. Daniel Maxwell, professor and research director at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, commented, “We need to support local agricultural producers and markets, or at a minimum, not undermine them.” Reformers advocate for changing the system to implement locally grown and shipped food resources rather than those from the U.S.

Senators Corker and Coons, who are cosponsoring the reform of the bill, have estimated that such changes could expand the program’s reach by 12 million people and free up $440 million through local, sustainable production. Providing support for local growers and shippers will strengthen local economies rather than keeping them reliant on international resources, empower and employ more people, and create a more sustainable rebuilding of communities.

Eric Munoz at Oxfam America says that a program created 60 years ago is not useful or appropriate for current times. Indeed, when 60 million people per year are in need of food aid, expansion of resources and lowering costs is more greatly needed than ever. Many farmers believe they have a right to profit from food aid programs and would suffer from reforms, but experts estimate such programs amount to only 1 percent of agribusiness profits.

For policy changes that would so greatly impact those in need, lessening the profits of huge farming businesses in the U.S. seems trivial. Worrying about this profit loss is “an inappropriate way of viewing the rationale of providing emergency assistance and foreign assistance, particularly assistance that is meant to address food insecurity in complex crises like Syria or South Sudan,” says Munoz.

Corker and Coon’s reform bill will see congressional debate in September.

– Jenny Wheeler

Sources: IRIN 1, IRIN 2
Photo: Flickr

 

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One Millennium Challenge Account Makes Big Vows


Recently, the Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines vowed to complete anti-poverty projects funded by the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation. The MCA-P marked May 2016 as the new deadline for project completion.

The announcement of this new goal came just one month after an important meeting in Washington D.C. In May, the social welfare and development secretary for the Philippines and CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation met at the MCC headquarters to publicly reaffirm their “strong partnership.”

During the meeting, Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman praised the partnership for strengthening the country’s democratization process. She acclaimed the MCC’s support of the Philippine Government’s community-driven development approach. This approach has encouraged ordinary citizens to become more civically engaged.

Soliman went on to praise MCC’s support of the Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services program in the Philippines. She explained that it is one of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s three core social protection programs working to alleviate poverty.

The $434 million First Philippine Compact was originally implemented on May 25, 2011. Its mission is to allow poor communities to develop small-scale projects and manage assets sustainably, reduce transportation costs and increase the efficiency of revenue collection through the computerization of business processes.

In response to a Commission on Audit report that reproached the DSWD for its slow utilization of the $434 million grant, Marivic Anonuevo, MCA-P Managing Director and CEO, assured anti-poverty project completion by the scheduled end of the Compact: May 2016. She attempted to calm the nerves of American skeptics.

Anonuevo stressed that the MCA-P has returned a total of P600 million in unused government funds that were previously allocated for anti-poverty projects. She said that MCA-P management is optimistic that the funds will be fully utilized in the anti-poverty projects by the end of the Compact and also vowed to return unused funds.

She has responded to accusations of inadequacy, neglect and foul play by stating, “Strict MCC guidelines make it impossible to divert funds to other purposes. Everything that we have done has been to help uplift the lives of Filipinos through economic growth.”

Anonuevo pointed out that the MCA-P has completed 2,180 community-driven development programs benefiting approximately half a million households spread out across six regions in the Philippines as of May 2015. Over the next year, the agency will work to bring that number up as quickly and dramatically as possible.

Only time will tell if the agency will be able to fulfill its commitment to maximize anti-poverty efforts. In spite of recent allegations against the DSWD, the U.S.-Filipino partnership seems to still be going strong. Now that the agency has restated their anti-poverty commitment, we can rest easy knowing that we share the same goal.

– Sarah Bernard

Sources: Filipino Express,Global Nation,Manila Bulletin
Photo: MCC

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USAID Project Signed in Ghana

RING_project
Ghana halved the number of people living in extreme poverty before the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) deadline, but many of the challenges remain in certain parts of the country. In the northern region, poverty needs to be reduced by 11.7 percent to meet the target; in the upper west region, it needs to be reduced by 41.8 percent.

Since 1996, the proportion of undernourished people in Ghana has dropped from 23.5 percent to 2.9 percent. However, the prevalence of underweight children under five years of age hasn’t changed much since 2007.

In July, seven District Chief Executives decided to join the USAID project “Resiliency in Northern Ghana” (RING), for one year. RING is a $60 million contract and is a part of USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative. The goal of RING is to reduce poverty in Ghana and improve nutrition in vulnerable populations.

USAID will focus on the lives of rural families by improving livelihoods and nutrition, with a goal to improve the nutritional status of children under two years as well as women. In return, the RING project will increase income for households, access to credit, community safety nets and output from agricultural activities.

By 2017, there will be a 20 percent reduction in stunted, wasting and underweight children.

Agricultural production is important in order to reduce poverty in Ghana. About 88 percent of livelihoods in northern Ghana rely on the production of crops, and 63 percent of all northern citizens live below the poverty line.

Other USAID projects focused on improving the quality of life in Ghana are the Systems for Health project and the Strengthening Partnerships, Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING) project.

Systems for Health is committed to reducing the number of underweight children and the rate of anemia in women and children in Ghana by 2019. The SPRING project is committed to reducing stunting and anemia in children under five years of age by 2017.

Feed the Future strategizes these projects by linking agricultural production to income. It acts by improving production methods to reduce harvest loss and bettering output for rural farmers, specifically in the northern regions where farming is more prominent.

USAID has reached more than 324,000 children and has improved their nutrition in order to reduce stunting and child mortality.

Reducing poverty in Ghana was achieved by lowering the national rate from 52 percent to 28 percent. Due to regional disparities, poverty is more prevalent in the north and needs sustainable agricultural methods to increase food security and catch up with the rest of the country.

– Donald Gering

Sources: Business Ghana, Knoema, UNDP, USAID, WFP
Photo: USAID