The Somaliland Cash Working Group started meeting in 2017 at the height of the response. The group met to discuss operational issues and benefited from the active engagement of 15 organisations. In 2018, the Cash Working Group intends to engage more actors and give more emphasis to improving the quality of cash transfer programming (CTP). The purpose of this one-day event was to reflect on the current use of CTP in Somaliland. 46 people came together to reflect on what aspects of cash transfer programming worked well in the 2017 response and what needs to be improved going forward. In addition, there was a discussion about the relationship between gender and cash transfer programming.
Below are some highlights from the event:
- There was consensus that the cash transfers had made a significant difference, that the response was timely and that it had helped save lives and maintain assets.
- Compared to the last major response, there was a wider variety of cash transfer mechanisms available. It was felt that the use of mobile payment systems was positive and, overall, feedback mechanisms were better than before.
- Feelings on coordination were mixed. It was felt that coordination had improved over time and the formation of the Cash Working Group had been positive. In contrast, coordination weaknesses led to poor information sharing, inconsistent approaches and instances of duplication.
- Officials from the newly created National Authority for Disaster and Food Reserve felt that the quality of reporting and information sharing of activities by the NGOs to the Authority was poor.
- It was agreed that targeting of hard to reach areas had not been as effective as it should have been and, as a result, some of the most vulnerable had not been reached. There was a tendency towards “tarmac road bias”.
- Differences in transfer values between agencies were hard to explain when engaging with communities.
- Sudden changes in transfer values were difficult to manage, especially as many people were not clear about why changes were made or how values had been calculated.
- While most people were unclear what gender issues need to be considered in CTP, all but one person felt their organisation considered gender at each stage of the CTP cycle. In discussion of this apparent contradiction, it emerged that since their organisations have gender policies, people assumed others were ‘taking care of it’.
This short report has many useful reflections. Further work is needed to prioritise issues and develop a concrete action plan to be taken forward by the Cash Working Group.