Save the Children in – LAHIA Non-Emergency Food Assistance Program No. AID-FFP-A-12-00010

Quarterly Progress Report –Q3 FY13 April-June 013 Submission Date: July 30, 2013

I. Program Progress

This Quarterly Report is being submitted in compliance with Cooperative Agreement No. AID- FFP-A-12-00010 signed by Food for Peace on August 17th. During this third quarter FY 2013, Save the Children and its partner World Vision received additional Title II commodities in the Maradi warehouse, and made further contacts with communities for the actual start of the program. Preparations concerned mainly the identification of health and nutrition beneficiaries, the identification of 33 Title II food distribution points, and an assessment of the 18 health and nutrition centers (CSI) in the project area. The identification of various village groups that will be supported by LAHIA in the overall context of food security took also place during this reporting period. This quarter was also marked by the completion of the Formative Research and the sharing of the preliminary results during the month of June 013.

As we write this report, all first call forward commodities including 93.62 MT of CSB+ have arrived in the LAHIA warehouse in Maradi to the exception of one truck with 38.6 MT of CSB+ which is still in Bitou (Lome) due to mechanical problems. The transport contract has already been negotiated and food rations for the month of July are scheduled to be distributed starting July 16. During this reporting period, a formative research was completed by the consultant and preliminary findings shared with the LAHIA staff. The final report is being reviewed and discussions are underway with SC HQ technical staff for inputs in the elaboration of a social behavior change strategy that would address the social barriers identified in the study.

During this quarter, SCI and World Vision Niger organized 2 monthly Task Force meetings in the month of May and June. The meetings were attended by the officials from the governor’s office, the district level ministry of health and agriculture, the prefet of and Guidan Roumdji, the mayor of and communes. Task Force meetings will be held on the last Thursday of each month to allow LAHIA technical staff to interact with local authorities, share information on the progress, and discuss any challenge and roadblocks throughout the implementation of the project. These meetings are supposed to provide a forum for transparency and accountability to various stakeholders.

On May 6, Save the Children Maradi and the LAHIA project received the visit of FFP/Niger. The LAHIA staff had the opportunity to interact with him. FFP was given a tour of the office and the warehouse. During this reporting period, Save the Children International also prepared and submitted on June 27 to the AOR/FFP a request for the 2014 resources (PREP).

The security situation in the project area remained relatively stable despite the attacks on a military camp and mining company in the North of the country, as well as an assault on the central prison in the capital city of in the month of June.

The following important activities were also completed during this 3rd quarter period:

1. Program staffing: The approval of the Gender Specialist by the FFP/AOR during this reporting period has concluded the recruitment of the four key LAHIA positions as provided in the Grant. The four LAHIA key positions are:

 Rural Development and Livelihood Coordinator  Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator  Health and Nutrition Coordinator and  Gender Specialist.

Save the Children Niger and the partner World Vision have already deployed 87 staff in Maradi and AGUIE. The staff is already active with their respective responsibilities; technical staff has made several visits to the LAHIA villages to inform the community about the project, identify the beneficiaries and establish partnership with various stakeholders.

2. Staff Capacity Building- LMMS: During this quarter, a training of 12 staff in the use of the Last Mile Mobile Solution (LMMS) was conducted by World Vision in Maradi. Despite the delay in clearing the LMMS equipment through the customs, the application of this software on the ground in the villages of Gangara was made possible thanks to the availability of this equipment from past World Vision programs. The application will not be extended to and Aguie until all LMMS equipment is received. Therefore the food distribution scheduled for the month of July will be recorded on manual registers to the exception of the 12 villages in the commune of Gangara.

Peer Educators: A two days training was organized on June 10-11 by the Social Behavior Change Specialist at Save the Children’s office in Aguie in order to provide maximum information to all new staff about this important community structure that will play an important relay role, facilitate communication and the monitoring of the program activities. The training attended by 17 World Vision and Save the Children’s staff including 4 staff from health centers (CSI) discussed the criteria for the identification and selection of village peer leaders such as their availability, their readiness to volunteer and play this role, literacy/numeracy level, i.e. their ability to read and convey written messages. The peer educators should particularly mirror a good level of respectability and integrity within the society. Once the educators’ identification is completed, the project will provide them with necessary support so they can play the animators’ role focusing on encouraging beneficiaries to attend various services at health centers, making home visits, detecting signs of malnutrition, recommending referral to health centers and encouraging best practices. While this concept is known and has been used to some degree in many villages, one quarter of the LAHIA villages do not have Peer Educators as a structure in place. The structuring and support to these groups is an exercise that will be pursued in the next quarters.

WASH Activities: In April a staff training was organized by the WASH department in PRA- data collection in relation to water points, gender segregated latrines, school training in Wash, putting in place gender sensitive village committees, selection of hand pump repair volunteers and artisans, the selection of local masons for latrine construction. Fourteen Community Lead Total Sanitation villages (CLTS) were also selected during the same month of April.

Community Lead Total Sanitation (CLTS): another training organized during this reporting period includes CLTS for 5 WASH supervisors and 5 support staff, 2 Health and Nutrition coordinators, 5 local mayors, 3 Health districts representatives from Gazaoua, Guidan Roumdji and Aguie districts, 3 representatives of the Rural development and planning department.

WASH Sensitive Approach: This training was organized in the month of June for 5 WASH supervisors in order to provide guidelines in setting up WASH sensitive committees in the 12 villages where 8 new water points and 4 points to be reactivated by the end of Year 1, i.e. August 2013 will be built.

3. Health and Nutrition, SO1 Activities Formative Research: The study was completed by the consultant during this quarter. In April, the consultant and his team shared the methodology and the tools designed to collect necessary information in the 48 sampled villages. Three teams of four people each toured the villages for eight days accompanied by the consultant and his two assistants during the month of April. A two days’ work session was organized in Maradi on May 20-21, it was attended by 4 traditional village chiefs and CSI directors in order to collect some feedback on the findings. On May 28-30 a second workshop involving LAHIA staff was organized to design a social behavior change (SBC) strategy. This work is still in progress as described below.

As a reminder, the Scope of Work for this study was shared with FFP on March 4, 2013. Inputs from FANTA were incorporated and an external national consultant identified at the second round of interview. The technical offer from the consultant was discussed including his proposed methodology at the end of March. Formative research was conducted in order to collect social barriers beliefs and practices to be addressed by an SBC strategy to be designed with the consultant at the end of May. The draft report has been circulated internally for inputs, and the production of the SBC strategy using the study’s findings has been crafted, it will be finalized in July/August with Save the Children US HQ’s technical assistance.

Beneficiary identification: Before reaching out to the communities for beneficiary identification, Save the Children and World Vision’s staff held many meetings in Maradi in order to clarify the approach through which program beneficiaries will be identified. As legitimate concerns were expressed about the possibility that more beneficiaries will turn up than anticipated, a recommendation was made by the technical teams to start the program in fewer villages and expand gradually over time. A Household Economy Analysis (HEA) was also proposed in order to prioritize poor families for the protection rations during the lean season. The decision to stick to the PM2A approach prevailed and the teams were sent out for the beneficiary identification in 71 villages. Unfortunately, the maximum beneficiary level, as per 2013-2014 commodity pipeline was reached in 60 villages; there was no need to continue registering beneficiaries beyond what our Title II level can serve. For the remaining 2 months of Year 1 (July-August 013) food rations will be distributed indiscriminately and monthly to all 3,598 listed pregnant and lactating mothers and 3,292 children 7-18 months. A household protection ration will also be given to their families for this same period.

Identification of Food Distribution Sites There are 33 distributions points that have been identified with the local leaders’ involvement, 22 sites in the three Save the Children’s communes of Tchadoua, Aguie and Gangara and 13 sites in the World Vision’s two communes of and Sae Saboua. Meetings for the selection of these sites took place in the mayor’s office where the following criteria were used for the selection: accessibility during rainy season, distance to villages not exceeding 5 Kms, social cohesion, presence of a storage, water, latrine and shade.

Coordination with partners in health sector: The LAHIA team has maintained contacts with ANIMAS SUTURA, a useful partner for the promotion of family planning in support of the program’s health and nutrition objectives. Three meetings took place, one in Niamey and two in Maradi in order to discuss areas of collaboration. This partner works with rural radios that broadcast news and sketches on social behavior change throughout Maradi province. Contracts with ANIMAS SUTURA or with the 6 rural radios broadcasting in the project area will be based on the social behavior change messages contained in the SBC strategy. Contracts will not be signed until the SBC strategy is well articulated and communication messages well defined. LAHIA health and nutrition staff attends regional health cluster meetings where they interact with other players in the health sector.

WASH PRA Activities: World Vision conducted a PRA training in April for the identification of various sites where WASH structures and committees will be established. The villages where 8 new water points will be established were selected. The PRA also selected 14 villages where CLTS training was conducted and where local mason training will be conducted in the month of July. Other WASH activities to be implemented by the end of Year 1 (August 2013) include the following: 8 new water points to be built, training of local masons in 4 communities, training of hand pump volunteers in 20 communities, training of teachers and PTAs in 5 schools on WASH activities and hygiene in school environment, and training in 12 communities on water treatment at household level.

4. Agriculture, Livelihoods (SO2 Activities)

Training of Partners and Staff: on May 24, The LAHIA SO2 team organized a training attended by 8 government technical staff from the five LAHIA communes and 27 LAHIA staff including rural extension and development agents. The objective of the training was to provide this group with the knowledge on how to conduct a Participatory Rural Assessment (PRA) or “La Methode Active de Recherche Participative (MARP)” in French. This training was done before sending the teams out for the identification of the SO2 needs in the 60 LAHIA villages.

Participatory Rural Assessment (PRA): During this third quarter, the SO2 team conducted a participatory assessment to identify all village groups in the 60 LAHIA villages. MMD groups in the communes of Tchadoua, Aguie and Gangara were also identified. Surprisingly 120 MMD groups were identified in 39 villages of these three communes. The assessment will be completed in the remaining two communes followed by a determination of what level of support is necessary in terms of capacity building for these groups. As mentioned before, the SO2 team has a good gender balance with three female MMD Officers in charge of the MMD sector. Many of these groups were put in place by CARE International. The team has already met with CARE International to discuss the status of women’s groups in the three communes of Gangara, AGUIE and Tchadoua. Thirteen women vegetable production associations have been identified and 23 nurseries. A strategy for the support to be provided to the groups most in need is being drafted. The participatory appraisal also showed that we can build upon a traditional animal trading system called “Habanaye” that exists in the project area; unfortunately only 4 para-veterinaries in three of the communes of Tachadoua, Gangara and Aguie were identified. A support to this traditional system has a great potential to empower women from the poorest families as they become owners of small animals that can generate additional income under their direct control. A mapping of the existing resources in the 60 LAHIA villages is known. An inventory of water points and marsh lands that can be used for gardening is done. The exact location and size of the land that needs restoration has also been identified. Protected forest resources and areas that need assisted natural regeneration are also known. An inventory of cereal banks, hand dug wells, seeds and tools stores are also well identified.

A household Economy analysis (HEA): The analysis has been conducted within the SO1 ( Health and Nutrition) beneficiary group in 18 of the 60 LAHIA villages to determine the most vulnerable households that can benefit from inputs to boost their income generating activity or start a new income generating activity. The analysis will be extended to the rest of the villages in the next quarter. These beneficiary groups will be identified in the existing MMD groups.

Food for Work: The Food Security and Livelihoods team has also developed a Food for Work strategy for activities that are still possible despite the start of the rainy season. Two activities will be conducted in 10 of the 30 villages. The FFW program during the latter part of Y1 and the first quarter Y2 will support community activities that can be implemented during the rainy season. Examples of these activities include setting up community-Moringa nurseries and 50 hectares’ marginal land restoration. Caution will be exercised in order not to hamper the usual agricultural activities during the rainy season. SCI/Niger plans to distribute 96 MT (22,143 rations) to 738 HH representing 5,166 beneficiaries per month that will join in this community work before the end of Year 1 in the month of July and August 2013. Contacts have been established with research institutions such as INRAN and other district level (CRGPCCA) technical services for a collaboration partnership.

Value Chain Analysis: The SOW for the Value Chain Analysis is already drafted and the identification of the local expertise to conduct this study is under way.

5. Resilience (SO3 Activities) The above mentioned PRA revealed that village level early warning systems such as “Observatoire de Surveyance de la vulnerabilite (OSV), Systeme Communautaire d’Alerte Precauce et de Reponse aux Urgences (SCAP/RU) and Commites Villageois de Developpement (CVD). Contacts were established during this reporting period with SIMA/SIMB which stand for Syssteme d’Information sor le Marche Agricole ( SIMA) and Systeme d’Information sur le Marche du Betail (SIMB) in order to explore the best way village level agriculture and animal producers can have access to the information concerning trends in prices over the year. Partnership contracts are under negotiation for radio spot messages to air information regarding grain and animal prices in the project area.

6. Gender ( SO4 Activities) During this quarter, Mercy Corps, Catholic relief Services (CRS) and Save the Children agreed to conduct a joint Gender Analysis. The consortium shared the scope of work with FFP for inputs. The improved version is available and a call for consultants should be ready to go before the end of July. The gender specialist of Mercy Corps and Save the Children organized training on various tools that are useful for gender analysis. The two organizations also participated in the May 13 celebration of the women’s day in Maradi.

7. Title II Food commodities Management On April 15, the second call forward was placed. All the commodities called under the first call forward including the prepositioned CSB+ and lentils are in the Maradi warehouse except one truck with 38.21 MT of CSB+ which was down in Togo. As we write this report, the last truck has started moving again and should be in Maradi in the next few days. The total tonnage in the warehouse as of this reporting date is 754.60 Mt.

Save the Children Niger decided to move to a bigger warehouse with 1,500 MT capacities due to the fact that the first call forward stock could not be distributed until the prepositioned CSB+ has arrived, and the risk of running out of space with the pending arrival of the second call forward expected in August/September 013. The bigger warehouse has provided sufficient space for stacking incoming shipments and organizing deliveries to distribution centers.

Save the Children will use the World Vision’s Commodity Tracking System (CTS) for the management of food commodities and the Last Mile Mobile Solution (LMMS) software for the registration and tracking of beneficiaries’ status. These two systems owned by our partner World Vision interface comfortably to allow a timely production of commodity and recipient status reports. LMMS has been used with success by World Vision and is increasingly being adopted by other NGOs. During this reporting period, a training of 12 staff in the use of the LMMS was conducted by World Vision in Maradi. The LMMS equipment ordered for LAHIA is still under customs, things take time at this level. The application of this software on the ground was still possible in the villages of Gangara thanks to the availability of the equipment from the past WV programs. The application will be extended to Tchadoua and Aguie when all LMMS equipment is received in Maradi. Food distribution scheduled to start on July 16 for the month of July will be recorded on manual registers, except for the 12 villages of the commune of Gangara. Food management committees composed of 8 members are in place at every distribution site, they include three members at each site who are in charge of complaint management. Complaint management is put in place as part of transparency and accountability. Beneficiaries are allowed to voice their opinions on the whole food distribution process and on how well they feel they are treated during this process.

8. Monetization Steering Committee The committee was still not able to sell the balance of the monetization rice as potential buyers from the last tender conducted three months earlier retracted from the deal. On June 24, Mercy Corps, Save the Children and Africare decided to issue a final call for biding on June 26, 2013. The call for bidding was aired on 4 radio stations and 2 local newspapers. If this final tender is not successful, the consortium will propose a negotiated sale. An inventory of the remaining stock was done on June 28. During this quarter, the proceeds from a partial sale of rice and the withholding tax were transferred by Africare to SCI/Niger’s account.

9. Visitors SCI Niger was pleased to receive one month support from Save UK’s. Save UK employee looked into the logistics issues and recommended actions for improvement. She also assisted in organizing the teams for information gathering for Year 2 PREP. During this reporting period, FFP Niger visited Save the Children Niger in Maradi to discuss LAHIA progress; he interacted with LAHIA staff and inspected the Titlte II commodities warehouse. On May 30, World Vision’s Country Director visited SCI/Maradi and attended the monthly Task Force meeting. The June 27, 2013 second Task Force meeting was attended by the SCI/Niamey’s Deputy Country Director in charge of quality programing.

II. Challenges Two of the four LAHIA vehicles were still under customs during this quarter. The vehicles were released at the time of this reporting. They will be shipped to Maradi as soon as the first maintenance service is done. The LMMS equipment needed for beneficiary identification and commodity distribution are still awaiting clearance under customs.

The monetization committee was still not able to sell the balance of the monetization rice as potential buyers from the last tender conducted three months earlier retracted from the deal, as noted above. On June 24, Mercy Corps, Save the Children and Africare decided to issue a final call for biding on June 26, 013.

Everything is ready for the first direct food distribution scheduled to start on July 16, 013. It is expected that all distribution points will still be accessible despite the start of the rainy season.

III. Budget Issues SC remains low in its burn rate for the Year 1 budget; however spending has increased as activities have picked up and commodities have arrived and are being moved.

SC provided a revised Year 1 budget in its June 27 PREP submission, based on actuals to date and projections through the remainder of the implementation year. The final quarter of Year 1 LAHIA should show higher spending rates as distributions will be continuous and SO2 and SO3 activities get underway.

IV. Priorities for Next Quarter  Sell monetization rice or propose alternative use.  Following the Formative Research study, design a Social Behavior Change strategy.  A Gender Analysis will be conducted as the scope of the study is now defined.  Following the PRA, SO2 and SO3 activities will be initiated in the next quarter.  Take over from Africare and manage the pipeline for the second call forward-direct distributions.