Asia Regional Cash Working Group

Asia Regional Cash Working Group Meeting Minutes 07 April 2015, 15:00 – 17:00 Oxfam Asia Regional Centre, 38 Convent Road, Silom, Bangkok, Thailand, 10500

Participants Afghanistan Cash Voucher Working Group, Habitat for Humanity International, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxfam, Oxfam Pakistan, Pakistan Emergency Food Security Alliance (PEFSA), Plan International, UN OCHA, World Food Programme (WFP), World Vision International.

Agenda

Welcome & Introduction

Presentation by Afghanistan Cash Voucher Working Group Coordinator: 1. Background on the Afghan context and Cash Based Interventions (CBIs) in Afghanistan 2. Overview of the Cash Voucher Working Group (CVWG) in Afghanistan 3. Examples of multipurpose grants for emergency response 4. Q&A

Any Other Business: 1. Date for next RCWG meeting (early June 2015) 2. Announcements, upcoming events and trainings 3. Updates from Community of Practice

Presentation by Afghanistan Cash Voucher Working Group Coordinator  Presentation, along with the meeting minutes are posted on the CaLP Asia webpage under Coordination and the Asia Regional Cash Working Group.

1. Background on the Afghan context and Cash Based Interventions (CBIs) in Afghanistan  Around 7.4 million Afghans are in need of aid assistance. 76% of the population live in rural areas; however, there is a trend towards urbanization due to the labor market and security.  Afghanistan ranked 169 out of 187 on the Human Development Index in 2013.  140,000 people were internally displaced by conflict in 2014.  On average, there are 250,000 natural disasters annually, including: avalanches, landslides, heavy rainfall, flooding, drought, extreme weather (winter, sandstorms, hail, wind) and earthquakes.  There has been an influx of more than 225,000 refugees (30,000 Households) from Pakistan in Khost and Paktika since June 2014.  Food insecurity is an increasing concern, affecting nearly 8 million people. Approximately 2.2 million Afghans live on less than 1,500 kilocalories per day, and 1.2 million children are acutely malnourished. Malnutrition is an underlying cause in more than one third of under- five child deaths in Afghanistan.  Security situation for humanitarian actors: o Afghanistan accounts for nearly a quarter (24%) of all major attacks on aid workers globally since 1997.

Asia RCWG Meeting Minutes – 7 April 2015 Page 1 of 5 o In 2013, a total of 81 major attacks on aid workers took place in Afghanistan and that number rose to 108 in 2014. Most of these attacks affected Afghan national staff. o Humanitarian Access: . Humanitarian access has been limited since 2014. However, it is still possible to operate in insecure areas with proper acceptance strategies. . For example: access to Khost/Paktika for the Pakistani refugee response was initially extremely difficult, but significant efforts to work with the government and tribal elders, access has been established in most districts, including rural areas.

2. Overview of the Cash Voucher Working Group (CVWG) in Afghanistan  Background: o In 2012, the CVWG was initially established as the Cash/Voucher Based Interventions Working Group (CVBI-WG) under the Food Security and Agriculture Cluster (FSAC). o In mid 2014, the CVBI-WG transitioned to Inter-Cluster Coordination as the Cash Voucher Working Group. o At the moment, the CVWG holds monthly meetings with UN agencies, NGOs and donors, and aims for the regular attendance of representatives from the Afghan government, namely the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations (MoRR).  Objectives: o The aim of the CVWG is to be operationally relevant and of practical use to humanitarian practitioners. The CVWG acts as a forum for testing new methods of implementation especially, when it comes to use of new technologies that could potentially be used to improve remote programming. o The Terms of Reference for the CVWG are currently under revision. The final ToRs and plan of action for 2015 will be announced by the end of April/beginning of May and it will be posted on the CVWG portal, and once publically available, further disseminated on the CaLP Asia Coordination webpage under Afghanistan CVWG.  Interaction with clusters: o The CVWG aims to get Clusters more engaged and ensure that the CVWG is providing technical support to the Clusters where needed. o At present, the CVWG is engaged with the Protection and Shelter/NFI Clusters.  Temporary Sub-Working Groups: o At the moment, there are two on-going Sub-Working Groups for: 1) Market assessments and price monitoring and 2) Private sector engagement. o The aim of the thematic Sub-Working Groups focus on these specific issues and to provide clear guidance and develop tools that can be shared with the larger CVWG.  CVWG 3Ws (Who, What, Where): o Key highlights for 2015 include: . Quarterly updates to the CVWG Portal on Who is doing What, Where (3Ws) & How. The first quarter update will be available around the end of April/beginning of May. . Details collected by the CVWG 3Ws include: Organization name, Province, District, Type of intervention (multipurpose, cash for food, cash for shelter, etc.) and Main transfer modality. The raw 3Ws database is shared with all the CVWG members.

Asia RCWG Meeting Minutes – 7 April 2015 Page 2 of 5 . 3Ws format will be revised to be more in-line with the Global Cash Atlas by adding details such as cash transfer amounts and projects at district level (with consideration for any risks and security concerns). Figure 1. Example of a dashboard produced by OCHA’s Information Management Unit (IMU) on cross-border movements from North Waziristan, Pakistan into Afghanistan.

 Training activities: o CVWG conducted CaLP Level 1 and 2 trainings for the Community of Practice in primary operational regions, namely: Jalalabad, Mazar, Herat and Kabul. o In 2015, the capacity building plan is to train 180 humanitarian actors, including a Coordination Training for state actors (potential targets include: ANDMA, MoRR, MRRD and MoLSA) in collaboration with the CaLP Asia team, as well as trainings on Rapid Market Assessments and additional CaLP Level 1 and 2 trainings.  Research on CBIs: o In the following year, there will be two major pieces of research namely: 1) Cash vs in-kind (program evaluation of all ERM partners with cash activities), which is potentially going to look at program effectiveness and what is most appropriate given a variety of contexts; 2) CBIs and Protection - funded by ECHO through UNHCR, deployment to Afghanistan to look at mainstreaming of protection in existing tools.

3. Examples of multipurpose grants for emergency response  Overview: o ECHO-funded Emergency Response Mechanism (ERM) partners with multipurpose cash grants include Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Danish Refugee Council (DRC), Action Against Hunger (ACF), and People in Need. o Partners are covering different target areas depending on operational presence. o Over 11,000 Households were supported with multi-purpose cash in 2014.  Assessment process: o All ERM partners are using harmonised tools for emergency response. It is possible to add additional questions to the tools, but these tools include the minimum data requirements to be collected. A common rationale document is used to guide the process and ERM partners have joint training sessions on the harmonised tools.

Asia RCWG Meeting Minutes – 7 April 2015 Page 3 of 5 o ERM partners have committed to conduct full assessments within five days following reported events and, then, to disseminate an assessment report within two days. o Forms/tools used: 1) One Rapid Assessment Form (RAF) per community; 2) Two Focus Group Discussions (one focused on women and one on men) per Community Development Council (CDC)/Village; 3) Households surveys targeting at least 10% of targeted households (50% of respondents women); and 4) Rapid market assessment and analysis. o Post-distribution monitoring takes place within four weeks of the intervention according to standardised forms.  For more information please visit, CVWG website/CVWG portal at www.humanitarianresponse.info/operations/afghanistan/cash-voucher-working-group

4. Q&A  How are multipurpose cash grants used in emergency responses, especially if assessments require 5 days to conduct and then 2 days to produce a report on situational analysis? o Emergency multipurpose cash grants have been used to respond to natural disasters and conflicts. In the country context, often, national disasters do not require more immediate action, i.e. within the first week, and if there are more urgent needs, then the Afghan military will likely intervene. o The format of the market assessment has been adapted to best fit in various operational contexts. The 5-day market assessment is sufficient; nevertheless, a more rapid assessment can be done, if necessary. In practice, field staff have to check at least 3 vendors for the average commodity price in the local market before the cash transfer amount is calculated. o Emergency cash grants are intended to provide relief assistance for a 1-month period. Depending on the situation, e.g. a second event occurs, another cash transfer may be approved.  How is the cash grant amount calculated for multipurpose cash grants and what is the percent ratio for each in the overall package? Which methods would you use - survival threshold, or protection or a mix? o The cash transfer amounts have been calculated from a food package done by ACF and WFP as well as a standard NFI kit composition.  As mentioned, the World Food Programme (WFP) is starting cash and voucher programming for food security in Afghanistan. What is the modality and is the same market assessment for the ERM used? o Primarily, WFP still does direct food distributions, but they also implement through voucher programming, including electronic vouchers. o WFP has a different market assessment approach. WFP monitors prices in key markets on a weekly and bi-weekly basis.  How does mobile money work in Afghanistan? What kind of technology is needed? o Many agencies work with Roshan, the leading telecommunications provider in Afghanistan. o The implementing agency has to set up mobile money accounts for beneficiary households and distribute Roshan SIM cards. Then, the agency provides beneficiary lists to Roshan, which processes cash transfers directly to beneficiaries via the mobile money platform. Once the cash transfers are sent, beneficiary households receive SMS notification, and they can receive (or “cash-out”) the money from partner local agent shops. o Challenges: Local shops that were willing to partner were limited and, thus, the programme did not have adequate coverage to serve all beneficiary households. Additionally, local shops had liquidity issues, not having enough cash reserves to

Asia RCWG Meeting Minutes – 7 April 2015 Page 4 of 5 distribute to beneficiaries. More discussions are needed between the CVWG, Roshan and other parties on the purpose and procedures of this programme to idenfity ways to improve efficiency.  Does NRC have financial literacy programmes linked to cash transfer programming? o No, [financial literacy] would be something interesting to consider in the near future. o Inter-related courses are the vocational training programme, which assess local labour markets and provide life skills trainings, etc.  What are the triggers for refugees from Pakistan preferred to move to Afghanistan? o There are many causes and one of which is the political situation.  How does the Afghanistan CVWG build and maintain strong membership and engaged participation? o Membership was facilitated by the long-standing relationships that the Coordinator had from working in-country for a number of years and also engagement with key UN agencies. o To bolster attendance, a simple but key recommendation is to send reminders a few days prior to the meeting date with the agenda listing RSVPs.  A recommendation was made to use the 4W matrix of What, Where, When and Who instead of only 3Ws.

Any Other Business 1. Date for next RCWG meeting (19 June 2015) 2. Announcements, upcoming events and trainings  CaLP Asia will host a Regional Learning Event on 19 June 2015 with the theme of Cash Coordination. This event will highlight global coordination efforts, including initial outputs from a Global Cash Coordination Learning Event being convened by CaLP and OCHA in Geneva on 05 May, and additionally will present lessons learnt and strategic recommendations from the Philippines Haiyan Cash Coordination Case Study commissioned in partnership with UNOCHA and UNHRC. 3. Updates from Community of Practice  ICVA will hold a Regional Southeast Asia Directors meeting on 22 May 2015. For more information please contact Jessica Darby, Programme Officer, at [email protected].

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