MISSION REPORT POST DISTRIBUTION MONITORING OF THE EMERGENCY CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMME IN THREE FLOOD-HIT PROVINCES

Transcription

1 International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies MISSION REPORT on POST DISTRIBUTION MONITORING OF THE EMERGENCY CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMME IN THREE FLOOD-HIT PROVINCES Monitoring sites Reported by Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh Province Tran Trieu Ngoa Huyen Ta Thi Thanh Thuy Duong Viet Anh May, 2011 P a g e 1

2 Table of Contents List of tables and charts Background Objectives and focused points Methods Methods applied Roles of partners Process of monitoring Ethical considerations Limitations Findings Profile of beneficiaries Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution Transparency Management and experiences of the distribution Conclusion and Recommendations To collect missing documentations for the distribution To improve future programs P a g e 2

3 List of tables and charts Table 1: Profile of monitoring areas... 7 Table 2: Percentage of age and sex forward to target groups... 8 Table 3: Description of the money received by each group Chart 1: Percentage of getting cash distribution... 9 Chart 2: Percentage of usage of fund received Chart 3: Percentage of households received money compared with the ratified amount Chart 4: Percentage of households with re-distribution of fund granted Chart 5: Percentage of households signed upon receiving the money P a g e 3

4 1 Background Following destructions caused by flood in October 2010, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) launched emergency appeal seeking CHF 1,070,620 to assist 28,500 families in three provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh in Vietnam. Under this framework, the Viet Nam Red Cross (VNRC) has distributed cash for food and livelihood in January About 10,274 households received this cash support. In addition, 3,000 households also received cash grants from VNRC as livelihood support to buy seeds and fertilizers. The IFRC s internal procedures for cash distribution require detailed post distribution monitoring of the programme. The IFRC delegation in Viet Nam therefore requests a postdistribution monitoring of cash for food and cash for livelihood in the three provinces. The monitoring led by three team leaders independently recruited by IFRC office and supported by relevant VNRC staff and IFRC finance officers has been conducted. Each team leader, with their responsibility, has written three independent reports on their monitoring results at the specific site they were in charge of. This report is a consolidation of the three documents above. 2 Objectives and focused points As described in the TOR, the specific objectives of this monitoring are: - To review effectiveness and relevance of the distribution through beneficiary feedback. - To take stock of experience with overall and financial management in cash transfers within VNRC and suggest for improvements. - To collect missing documentation for the distribution. From these objectives, the focus of this monitoring includes: - Basic information of the target beneficiaries. - Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution. - Transparency and experience with management. - Recommendations for cash distribution in the future. 3 Methods 3.1 Methods applied The monitoring involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Tools for collecting information included questionnaire, in-depth interview, focus group discussion and observation. For each area, IFRC provided a list of highlighted issues which needed to receive better attention during the monitoring. Copy of lists of beneficiaries, financial documents and P a g e 4

5 questionnaire developed by IFRC were also provided. Those were very important materials which helped the team to focus better on the concerned issues during the field work. The key method used was individual household interviews. From the list of beneficiaries provided by IFRC, the team randomly selected the households for in-depth interviews. The special cases in the list were noted. Meetings with groups of beneficiaries were also arranged. Besides, even though not required by IFRC, the team interviewed people who are not in the list of beneficiaries submitted by the commune to VNRC and IFRC. These additional interviews were conducted to have more information on the distribution. After each working day, a briefing session was conducted for all team members to share their experiences during the day. 3.2 Roles of partners Team Leader The team leader took overall responsibility for professional activities of the whole team. In particular, the leader: - Provided technical support to team members. - Took lead role in facilitating focus group discussions. - Ensured the team functioned and overall progress was made - Chaired team meeting at the end of each working day to review the work done and plan for the next day. - Consolidated filled questionnaires - Analysed data and wrote the monitoring report VNRC officers and local staffs VNRC officers from central, provincial, district and commune levels also participated in the monitoring exercise The VNRC officers at the central level supervised the information collecting process and gave feedback with the consultants on the preliminary findings at the monitored sites. The VNRC officers at provincial and district levels helped to organize the monitoring and provided information about the cash distribution process at local sites. The communes authorities and Red Cross staff participated in focus group discussions to provide information and feedback to the monitoring teams about findings at the end of every day during the process. 3.3 Process of monitoring The main steps of the monitoring included: - Preparing: Developing TOR and tools for information collecting P a g e 5

6 Recruiting, training volunteers Adjusting data collecting tools the first time Pilot information collecting exercise in Nghe An and adjusting data collecting tools the second time - Collecting information, analyzing and giving feedback on initial findings to the local authorities at the sites. - Writing three independent reports for each of the three monitoring areas. These were written by monitoring team leaders. A workshop was conducted to share the survey findings and finalize the reports with comments from the workshop. - Synthesising all information to make a summary report for the 3 independent monitoring reports. 3.4 Ethical considerations - Students, selected through interviews by IFRC, volunteered to participate in this monitoring exercise. This group, along with the team leaders, were trained about Seven Fundamental Principles and Code of Conducts of IFRC. - Before interviewing participants in the monitoring exercise, the interviewer explained in detail the objectives and expectations. All the interviews were conducted with (oral) informed consent from the participants. - Interviewees were advised that they could stop the interview at anytime or skip a question if they were not comfortable answering it. - All the interviews were conducted in a private place and with informed consent from the participants, without the presence of any local authorities. - All the interviewers followed the rules of keeping study information confidential. All the interviews, notes, codes, and interviewee lists were kept safe and confidential. Respondents names were not written in the survey report. - Team members were always respectful and friendly when interacting with local inhabitants and officials. The volunteers always cleverly and skilfully handled the situation to complete tasks without compromising the prestige of the IFRC in the locality. 3.5 Limitations - Despite the fact that the monitoring group visited all households in the list, the interview ratio was 72% 1. The reasons are below: Households had migrated for economic reasons The house owners or adults were working all day and only came back home late. The house owners, the beneficiaries did not have communication capacities (hearing impairment, too old or very sick etc.) 1 Without counting the number of households at Nam Thuong commune, Nam Dan district, Nghe An province because this area has been considered as the practising venue for volunteers and pilot venue for the monitoring tools. P a g e 6

7 - There wasn t enough time to re visit the households where members were not available the first time. - Signatures on the beneficiary list and monitoring questionnaires were compared and did not match always.the volunteers were quite experienced in dealing with rural people. However, being young students, they lacked the experience and skills required in a monitoring exercise like this. Some communes have received a huge amount of support from different sources at the same time. So it was quite difficult for local people to remember exactly the amount they received from each of the sources. 4 Findings 4.1 Profile of beneficiaries Monitoring teams administered the questionnaire in 1,646 households across 29 communes in 15 districts of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces. Table 1: Profile of monitoring areas Provinces Districts Communes No. of households interviewed Nghe An Nam Dan Nam Thuong 51 Ha Tinh Duc Tho Lien Minh 36 Huong Son Son Phuc 75 Son Hong 90 Son Tra 92 Son Bang 39 Vu Quang Son Tho 28 Duc Huong 28 Huong Khe Huong Xuan 26 Huong Vinh 31 Huong Long 36 Can Loc Trung Loc 80 Son Loc 95 Thach Ha Thach Luu 69 Ha Tinh Thach Trung 46 Tan Giang 34 P a g e 7

8 Provinces Districts Communes No. of households interviewed Cam Xuyen Cam Nhuong 93 Cam Loc 104 Cam Ha 95 Ky Anh Ky Lam 18 Ky Thuong 44 Ky Tay 30 Quang Binh Le Thuy Loc Thuy 93 Quang Ninh Truong Xuan 27 Dong Hoi Nghia Ninh 86 Loc Ninh 80 Quang Trach Quang Minh 34 Quanh Thuy 25 Minh Hoa Tan Hoa 61 Total 1,646 The monitoring team interviewed all households in the relief beneficiaries lists provided for the interviews. When they arrived at the households, the interviewers gave priority to the person whose name was in the provided list and interviewed him/her. Often the person was the head of the household. When the person in the list was not available, the interviewers would interview their wife/husband. If the couples were not at home, the interview was conducted with an adult in the family who was aware of the relief support for the flooding. The majority of people who participated in the interview were house owners (55%), house owner s spouse (28.1%) and other family members such as their parents, children or siblings etc. (16.9%). On an average, every family has 3.96 members. Households with 1 to 3 members accounted for 40.2% of total households. Other information related to target beneficiaries includes: Table 2: Percentage of age and sex forward to target groups Characteristics Beneficiaries as listed Interviewees Age Mean Sex Male (%) P a g e 8

9 Female (%) The median age of beneficiaries and interviewees reasons: is quite high due to the following - The common family structure in a rural Vietnamese household includes (i) grandparents (paternal/ maternal), (ii) their children and their children s spouses and (iii) their grand children. The household owner or head is often the grandparent. - Guidelines on selecting beneficiaries of IFRC and VNRC spoke of the priority beneficiariessuch as old people, sick people or people who did not have working capacity. - Young household owners were often did not present at home at the time of the interviews because they had to work and did not come back home until late evening. - This monitoring was carried out during a period of crop failure. As a result, the migration for economic purposes among poor young families was quite common (both short and long term migration). Beneficiaries listed were household owners. Commonly they are males in the family. It was easy to meet females at home to conduct interviews due to housewifery. This explains why the proportion of males was high in the list of beneficiaries, but low in the list of interviewees. 4.2 Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution The flood hit the central provinces severely and caused huge amounts of damage and losses. The people from flooded areas have been receiving assistance from many donors such as Government of Vietnam, State s organizations, international organizations, enterprises and individuals. The assistance included cash, food, clothes, school facilities for children, and other necessities. In total, 92% interviewees said that their family received cash support from Red Cross Association in early 2011 (before Tet the Lunar New Year). Chart 1: Percentage of getting cash distribution They were aware that the money was from Red Cross and they got this information via: - Village meeting to select households for receiving relief P a g e 9

10 - Written words and symbol on vouchers to receive relief money - Written words and symbols on banners at the relief centres where money was delivered - Written words and symbols on uniforms of the relief money delivering officers - Direct information from village leaders and villagers in the community All people that the monitoring teams met, whether or not they were in the list of beneficiaries provided by IFRC, expressed their high appreciation of the assistance and support they received - both financially and spiritually - from benefactors. A majority of households used the received money to buy food (68.4%). The rest used it for sources of livelihood, improving health and shopping for the Lunar New Year Tet. The main sources of livelihood that people spent on were pig, chicken, duck and fertilizer. One household may have split the fund to several options. Chart 2: Percentage of usage of fund received Most of the interviewees (85.5%) said that they received the support money once, 5.9% for twice and 8.6% did not remember how many times Although a majority of the interviewees could not remember the date when they received it, they all confirmed it was sometimes within one week, at the Kitchen God worship week, before Tet - the Lunar New Year. If the venue was at a commune people committee s hall, the money was often delivered by officers from the commune Red Cross, representatives of the commune s People Committee, hamlets leaders, volunteers and sometimes the districts Red Cross officers. The venue for receiving the money was commune people committee s halls in most cases. The rest were direct handovers at households, at village leader s houses. A majority of the householders (94.3%) said they were satisfied with the money received. Through group discussions it was gathered that they were satisfied because of the following reasons: - During the floods, people needed instant food, clean water and necessities like clothes, lights. But after the floods, the need and living conditions varied from household to P a g e 10

11 household. Therefore, assistance in cash was preferred and was consideredmore effective as people could best satisfy their need with the money received. - Lunar New Year Festival requires more spending from almost all families in Vietnam. This is also the starting of a new cultivation season. Capital is mostly needed to cover these events, especially for the poor households. - Money was delivered/received quickly with simple procedures. - Officers giving out the relief were cheerful and enthusiastic Local officers considered cash relief as more appropriate due to the following reasons: - VNRC has clear guidelines on delivering and receiving of cash relief. Local officers were trained to do this job - Delivering cash relief was more convenient compared to relief in the form of food or goods (e.g. convenient transportation, no storage requirements, no risk of damamge) Some challenges faced in the program have been noted as below: - At the time of delivering relief money, the price of rice increased by 3,000 VND per kilo compared to before the flooding. If the people use the relief money to buy 20 kilograms of rice they have to add 60,000 VND (3,000 VND x 20 kg). - Local Red Cross officers have experience about delivering relief but lack of experience in accountancy and book keeping. However, training provided did not focus on this capacity weakness. - Financial issues were not supervised at the same time that the relief programme was implemented. The requirements for missing or necessary accounting records and papers came 4-5 months later after the relief program was delivered. This put local Red- Cross staff in difficulties as the relief delivering program ended long time before and it was not easy to fulfil the requirement of providing missing documentation after such a long time. 4.3 Transparency Relief s Granting Procedures Procedures for selecting and granting the monetary relief in reality was as follows: - VNRC announced the monetary relief to the provincial Red Cross chapters. The Red Cross considered the relief s allocation according to the level of impact and financial reality of different places. Subsequently, it allocated specific relief amounts to district Red Cross. The district Red Cross then continued to allocate the amount to communes. The commune Red Cross (together with commune people committee) continued to allocate the amount to each village or hamlet. - Village leaders (including the party secretary, senior member ) provided the beneficiary list according to the guidelines of IFRC and VNRC. - Leaders organised hamlets meetings for local villagers to assess and got agreement. P a g e 11

12 - Lists of village households to receive the monetary relief then was transferred to the commune people committee for assessment, then to district Red Cross, provincial Red Cross and VNRC. - Money was transferred from VNRC to Red Cross at provincial, district and commune level to deliver to the approved lists. Through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, all participants said that it would be appropriate for them to receive cash support, due to the following reasons: - Households were ranked as poor - Most of the households in the village were damaged seriously by this flood, including them. Commune and village officials complained that there were many households eligible for cash support as per VNRC s guidelines butdid not receive any due to limited funding. Households in the list answered they did not receive the relief money and cases received the money but were not in the list 4.6% of interviewees said that their families did not receive the money from Red Cross and 3.2% did not answer this question or answered that they do not remember. The situation where interviewees said they did not receive anything from RC but were on the list, can be explained as follows: - They really did not receive anything from Red Cross. - They received money from Red Cross but didn t remember this - They received money from Red Cross but assumed that the money was from the State to support for the lunar New Year Tet or support from other sources. On the contract, there were households that received the money but their names were not in the list. The sequence of this situation is as below: - Initially, the local authorities made an initial list of households to receive relief from Red Cross. During the waiting time for Red Cross relief, there were other relief groups that came to support. Local authorities selected the households that would receive support from the initial list. Then the relief money from Red Cross arrived. Since households in the initial list already got support from other sources or groups, they would not receive support from Red Cross (they didn t receive the money but their names were in the list); and instead new households would receive Red Cross relief money (these households did receive the money but their names were not in the list). - These householdswere selected in surplus thanks to the practice of increasing the number of beneficiary households by reducing the amount of relief money received per household. Since this practice was not approved by IFRC and VNRC, local authorities did not put their names in the household list that was sent to VNRC. The situation of increasing beneficiary households by reducing the amount of relief money received per household P a g e 12

13 Even though the relief s guidelines mentioned clearly that it is absolute not to choose more beneficiaries by reducing the received relief money amount for each household, some local authorities still went against it. According to the relief delivery regulations, households with 4 or more members were to receive 800,000 VND and households with 1 to 3 members were to receive 400,000 VND. Due to this distribution, the group of households with 4 or more members were more disadvantaged. The reasons are as follows: - While only 34.1% of households with 4 or more members received the ratified relief amount (i.e. received 800,000 VND), far more households with 1 to 3 members (62.6%) received the ratified relief amount (i.e. received 400,000 VND). 58.5% of households with 4 or more members, in contrast to 9.8% of the households with 1 to 3 members, received less than the ratified relief amount. Only 2.9% of households with 4 or more members, in contrast to 26.2% of households with 1 to 3 members received more than the ratified relief amount.chart 3: Percentage of households received money compared with the ratified amount. On an average, every household with 4 or more members received 609,000 VND (lesser than the ratified amount of 800,000 VND). Every household with 1 to 3 members received on an average 458,000 VND (more than the ratified amount of 400,000 VND). Inspite of that, mode value showed that the number of households that received enough money (or the ratified relief amount) still accounted for a higher percentage than the others. The following table describes in detail the money amount received by each group of households. Table 3: Description of the money received by each group households with 4 members and above households with 1 to 3 members mean 609, ,000 minimum 60,000 80,000 maximum 2,700,000 1,600,000 P a g e 13

14 mode 800, ,000 There are two ways to legalize the receipts of the household to be submitted to IFRC and VNRC by local authorities when they applied the practice of increasing beneficiary households by reducing the amount of relief money allocated for each household: - Way 1: Local authorities distributed distributed the relief money equally among many households more than those on the list. Therefore, the listed households received a smaller amount than they would have otherwise received. The households signed receipts for the amount they actually received and they did not have to be persuaded to submit any money back. However the receipts that they signed were not accordant with VNRC regulations. Therefore, local authority officers had to issue another recepient list which showed that households received amounts of money according to the regulations, and they signed the receipts on behalf of each household. - Way 2: After households received the amount of money according to the regulations and signed the receipt, they submitted the money back to local authorities for a final redistribution so that all households got an equal share. This way was more convenient because households signed directly on the receipts that showed the amount ratified by regulations. Local authority officers did not have to generate a second set of receipts, unlike way 1. However, then local authorities had to persuade households to give back some of the money they first received so that it could be redistributed among others.. Re-distribution of fund granted Although 58.5% of households with > = 4 members received less money compared with the ratified amount, only 6.9% of these households said that they had submitted the money back after receiving it. This showed that the money that was received by most of the households with > = 4 members was cut down in advance, so that they were not required to return any amount back. Way 1 to legalize the receipts of households described above was applied wisely at local sites. Chart 4: Percentage of households with re-distribution of fund granted P a g e 14

15 Among the households that submitted the money back (Way 2) and still remember the submitted amount, the following points were noted: - Households with > = 4 members gave back 349,000 VND on an average - Households with 1 to 3 members gave back 281,000 VND on an average - Both groups of households gave back 327,000 VND on an average As gathered from the local people, the reasons to give back the money were: - To voluntarily share the money with more households - It is impossible to have an agreed upon list of households selected for receiving the support. Therefore, households must accept the way of equally sharing the money amount. - They did not know why they had to give back the money Local Red Cross officers and authorities explanation for for the redistribution of funds was as follos: - The local authorities directed local Red Cross officers and village leaders to share the total amount with several households, inkeeping with the spirit of together we share the misfortune and together we share the benefits. - There was a big need for support while the available relief amount was limited. Village meetings could not come up with a final beneficiary list - this meant it could not decide who would not receive the relief money. So they decided to share the amount equally. - According to the initial plan of the program, every household would receive 20kg of rice, equivalent to 250,000VND. Villages selected and voted for the list of households to receive rice. Then the program changed the form of relief to cash with a higher value and the number of beneficiary households would be less. But local authorities could not discard the previous voted household list to make a new one. Besides, this monitoring also recognised cases who answered that the amount of money their family received was less than the figure written in the list because of the following reasons: - The households forgot and did not say the exact money amount they received in reality. P a g e 15

16 - Members in the households who came to get the money could hide some money for personal purposes. 4.4 Management and experiences of the distribution Challenges noted in identifying beneficiary list - Some village meetings had difficulties in coming up with a beneficiary list that everyone agreed upon. So, households and village leaders had to compromise and share the amount equally so that everyone could receive the money, even though they knew that to do so was not inkeeping with VNRC s guidelines. - It was difficult to generate a beneficiary list that everyone agreed upon because of two major difficulties: The wide disparity in relief money for households with 3 members (400,000 VND) and households with 4 members (800,000 VND) Change of form of relief from 20 kg rice/household (equal 250,000VND) to cash amounts of 400,000 VND or 800,000 VND/household reduced the number of beneficiary households compared to the initial selected household list. - With a fixed amount of relief money allocation, for example 125 million VND/commune, local authorities found it difficult to do the calculations and decide how many households should receive 400,000 VND and how many should receive 800,000 VND. They, for instance, had to work out a math exercise of finding the number of households with 3 members and less and to receive 400,000 VND and the number of households with 4 members and above to receive 800,000 VND, at both the village and commune level, which must total up to the fixed amount of relief money allocated for the commune.. - Better-off households invested more in production, thus they lost more in flooding. However, they also recovered or settled down better thanks to having more money. So the relationship is that: Better-off households lost more in the flooding yet life after flooding is still better; while poorer household lost less in the flooding but after flooding life is more difficult. While choosing households to give supporting money, some local authorities had difficulties in selecting between two criteria: No. 1: living in difficult conditions (but less impacted by the flooding) No. 2: being impacted seriously in the flood (but currently is quite settled down) - Guidelines on selecting households for granting the support money also gave more priority to households that have not received significant support from Red Cross and/or other agencies. In reality, most of the poor households or much affected households already received a lot of support from programs by the government or other agencies. Households that have not received any support often are the better-off families or households with less financial difficulties. Some locals said that households with less financial difficulties are the households that need consolatory support in the postemergency period. Cash relief from Red Cross was required for such households in the post-emergency period. P a g e 16

17 - In some communes, it was noted that households having good living conditions and not seriously affected by the flood were still selected as beneficiaries and granted support. Some beneficiaries are family members or relatives of local officials. Similarly, some members of local Red Cross received priority as beneficiaries. The reason for this was that the members have been contributing to the local Red Cross fund on a monthly basis, therefore they are eligible and should have priority in receiving assistance from Red Cross, in particular, this grant in cash from IFRC. Challenges noted in distributing with ID card, Household Registration Book - The relief money was given on a priority basis to pregnant and lactating women, disabled persons, elders and sick people. These people had difficulty in travelling to collect the money. The VNRC s guidelines mentioned clearly that money can not be received on behalf of 2 However, the relief money invitation did not mention this matter. Therefore, in many cases people came to receive on behalf of the others. At that point, the relief group just skipped this regulation. - All financial documents relating to this distribution require ID card or Number of Household Registration Book to receive the grant. The regulation was omitted by some places. These communes explained that: These households were identified and approved immediately by village leaders at the venue. Therefore it was not necessary to show their IDs. Some households had lost all personal papers in flood and did not get new ones. - In most cases, numbers were collected and quoted in the Grant Notice or list of beneficiaries with signatures. However, Annex 0 Guidelines for distribution from VNRC, says that there was no requirement for beneficiaries to show their ID cards or Number of Household Registration Book when receiving money. In Annex 3 distribution monitoring, there is no criterion on beneficiaries showing ID card or Number of Household Registration Book. This explains why ID cards or Number of Household Registration Books are missing for some households. Signing upon receiving the money Guidelines from VNRC on the distribution are very detailed and easy to understand. Requirements on one way in one way out, venue, sound facilities, furniture, envelopes, slogan, were properly followed. However, as informed by local people, it was still possible for one person to sign on behalf of several households while this is not allowed. Most of the interviewees said that when they received the supporting money, they did sign the receipts. Detailed figures are presented in the following chart: Chart 5: Percentage of households signed upon receiving the money 2 Relatives or friends of the household owners could not receive on their behalf. An alternative was that Red Cross Volunteers to take the relief money to the beneficiary houses if they could not make their way to the venue for some special reasons, and the volunteers asked them to sign in the beneficiary name list (drawing from granting and delivering guidelines). P a g e 17

18 However, when signatures on the beneficiary list and monitoring questionnaires were compared, only 43.3% of the signatures matched. But several factors may have interfered with the signature matching process: - Data collectors were not professional signature identification experts - Local people do not always use signatures. Therefore one person can sign differently at different signing times, i.e. at the time of receiving the money and at the time of filling out the monitoring questionnaire. - The key beneficiaries whose names were in the list for some reasons could not go to get the money (sick, old, weak, busy etc.) and their family members (spouse, children, siblings etc.) went to take the money for them and signed under the beneficiaries names. - When the local authorities wanted to increase the number of beneficiary households by reducing the relief money, they let the beneficiaries sign receipts with the real money received But these receipts were not submitted to VNRC. The authorities made an additional copy of the receiptsigned on behalf of the official beneficial households and submitted to VNRC for official payment procedures. 5 Conclusion and Recommendations The relief money of IFRC and VNRC reached to the majority (92%) of the households in the list. This actually helped several households with very difficult situations in buying food and preparation for the Traditional Lunar New Year Tet. This relief program has been highly appreciated from both sides of the beneficiaries and implementing parties. Due to the fact that local authorities have challenges in selecting and assessing beneficiary households; and the thinking of levelling down everything of communities, there has been the situation of increasing beneficiary households by reducing relief money amount allocated per household. The disparity of beneficiaries signatures or amount of relief money they received was the consequence of the selection that was in-accordance to the guidelines. Financial documents are very important to prove the accuracy and transparency of the disbursement. However, the documentations that local VNRC submitted to IFRC are not sufficient. Information is still missing, most of those are ID or household record number. P a g e 18

19 Even IFRC provided quite detailed information on missing documentations, the team still hardly collected the missing ones due to limited time and human resources. The following recommendations are suggested to improve the future programs: 5.1 To collect missing documentations for the distribution - It is recommended that IFRC prepare a list of cases missing information on village basis and request the district and commune Red Cross to provide supplement information. - Additional information should be verified by provincial Red Cross before sending to VNRC and IFRC. 5.2 To improve future programs Designing the program structure - IFRC and VNRC should conduct a sample survey to understand better the needs of victims and quota for distribution before designing the norms, criteria for selection of beneficiaries and distribution method. This might help to avoid the re-allocation that had happened at all villages under this grant. - The program should be consistent with one relief format from the beginning till the end by either support with rice or cash support to avoid causing troubles for commune and village local authorities in selecting the beneficial households. This consistence also helps the relief program to be delivered quickly. - When changing from granting rice to cash, it should take in account the increase in price of food and daily necessities of the market after disasters. - The program should adjust the difference in relief support for households with 3 members and less and households with 4 members and above in a way that there should not be a big gap as the current amount (currently they are 400,000 VND and 800,000 VND respectively). Training, supporting and monitoring - The training for local officers needs to focus on guidance on the relief s delivering and receiving formats, papers and accountancy procedures of payment and balance sheet. - Technical supports on accountancy and finance of IFRC and VNRC for Red Cross at provincial, district and commune levels need to be conducted in parallel with the program implementing activities - Red Cross at provincial and district levels should increase monitoring at the program sites. Supervising the household selecting process to make sure they do not reduce the monetary relief amount per household to increase the beneficiary numbers. Supervising the delivering process to ensure that there is no case of receiving and signing the cash support on other s behalf. Transparency P a g e 19

20 - The minute of beneficiaries selected meeting should be signed by three persons: village leader, secretary and representative of the household that nominated by the household attending the meeting. The minutes including list of beneficiaries should be made right at the meeting and in three copies. One copy should be kept by the household representative to compare to the public ones. This will help to ensure fair selection of beneficiaries and accurate list of beneficiaries to what agreed upon at the meeting. - One action could be taken to avoid in-transparent activities from local authorities is to widely announce to the local people that they do not have to return any part of the support received, to anyone under obligation. - Hotline and of person in charge from IFRC, VNRC or provincial Red Cross chapters could be informed openly for people to inform any in-proper action from any party on the support received from IFRC or VNRC. - The program needs to strictly follow the regulation of receiving relief program that people need to have ID or Household Registration Book with them. In reality, there is very rare case where people do not have these either papers. - With cases where the person in the name list could not come to receive the relief money, the program should have a clear decision on either solution below: Volunteers to visit the house and deliver the relief directly at the beneficial house (according to the guidelines of IFRC and VNRC), or Their family s members have to show the required papers to receive the relief and the village s leaders to confirm this case with the relief implementing groups (the practical solution done by locals). Post distribution monitoring - The post distribution monitoring and evaluation should be added as a compulsory step in the chain of activities to ensure the quality of our program as well as to withdraw learn lessons in order to improve future activities. - Financial materials should be provided to team leader before the trip. This will allow the team leader to have sufficient time to study the documents and have better understanding on the situation at the places to be monitored. This will help to choose more suitable monitoring method and strategy for each site, leading to a better result of the monitoring. - Sample size, distances between monitoring sites, number of interviewers should be considered and adjusted to ensure the monitoring team would have enough time each day for day-end meeting and to regain health for next working day. P a g e 20