SomReP PERM Report 2022

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Inception Report - October 2022 Post Emergency Response Monitoring (PERM) Report DECEMBER 2022

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................... iv Acronyms..................................................................................................................................................... v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. vi 1 INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND.................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................1 1.2 SomReP program and drought response in Somalia..................................................................1 1.3 Objectives and Key Questions.....................................................................................................3 2 METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 PERM study design .....................................................................................................................4 2.2 Sample frame ..............................................................................................................................5 2.3 Sample size calculation for household survey.............................................................................5 2.4 Sample size for qualitative data...................................................................................................7 2.5 Data collection Methods ..............................................................................................................7 2.5.1 Beneficiary Household Survey ................................................................................................7 2.5.2 Focus group discussions.........................................................................................................8 2.5.3 Key Informants Interview.........................................................................................................8 2.5.4 Case study...............................................................................................................................8 2.6 Data management and analysis ..................................................................................................9 2.7 Data Quality Assurance ...............................................................................................................9 3 Findings............................................................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Household demographic characteristics......................................................................................9 3.1.1 Household size........................................................................................................................9 3.1.2 Household residential status .................................................................................................11 3.1.3 Household members’ disability status ...................................................................................13 3.2 Community mobilization for the response interventions ............................................................15 3.3 Performance of targeting implementation: eligibility and selection............................................18 3.4 Implementation of cash transfer interventions...........................................................................22 3.5 Accessibility, safety, and treatment of the cash beneficiaries ...................................................23 3.6 Complaint, Feedback, and Response Mechanism (CFRM)......................................................24 3.7 Cash beneficiaries’ consumption and expenditure choices.......................................................26 3.8 Coping mechanisms when the cash support was inadequate ..................................................29 3.9 Impact of drought response interventions on local markets and beneficiaries..........................30 3.10 Impact of the drought response interventions on household livelihood strategy dynamics ......32 3.11 Impact of drought response on household food security...........................................................34 3.11.1 Food Consumption Score .................................................................................................34 3.4.1 Household hunger score .......................................................................................................37 3.4.2 Reduced Coping Strategies Index.........................................................................................39 4 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 41 5 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................... 42

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 List of Figures Figure 1: SOMREP coverage map..........................................................................................................3 Figure 2: Residential status disaggregated by livelihood zones.......................................................12 Figure 3: Reported disabilities in male and female headed households.........................................14 Figure 4: Diagrammatic presentation of inclusion and exclusion errors..........................................19 Figure 5: Coping strategies that were adopted by cash beneficiaries when the cash runout before next disbursement .......................................................................................................................30 Figure 6: Change in prices of goods before and after the drought response interventions..........31 Figure 7: Proportion of households who reported the intervention met their basic needs............32 List of Tables Table 1: Beneficiary households sampled.................................................................................. 6 Table 2: Average household size ..............................................................................................10 Table 3: Residential status of the sampled households.............................................................12 Table 4: Proportion of households who reported to have a member within the household with disability....................................................................................................................................14 Table 5: Household knowledge of and involvement in drought response interventions .............16 Table 6: Beneficiary entitlements and satisfaction with services................................................17 Table 7: Parameters that were considered for inclusion criteria ................................................18 Table 8: Households who indicated that Household who did not meet the criteria were included .................................................................................................................................................20 Table 9: Cash entitlements, delivery methods and frequency of cash support .........................22 Table 10: Safety and accessibility drought response services...................................................24 Table 11: Utilization of the Complaint, Feedback, and response Mechnism ..............................24 Table 12: Use of the cash that was received through conditional and unconditional cash transfer .................................................................................................................................................26 Table 13: Average amount spent ..............................................................................................27 Table 14: Adequacy of support and duration the cash lasted ....................................................28 Table 15: Livelihood Strategy Transitional Matrix ......................................................................33 Table 16: Household food consumption scores by gender, livelihood zone and intervention type .................................................................................................................................................35 Table 17: Food consumption scores disaggregated at district level...........................................36 Table 18: Household hunger scale by gender, livelihood zone, and intervention type ...............37 Table 19: Household hunger scale disaggregated at district level .............................................38 Table 20: Reduced coping strategy index by gender, livelihood zone, and intervention type.....39 Table 21: Reduce coping strategy index (rCSI).........................................................................40

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 Acknowledgements This report has been made possible with funding from EU, SIDA and SDC. Vison Quest would wish to extend its heartfelt appreciation to SomReP Consortium Technical Unit (CTU) for its guidance and technical support throughout the process of conducting the post-emergency monitoring (PERM). Vision Quest would also like to thank SomReP partners for the roles they played in coordinating the data collection exercise and providing valuable information towards the process that were undertaken before, during, after the implementation of drought response interventions. We would also like to thank all the beneficiaries for voluntarily deciding to participate in this study; without which, this research would not have been possible. Finally, Vision Quest would like to extend its regards to the enumerators who were involved in data collection and all the other stakeholders who shared their views.

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 Acronyms CMU : Cash Management Unit CT : Cash Transfer CTP : Cash Transfer Program FEWS NET : Famine Early Warning System Network FSNAU : Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit FGD : Focus Group Discussion KII : Key Informant Interview PERM : Post Emergency Response Monitoring SDC : Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SIDA : Swedish International Development Cooperation SOMREP : Somalia Resilience Program UCT : Unconditional Cash Transfer UN : United Nations

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY From 2020 to present, Somalia has continued to experience prolonged multi-season drought, which has caused increased water and food shortages across Somalia and led to increases in water and staple food prices in some regions of the country. The prolonged devastating drought contributed not just to loss of livestock, displacement of people, and malnutrition in many parts of Somalia but it also led to outbreaks of diarrhoea. The number of children receiving treatment for the most dangerous form of malnutrition surged 300% in Somalia in the first six months of 2022 as the worst drought in years tightened its grip on the country. From 2022 to June 2023 acute malnutrition burden is estimated at approximately 1.8 million children under the age of five years (total acute malnutrition burden), representing 54.5 percent of the total population of children, face acute malnutrition through the mid-2023, including 513, 550 who are likely to be severely malnourished. The current worst affected regions include Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Lower Juba, Galgadud, Mudug and parts of Bari, Nugaal, Sool, Sanaag, Togdheer, and Hiraan regions. In response to the current persistent and prolonged drought that has troubled Somalia since last year, SomReP deployed 707,000 USD from crisis modifier to support 3,142 households through its partners (ACF, ADRA, CARE, COOPI, WV, OXFAM and DRC) in twelve worst hit districts namely, Afgooye, Badhan, Baidoa, Bosasso, Ceel Afweyne, Doolow, Eyl, Laas Canood, Lughaye, Salahley, and Xudur. The drought (emergency) response was anchored by SomReP’s Early Warning Early Action System which places emphasis on the need to respond to changing conditions, timely and strategically, in key sectors or pillars which supports the local economy and society to protect resilience gains. While the unconditional cash transfer interventions were implemented in all the districts except Badhan, cash for work interventions were only implemented in five districts: Badhan, Bosasso, Burco, Baidoa, and Doolow. Water trucking interventions on the other hand were implemented in five districts namely, Baidoa, Burco, Eyl, Odweyne, and Xudur. Although the outreach animal health interventions were planned to be implemented in Ceel Afweyne and Xudur districts, the interventions were only implemented in Xudur district because in Ceel Afweyne many livestock died as such the UCT was implemented instead. The main objective of the post emergency response monitoring was to determine the effectiveness and relevance of the emergency response interventions that were implemented and to identify successes and shortcomings in implementation process to inform further improvements in future programing. The study adopted a cross-sectional study that drew a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data was collected using a household survey questionnaire which was uploaded on Kobo Tool Box server. Qualitative data was collected using key informant (KII) and focus group discussions (FGD) checklists. A total of 1,388 beneficiary households were sampled using simple random technique to participate in the household survey. Community governance structures in the sampled villages such as the village development committees, water committees, natural resource management committees, among other participated in the FGDs. Traditional leader, project partner staff and government representatives participated in key informant interviews.

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 The findings of the PERM show that while all the beneficiaries were informed of the nature of the interventions that were to be implemented, only 61% indicated that they were involved in the selection of the nature of interventions to be implemented in their areas. FGDs and KIIS revealed that involvement of the beneficiaries was mainly through the community governance structures such as village development committees, early warning early action committees, and local leaders. It was further observed that for other partners, they could not indicate the linkage between the response interventions and community plans but rather they were very explicit on how the selected interventions were linked to the government drought response interventions. This somehow imply that there is disjoint or lack of coherence in understanding of how community plans link to national plans among partners and it is important that such linkage and alignment is made clear so that SomReP can leverage its resources to enhance community voice in the national development agenda through implementation of the activities in community plans. This is particularly important for SomReP to achieve strategic objective four in the strategy which focuses on “transparent and accountable governance structures at the community, district and national levels to ensure an enabling policy and regulatory environment for sustainable livelihoods and economic growth to enhance food security and resilience”. The results further show that about 94% of the targeted households reported that they were informed of the duration and frequency of support prior to implementation of drought response interventions. It was further observed that 91.2% of targeted beneficiaries indicated that they were informed of the beneficiary selection criteria. The findings also show that 85% of the beneficiaries were informed about their entitlements prior to implementation of response interventions and of these, 97% confirmed that the cash amount they received matched with the cash entitlement they were told at the beginning. From these results it was evident that community mobilization was effective in creating awareness of the drought response activities that were implemented. Both key informant interviews and focus group discussions revealed that selection of beneficiaries was done by community governance structures. One important observation that was noted was that despite the criteria for inclusion being clearly known to the community governance structures, household survey beneficiaries (59.1%) indicated that they knew some deserving households who were excluded from the drought response interventions. The findings further revealed that 53.5% of the beneficiary households reported that they knew of none (not) deserving households that were included in the program and the proportion of households reporting this was high among cash transfer beneficiaries (UCT =56.2%; CCT=53.7%) and low among water trucking and outreach animal health beneficiaries. These results suggest that while there was effort from SomReP to include the most vulnerable, which indeed happened to some degree as evidenced by the proportion of household with members living with disabilities that were included in the program, and the proportion of internally displaced people that were also included in the program, some most deserving households were excluded, and some none deserving households were included in the program. Regarding the use of the cash that was provided, (99%) of the cash beneficiary households indicated that they spent the money on food, while only 51% and 54% beneficiaries indicated that they spent the cash they received on child education and family health respectively. The findings further revealed that for some households (41%), the cash that they received did not last for a month as expected for the household to receive the next cash disbursement.

SomReP Post Emergency Response Monitoring Draft Report - December 2022 A livelihood transitional matrix analysis showed that most households exhibited little mobility among livelihood strategies before and after the SomReP drought response interventions with only 22% of households showing they had switched strategies. These results suggest that the interventions not only helped the households to maintain their livelihood but also helped a selected few to graduate to other more rewarding and stable strategies such as self-employment which is relatively less sensitive to drought effects. Finally, the impact of drought response interventions on food security was measured through the Food Consumption Score (FCS); the Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI); and the Household Hunger Scale (HHS). Compared to previous years, the FCS after the response interventions improved significantly from 44.9% in 2020 to 50.4% in 2021 and then to 83.1% during the PERM. Likewise, while the proportion of targeted households with little to no hunger decreased from 73.2% in 2020 to 69.6% in 2021 and to 61.0% in 2022, the proportion of households with low coping strategy index increased from 11.7% in 2020 to 15.6% in 2021 and 70.9% during the time of the PERM. The significant improvement in both the FCS and rCSI can be attributed to the project drought response interventions which cushioned the households from engaging in dangerous coping strategies. This was also evident in how household livelihood strategies before and after response interventions as demonstrated under section 3.10 as it was observed that most households had moved from relying on casual labor to relying on self-employment.

1 1 INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Introduction From 2020 to present, Somalia has continued to experience prolonged multi-season drought, which has caused increased water and food shortages across Somalia. The situation started to take a worrisome turn between December 2021 and February 2022 when many parts of Somalia experienced devastating droughts resulting in acute water and food shortages which consequently led to increases in food and water prices. In some regions, water and staple food prices increased by 140% to 160% above the five-year average in February 2022, rivalling those recorded during the 2010-2011 and 2016-2017 droughts (FEWS Net Somalia February to September 2022). The prolonged devastating droughts contributed not just to loss of livestock sectors, displacement of people, and malnutrition in many parts of Somalia but it also led to outbreaks of diarrhoea. The number of children receiving treatment for the most dangerous form of malnutrition surged 300% in Somalia in the first six months of 2022 as the worst drought in years tightened its grip on the country1 . Total acute malnutrition burden for Somalia from July 2022 to June 2023 is estimated at approximately 1.8 million children under the age of five years (total acute malnutrition burden), representing 54.5 percent of the total population of children, face acute malnutrition through the mid-2023, including 513 550 who are likely to be severely malnourished. As at March 2022, more than 1.4 million of under-five children (44%) were expected to be malnourished, and 329,500 were expected to be severe malnourished. According to FSNAU nutrition update report of October 2022, the number of population groups recording Critical GAM (15-29.9%) increased from 4 in 2021 Gu and 11 in 2021 Deyr to 15 in 2022 Gu2 . The median SAM prevalence also worsened from 1.5% in 2021 Gu and 2.1% in 2021 Deyr to 3.1% in 2022 Gu3 . Between October and December 2022, an estimated 5.6 million people were still experiencing Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or higher) outcomes, including 214,000 people were estimated to be in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5), meaning they had not received sufficient food assistance to prevent food consumption gaps. While the level of food assistance had scaled up since July and are expected to continue at high levels through March 2023, the number of people supported with food assistance will steeply decline by around 60-80 percent between April and June 2023. From 2022 to June 2023 acute malnutrition burden is estimated at approximately 1.8 million children under the age of five years (total acute malnutrition burden), representing 54.5 percent of the total population of children, face acute malnutrition through the mid-2023, including 513, 550 who are likely to be severely malnourished.The current worst affected regions include Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Lower Juba, Galgadud, Mudug and parts of Bari, Nugaal, Sool, Sanaag, Togdheer, and Hiraan regions (UNICEF, 10 Dec 2021). 1.2 SomReP program and drought response in Somalia SomReP projects mainly focus on building the resilience of chronically vulnerable people, households (HHS), communities, and systems in targeted pastoral, agro-pastoral, and peri-urban livelihood zones by improving absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and transformative 1 https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/somalia-severe-malnutrition-among-children-soars-300-january 2 https://fsnau.org/downloads/FSNAU-Nutrition-Update-October-2022.pdf 3 Ibid

2 capacities. In case of persistent shocks, the consolidated resilience gains can be easily lost if no additional support is provided to households and communities. SomReP therefore maintains a flexible pool fund which is utilized to support vulnerable households and communities whose capacities to respond to the magnitude of a crisis are overwhelmed. However in the face of large scale and persistent shocks like the current drought in Somalia, SomReP contingency fund is insufficient on its own to enable the program adequately support the beneficiaries as such SomReP mobilizes the additional resources externally. In response to the current persistent and prolonged drought that has troubled Somalia since last year, SomReP deployed 707,000 USD4 from crisis modifier to support 3,142 households through its partners (ACF, ADRA, CARE, COOPI, WV, OXFAM and DRC) in twelve worst hit districts namely, Afgooye, Badhan, Baidoa, Bosasso, Ceel Afweyne, Doolow, Eyl, Laas Canood, Lughaye, Salahley, and Xudur (see figure 1). The drought (emergency) response that SomReP undertook was anchored by SomReP’s Early Warning Early Action System which places emphasis on the need to respond to changing conditions, timely and strategically, in key sectors or pillars which supports the local economy and society to protect resilience gains. The key interventions that were implemented during the emergency response included: cash transfers (conditional and unconditional), rehabilitation of water infrastructure, and outreach veterinary services5 . While the unconditional cash transfer interventions were implemented in all the districts except Badhan, cash for work interventions were only implemented in five districts: Badhan, Bosasso, Burco, Baidoa, and Doolow. Water trucking interventions on the other hand were implemented in five districts namely, Baidoa, Burco, Eyl, Odweyne, and Xudur. Although the outreach animal health interventions were planned to be implemented in Ceel Afweyne and Xudur districts, the interventions were only implemented in Xudur district because in Ceel Afweyne many livestock died as such the UCT was implemented instead. 4 200,000 USD for EU cash transfer, 247,000USD from SIDA, and 260,00USD from SDC. 5 SomReP Drought Response Concept Note, March 2022.

3 Figure 1: SOMREP coverage map 1.3 Objectives and Key Questions The main objective of the PERM was to determine the effectiveness and relevance of the emergency response interventions implemented and to identify success and shortcomings in implementation process to inform improvement in programing. The PERM aimed to specifically address the following objectives: 1. Establish whether the agreed amount of cash (be for UCT or CT) were received by the intended beneficiaries and establish whether diversion of cash or its re-distribution took place. a. Was cash received by the intended beneficiaries? b. Were there cases of cash diversion or re-distribution? c. Were there any complaints by beneficiaries on the whole CTP? 2. Establish whether the emergency response interventions (including the cash payments) were the most appropriate type of assistance and whether alternative set of emergency response interventions should have been implemented. a. Was the cash received adequate for the intended use as planned in the programme design? b. Was the cash received used for the intended purpose as stipulated in the programme?

4 c. Were cash and other interventions implemented preferred interventions by the beneficiaries? If not, what are the preferred interventions? 3. Identify strengths and weaknesses of the current approaches and accountability feedback mechanisms utilized to deliver the emergency response interventions visa-vis other forms of delivering the same. a. Were the beneficiaries provided accurate and timely information b. How long did it take for the beneficiaries to receive the cash (how long did they queue? Were the cash readily available)? c. How well did SomReP CMU and SomReP partners coordinated with other service providers such as government departments, UN agencies, and other international and local non-governmental organizations in the targeted locations to ensure effective and efficient utilization of resources and most importantly to minimize duplication of efforts? d. How well was the whole cash transfer process organized? 4. To assess the impact of the response interventions and establish whether the post emergency response interventions created any protection risks for the beneficiaries before, during and after the implementation. a. Did the response interventions help beneficiaries to positively cope and enable them to engage in recovery measures? b. Did the response interventions had any significant effect on socio economic wellbeing of the targeted communities beyond the intended beneficiaries (did the interventions such as cash transfers had any effect on intra and inter community and household relationships, basic goods prices, and wage rates, among others? c. Were there any cases of sexual exploitation and abuse or other breaches of humanitarian code of conduct? 2 METHODOLOGY 2.1 PERM study design The study adopted a cross-section design and used mixed methods approach for data collection involving both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. Quantitative data were collected at household level targeting beneficiary households while qualitative data were collected at community level. A household beneficiary survey was used to collect data at household level while focus group discussions, key informant interviews were used to collect data at community level. Most significant change (success stories) were documented through the in depth interviews with selected beneficiaries. Understanding that response interventions targeted households with multiple and different vulnerabilities, inclusive, gender sensitive, and participatory research methodologies were adopted to ensure that the voices of the marginalized groups were heard and issues, challenges, and success that were encountered during implementation of the response interventions were established, documented and become a part of learning repository for future programing and improvement in quality delivery of services. The PERM therefore apart from targeting households

5 and community members, involved a broad range of partners and stakeholders at different levels of implementation in the target locations. These stakeholders were paramount to providing insights and information regarding the interaction between policy framework and contextual factors and how these changing dynamics affected the delivery and effectiveness of response interventions. 2.2 Sample frame The sampling frame comprised of programme beneficiaries and community governance structures from the SomReP drought response targeted districts. The sample frame further included, consortium management unit staff, consortium partner staff, and other strategic partners such as INGO and government staff members that coordinated with SomReP in delivery of its response interventions. 2.3 Sample size calculation for household survey The following sample size calculation formula, adapted from Chow, Shaw and Wary (2003)6 was used to estimate the number of households to be interviewed in the study: = (1 − ) 2 ⁄ 2 2 Where: • is the total sample size • is the proportion of households that benefitted from the drought response project. • According to project design document, a total of 33% of households in SomReP implementation areas were targeted. As the drought continue to impact more households, we expect that more beneficiaries will be included. Thus, conservatively a proportion () of 0.05 was chosen. • is the significance level of the study set at 5% • is the margin of error in the study, set at 5% in the study. This formula yields a sample size of: = 0.5 × 0.5 × (1.96) 2 (0.05) 2 = 384.16 ≅ 385 The sample size was adjusted for loss of information of 15% due to any reasons such as refusals and duplications using the formula: ′ = 1 − Where: • is the old sample size 6 Chow, S., Shao, J., & Wang, H. Sample size calculations in clinical research. New York: Marcel Dekker. 2003, p14- p15

6 • ′ is the inflated sample size is the loss of information rate. We therefore estimated a 10% refusal rate in the study. Furthermore, we estimated that at most 5% of the collected data would be duplications. Therefore, 15% was the estimated . The adjusted sample size was therefore: ′ = 385 1 − 0.15 = 452.9 ≅ 453 Most population-based surveys use a design effect of between 2 and 47,8 . Our sample size was therefore adjusted by a design effect of the cluster sampling of 3. To get the desired level of precision across the different clusters in the study, the sample size was adjusted using a design effect of 3 as follows: ′′ = ′ × = 3 × 453 = 1359 A total of 1388 households were sampled using the probability proportionate to size (PPS) as shown in Error! Reference source not found.1. At district level, cluster level sampling technique was used to select villages (the primary sampling units). At village level, households (the basic sampling units) were randomly pre-selected from a master list of all beneficiaries. In the event where the household was not available at the time of interview either due to permanent relocation or other reasons, a replacement was identified by randomly selecting another household from the master list not selected in the first sample9 in the same geographic location. Table 1: Beneficiary households sampled District Female Male Total Afgooye 53 (70%) 23 (30%) 76 Badhan 13 (65%) 7 (35%) 20 Baidoa 147 (64% 83 (36%) 230 Bosasso 8 (29%) 20 (71%) 28 Burco 5 (15%) 28 (85%) 33 Ceel Afwyne 103 (69%) 47 (31%) 150 7 WHO/UNAIDS, 2005. Guidelines for measuring national HIV prevalence in population-based surveys. http://data.unaids.org/pub/manual/2005/20050101_gs_guidemeasuringpopulation_en.pdf 8 WHO. Assessing TB prevalence through population-based surveys. http://iris.wpro.who.int/handle/10665.1/5408 9 Good, P. I. (2006). Resampling methods: A practical guide to data analysis. Springer Science & Business Media.

7 Doolow 105 (51%) 102 (49%) 207 Eyl 89 (51%) 86 (49%) 175 Laas Caanod 65 (60%) 43 (40%) 108 Lughaye 53 (62%) 33 (38%) 86 Odweyne 14 (40%) 21 (60%0 35 Salahley 57 (50%) 58(50%) 115 Xudur 75 (60%) 50 (40%) 125 Total 787 601 1,388 2.4 Sample size for qualitative data A purposive sampling technique was used to sample stakeholders to participate in the focus group discussions, key informant interviews and in-depth interviews. To ensure efficiency in resource use and triangulation findings, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted in the same villages where household survey was done. 2.5 Data collection Methods The data for the PERM were collected using a mixed methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Quantitative data was collected primarily through a household survey. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with households using the structured questionnaire that was uploaded on Kobo Toolbox. Qualitative data was collected using focus group discussions, key informant interviews. Key informant in-depth interviews were conducted with selected beneficiaries to collect data for case study documentation. 2.5.1 Beneficiary Household Survey Household survey was conducted through face-to face interviews with sampled beneficiary households to gather idiosyncratic information related to the drought response interventions which among others included the type of support the beneficiary received, the frequency of support and quantity, duration of support. In addition, the household questionnaire also captured process and implementation challenges experienced before, during, and after implementation and how the drought recovery response helped the households to mitigate the impact of the prolonged drought. The Questionnaire was uploaded on Kobo server which ensured real time data collection and quality checks. Vision Quest utilized a pool of enumerators it has from its roaster who reside in the study areas to collect data and who have worked on a number of similar assignments in Somalia. This was important because first, the enumerators are very conversant with the context as they are residents in the study areas and therefore can access the very hard to reach areas. Secondly, these enumerators did not need intensive trainings as they were already subjected to several trainings on data collection and research ethics due to their involvement in other similar assignments conducted by Vision Quest.

8 2.5.2 Focus group discussions The focus group discussions were conducted with drought response beneficiaries, Early Warning/Early Action committees, Natural Resource Management Committees, Water Infrastructure Management committees, among others, to gather community related information regarding the drought response interventions. Some of the information that were collected through the FGDs included but not limited to: drought response community mobilization and engagement around the response, targeting process (i.e. inclusion and exclusion criteria) that was used for the response, impact of the response interventions on individual beneficiaries and community members at large, and for conditional cash transfer (CCT) projects, Vision Quest gathered data to establish whether the cash for work projects were concluded and whether the projects were concluded on time according to plan. The FGDs were done with groups comprising of 6-8 participants with strict adherence to the COVID-19 protocols. Vision Quest ensured that there was inclusive participation of both men and women, and where possible, people with disabilities were included. In some cases depending the nature of the topic under discussion, like when discussing protection issues including issues of sexual harassment, women and men were separated into different groups to ensure that both groups were accorded safe spaces to voice out their concerns freely. Vision Quest plans deliberately used women in conducting FGDs with women groups and men in conducting FGDs with men groups. This was appropriate and important based on Vision Quest’s cultural and contextual understanding of the project study areas and Somalia in general. Data from the FGDs were recorded in the notebooks, and later transferred to computers where it was analysed and the results from qualitative data were triangulated with results from household survey. 2.5.3 Key Informants Interview KIIs were conducted to gather drought response information from selected key stakeholders with expert knowledge including SomReP implementing partners’ project staff and collaborators. The nature of information that were collected from KIIs with SomReP staff and partners included but not limited to: drought response planning and community mobilization, targeting process, implementation and coordination with other response actors such as INGOs, UN agents, government departments, and SomReP established community structures such as the early warning committees, natural resource management committees, water management committees, and the village development committees, among others. Besides, the stakeholders were also asked to weigh in on the impacts of the drought response interventions on the community at large. The KIIs with government departments and other local and international nongovernmental issues were done to gather information on overall coordination regarding the drought response and overarching challenges that were counted during the response. This was particularly important to identify areas that require improvement in future responses. 2.5.4 Case study Vision Quest conducted in-depth interviews with project beneficiaries to further understand the targeting process and the implications for the marginalized groups. The case study documentation also covered the quality delivery of services and most importantly the impact of the response on household’s idiosyncratic ability to mitigate against drought impacts. The success story which is provided as annex 2 is produced in line with SomReP theory of change regarding response to shocks.

9 2.6 Data management and analysis Quantitative data from household survey were submitted to kobo servers, then downloaded in XLS format and exported to STATA using the kobo2stata syntax. STATA syntax for detecting outliers and checking data quality such as inspect, sum, frequency, extremes, scatter and box plot, among others were used to clean the data sets before conducting data analysis. Data analysis was mainly descriptive in nature focusing on the following statistics: frequencies, means, median, standard deviations, and percentiles, among others. Qualitative data (from KII, FGDs and case studies) was analysed using content analysis. Thus specific themes were identified and findings were collated with household survey findings for triangulation. Verbatim quotations from qualitative data were extracted to justify and augment key findings as extrapolated from the qualitative plan. 2.7 Data Quality Assurance To ensure data quality assurance throughout the PERM process starting from at the stage of inception report, Vision Quest ensured full involvement of SomReP leads to get their feedback. At data collection stage, Vision Quest ensured that household survey tools were uploaded in Kobo Toolbox and validation controls and skip logics were provided to minimize obvious errors and inconsistencies that happen at data collection. Vison Quest also ensured that prior to data collection, training was provided to data collectors and supervisors on the content, objective and methods of data collection and interviewing techniques. The data collection tools were also translated from English language to local language (Somali) to ensure enumerators were able to ask the questions in appropriate way and respondents were able to respond to questions in the language they were very comfortable with. In addition, data on tablets and Kobo server were secured with hard to crack passwords and every effort was made to avoid data manipulation at any point. The supervision team conducted regularly checks on the data collected and uploaded to Kobo Server and ensured that constructive feedback was provided to data collectors to make necessary improvements where appropriate. For qualitative data, a highly trained and experienced team of enumerators was hired to conduct FGDs and KIIs. The enumerators were closely monitored and supported by the consultant to ensure the interviews were done professionally and reliable data were collected. The findings from qualitative survey were triangulated with household survey data to ensure quality reporting. 3 Findings 3.1 Household demographic characteristics 3.1.1 Household size The results of PERM (table 2) show that the average household size for the drought response interventions targeted beneficiaries was 6.6 and the household size ranged from 1 to 16. The average household size was higher than the national average household size which is currently pegged at 610 . There was no statistical significant differences) in average household sizes between female headed households and male headed households (female headed household size =6.63; female headed household size =6.64; Pr(|T| > |t|) = 0.9632). The IDP households had the highest average household size (8.4), followed by the host households (6.57), but the average 10 Population Estimation Survey of Somalia 2014

10 household sizes were not statistically significant. The results further revealed that households with a member with disability had a relatively higher household size (7.0) than households without a member with disability (6.6) and the differences in average household sizes were statistically different at 5% level of significance (Pr(T < t) = 0.0079). At livelihood zone level, fisher folk community had the highest average household size (7.8), followed by peri-urban community (7.5), then agro-pastoral community (7.1) and finally, pastoral community (6.1). At district level, the results show that Salahley, Baidoa and Laas Caanod had the high average household sizes while Bosasso and Eyl had the low average household sizes. While a big household size can be considered as a human resource asset in generating income and building social networks which are both an important aspect for resilience building, for the vulnerable households and more so in situations where the economy is shrinking and limited opportunities for employment exit, the big household size can have less beneficial effects. It can be challenging to mobilize resources to meet the basic needs of households, even where external support is provided such as cash transfers or food, the support may not last long as expected. Mavis Dako-Gyeke11 found out that the caregivers with big household sizes were spending a greater part of the cash transfer on food items due to the large number of children in their households and the cash was used up during the first week before the next disbursement which occurred every 2 months. The households reported that afterwards, it was difficult providing enough food for the children in their respective households as the cash transfer could not sustain the households till the next payment even if they attempted to reduce the number of meals from three to two per day. Another study that was done in Malawi and Kenya12 reached a similar conclusion; the study concluded that cash transfers (which are in principle flat across household size) have a positive and significant impact for smaller households (1-4 members) than bigger households. It was observed in the study that smaller households were able not just to increase dietary diversity but also to acquire durable goods such as bedsheets, blankets and mosquito nets as well as radio and toilets. In case of Somalia and at the time of when the country was facing persistent and prolonged drought countrywide, coupled with global economic challenges propelled by Russia, a big household size can subject a household head to an enormous pressure to mobilize food and other resources despite the SomReP drought response interventions. Table 2: Average household size District Mean age Standard deviation Sample size Afgooye 6.4 2.15 76 Badhan 6.7 2.03 20 Baidoa 7.8 5.31 230 Bosasso 5.9 10.48 28 11 Mavis Dako-Gyeke (2013) Effects of Household Size on Cash Transfer Utilization for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Rural Ghana. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies: Vol 2 No 1: Page 239-251. 12 Alberto Zezza , Bénédicte de la Brière and Benjamin Davis (2010) The impact of social cash transfers on household economic decision making and development in Eastern and Southern Africa. AEC 2010 - The Impact of Social Cash Transfers on Household Economic Decision Making and Development in Eastern and Southern Africa (uneca.org)

11 Burco 6.9 3.20 33 Ceel Afwyne 6.0 2.13 150 Doolow 7.0 2.57 207 Eyl 4.6 2.64 175 Laas Caanod 7.4 3.48 108 Lughaye 4.8 1.67 86 Odweyne 6.7 1.87 35 Salahley 8.1 2.81 115 Xudur 6.9 2.24 125 Total 6.6 3.68 1,388 3.1.2 Household residential status According to UNDP13, 20% of the Somali population are IDPs. There are more than 836,300 Somali refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, more than 33,600 refugees and asylum seekers inside the country14. The results of PERM show that the majority of the beneficiary households were from host communities (74.9%) while IDPs households accounted for only 24.3%. Very few beneficiary households were refugees (0.8%). The proportion of IDP households were higher among the female headed households (28%) than among the male headed households (20%). All the refugee beneficiary households were male headed and accounted for 10% of the total sampled male headed households. The results (figure 2) further show that fisher folk community had the highest number of IDP beneficiary households (56%), followed by peri-urban communities (50%), then pastoral community 33.4% and last, was agro-pastoral community (6%). These results suggest that most IDPs are located in fisher folk and peri-urban communities. 13 INNOVATIVE DURABLE SOLUTIONS FOR IDPS AND RETURNEES | United Nations Development Programme (undp.org) 14 Somalia Refugee Crisis Explained (unrefugees.org)

12 Figure 2: Residential status disaggregated by livelihood zones Across the target districts sampled, Ceel Afwyne had the highest number of IDP beneficiary households (89% of the total sample in the district) while Badhan, Bosasso, Doolow, LAas Caanod, and Eyl had the least number of IDP beneficiary households (table 3). According to UNCHR15, most IDPs in Somalia are located in informal sites in urban and peri-urban locations. The IDPs along with the refugees remain some of the most vulnerable groups in Somalia. They frequently live in undignified and hazardous circumstances, and face multiple protection risks/threats such as, unlawful evictions, overcrowded and unsanitary environments with limited access to basic services, exposure to explosive hazards, increased risk of Gender Based Violence (GBV), negative coping mechanisms such as child marriage and child labor, and tension with the host community16. Their inclusion in the program therefore is appropriate and represents some of level of effort from SomReP to ensure that marginalized and vulnerable groups are included in not just the consortium interventions but also drought response interventions. Table 3: Residential status of the sampled households District IDP Refugee Host Total Afgooye 10 (13.2%) 0 (0.0%) 66 (86.8%) 76 Badhan 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 20 (100%) 20 Baidoa 57 (27.3%) 0 (0.0%) 152 (72.7%) 209 Bosasso 17 (60.7%) 9 (32.1%) 2 (7.1%) 28 15 UN High Commissioner for Refugees | ReliefWeb 16 Ibid 31% 3% 56% 33% 51% 24% 10% 0% 0% 0% 2% 1% 58% 96% 44% 67% 47% 75% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120% Agro Pagro-pastoral Fisher folk Pastoral Peri-urban All IDP Refugee Host n=48 n=473 n=16 n=662 n=116 N=1315

13 Burco 0 (0.0%) 0 (0.0%) 33 (100%) 33 Ceel Afwyne 133 (88.7%) 0 (0.0%) 17 (11.3%) 150 Doolow 2 (1.3%) 0 (0.0%) 155 (98.7%) 157 Eyl 4 (2.3%) 0 (0.0%) 170 (97.7%) 174 Laas Caanod 2 (1.9%) 0 (0.0%) 106 (98.1%) 108 Lughaye 19 (22.1%) 0 (0.0%) 67 (77.9%) 86 Odweyne 11 (31.4%) 0 (0.0%) 68.6%) 35 Salahley 29 (25.4%) 1 (0.9%) 84 (73.7%0 114 Xudur 36 (28.8%) 0 (0.0%) 89 (71.2%) 125 Total 320 (24.3%) 10 (0.8%) 985 (74.9%) 1,315 3.1.3 Household members’ disability status The results of the PERM (figure 3) show that 15.3% of beneficiary households (female headed =14.7%; male headed 16.0%) had a member in their household living with a disability. However estimates from other studies suggest that the proportion of households living with members with disability is likely to be higher in Somalia than the global estimate of 15% as a result of the long period of conflict, poverty, and lack of access to health care. A study that was done in 2012 in Somaliland for example reported that 42% of households had at least one member with a disability17 . The results further show that female headed households reported hearing impairment and mental disability as the common disabilities members of their households had while male headed households cited visual impairment as the common disability the member in their household had (figure 3). There is however no significant difference in proportion of female and male headed households reporting that they had a member with physical disability in their households. 17 CEVSI & Handicap International (HI). (2012). Children with disabilities in Somaliland: A knowledge, attitudes and practices household survey. CEVSI & HI. https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/sites/www.humanitarianresponse.info/files/assessments/ Somaliland%20Children%20with%20Disabilities%20KAP.pdf

14 Figure 3: Reported disabilities in male and female headed households The highest proportion of households reporting that they had at least a member with disability were from fisher folk livelihood zone (68.7%), followed by peri-urban households (23.3%) least proportion were households from agro-pastoral and pastoral households reporting 13.9% and 13.8% respectively. Across the targeted districts, Bosasso had the highest proportion of households (82%) reporting they had at least a member within their household with disability while Burco, Lughaye, Xudur and Doolow had relatively low numbers of households reporting they had at least a member with disability (see table 4). People with disabilities have been identified as a particularly marginalized and at risk group within Somali society as a result of the numerous attitudinal, environmental, and institutional barriers they face, and the lack of concerted efforts to include them18 . The fact that about 15% of the households living with a member with disability were included in the drought response interventions demonstrate SomReP commitment to ensure the inclusion of the most vulnerable groups in its interventions. Table 4: Proportion of households who reported to have a member within the household with disability District Number Percentage Sample size Afgooye 21 27.6% 76 Badhan 6 30.0% 20 Baidoa 27 11.7% 230 Bosasso 23 82.1% 28 18 Further information on disability inclusion and development and humanitarian response more generally can be found in the Disability Inclusion Topic Guide (2015): https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/7174/DisabilityInclusion.pdf?sequence=1 66.7% 63.0% 50.9% 43.5% 0.0% 54.7% 33.4% 37.0% 49.1% 56.5% 100.0% 45.3% 0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0% 120.0% Hearing Mental Physical Visual Other All Female Male n=27 n=54 n=106 n=23 n=2 N=212

15 Burco 0 0.0% 33 Ceel Afwyne 19 12.7% 150 Doolow 18 8.7% 207 Eyl 31 17.7% 175 Laas Caanod 26 24.1% 108 Lughaye 1 1.2% 86 Odweyne 8 22.9% 35 Salahley 23 20.0% 115 Xudur 9 7.2% 125 Total 212 15.3% 1,388 3.2 Community mobilization for the response interventions Community mobilization is an important component in delivery of any humanitarian assistance as it ensures community awareness and acceptance of the interventions being implemented. It also provides an opportunity to stakeholders to clarify expectations, roles, and responsibilities. A well done community mobilization ensures that there is meaningful participation of the communities at project design, implementation and in monitoring and measuring the impact of the project interventions. To assess the extent to which community mobilizations was conducted to ensure that the targeted communities are aware of the drought response interventions and facilitate the implementation and monitoring of activities, the targeted beneficiaries were asked the following: • whether they were involved in selection of the drought response interventions; • whether they were informed of the nature of activities to be implemented • whether they were informed of the duration and frequency of support to be provided; • whether they were informed of the name of donor supporting the interventions; • whether they were informed of the criteria to be used to select the beneficiaries and • whether they were informed of their entitlements prior to implementation of the activities The findings of the PERM show that while all the beneficiaries were informed of the nature of the interventions to be implemented, 61% indicated that they were involved in the selection of the nature of interventions to be implemented. The proportion of households who reported that they were involved in the selection of the interventions to be implemented were high among the outreach animal health services beneficiaries (82%) and water trucking beneficiaries (81%) but low among cash transfer beneficiaries (unconditional cash transfer (56.3%) and conditional cash transfer (59%)). The involvement of the communities was mainly through the community

16 governance structures such as village development committees, early warning early action committees, and local leaders. Key informant interviews with partner staff revealed that partners such as WVI, ACF and DRC conducted the needs assessment which informed the selection of interventions to be implemented. CARE on the other hand, involved community governance structures to identify cash for work projects and indicated that cash transfers were part of interventions that were already included in CAAPs to mitigate impacts of droughts. When partners were asked to indicate the linkage of the drought response interventions to community plans such as CAAP, NRM plan and contingency plans which are developed by community to prepare them to respond to disasters like the persistent and prolonged drought they were experiencing, only COOPI and CARE were able to demonstrate the linkage between activities that were chosen and implemented and the existing community plans and further demonstrated how the response interventions and community plans were aligned to national plans including the government drought response plan. For the other partners, they could not indicate the linkage between the response interventions and community plans but rather they were explicit on the how the activities that were implemented were linked to the government drought response plans. This partially explains why fewer households indicated that they were involved in selection of the interventions particularly cash interventions as the activities could not be directly linked to community plans19 at community mobilization stage. Emphasizing this linkage at the onset of community mobilization stage would not just enhance community ownership but also enhance their understanding of how community plans link to national plans. These findings therefore reveal that, except for a few partners, there is disjoint or lack of coherence in understanding on how community plans link to national plans and how SomReP can leverage its resources to enhance community voice in the national development agenda through implementation of the activities in community plans. This is particularly important for SomReP to achieve strategic objective four in the strategy which focuses on “transparent and accountable governance structures at the community, district and national levels to ensure an enabling policy and regulatory environment for sustainable livelihoods and economic growth to enhance food security and resilience”. Table 5: Household knowledge of and involvement in drought response interventions Intervention type Proportion of households who reported the following: Were involved in the selection of intervention Were informed of support duration Were informed of the frequency of support Were informed of donor name Total sample size (N) Unconditional cash transfer 641 (56.3%) 1,088 (95.6%) 1,082 (95.1%) 1,049 (92.2%) 1,138 Conditional cash transfer 290 (59.4%) 451 (92.4%) 465 (92.3%) 394 (80.7%) 488 Water trucking intervention 122 (81.3%) 127 (84.7%) 128 (85.3%) 124 (82.7%) 150 19 Which are developed by the communities themselves.

17 Outreach animal health services 71 (82.6%) 82 (95.4%) 84 (97.7%) 80 (93.0%) 86 Overall 848 (61.1%) 1,310 (94.4%) 1,311 (94.5%) 1,203 (86.7%) 1,388 The results (table 5) also show that most of households indicated that they were informed of duration (94.4%) and frequency (94.5%) of support prior to implementation of drought response interventions. The proportion of households that reported that they were informed of support duration were higher among cash transfer beneficiaries and outreach animal health beneficiaries but relatively lower among water trucking beneficiaries. The proportion of households who reported that they were informed of the donor supporting the interventions were 86.7%. From these results, it was evident that community mobilization was effective in creating awareness of the activities that were implemented, duration and frequency of support, and donor supporting the interventions. Table 6: Beneficiary entitlements and satisfaction with services Intervention type Service provided matched with the specifications that were provided Were treated in a respectful manner Were satisfied with the services Total sample size (N) Cash transfer 991 (87.1%) 1,132(99.5%) 1,072 (94.2%) 1,138 Water trucking intervention 148 (98.7%) 149 (99.4%) 87 (61.3%) 150 Outreach animal health 73 (84.9%) 86 (100%) 55 (63.9%) 86 The results (table 6) further show that at least 85% of the beneficiaries reported that they were informed about their entitlements prior to project implementation with the highest proportion reported under water trucking intervention (98.7%) and the lowest under (84.9%). It was also noted that nearly all the beneficiaries indicated that they were treated in a respectful manner. Although most of cash beneficiaries (94%) were satisfied with the services, only about only 61.3% of the water trucking beneficiaries and 63.9% of the outreach animal health beneficiaries respectively were satisfied with the intervention. Most of the beneficiaries who were dissatisfied indicated that they felt the need to participate in other interventions particularly the cash for work interventions. Some beneficiaries including the community governance structures indicated that they were not involved in the monitoring of the project emergency response activities hence their dissatisfaction.

18 3.3 Performance of targeting implementation: eligibility and selection The results of the PERM show that 91.2% of the households indicated that they were informed about the selection criteria for households to be included in the program. The results however show that the proportion of households who reported that they were informed of the beneficiary selection criteria were higher (>90%) for cash intervention and outreach animal health interventions but lower for water trucking (74.5%). Focus group discussions with community governance structures revealed that only households who were most vulnerable were selected to participate in the response interventions. The vulnerability criteria was spelt in the concept note. The SomReP strategy (2019-2013) describe the most vulnerable categories of the population as women, displacement-affected people, and people with disabilities, among others. Community governance structures reported that beneficiary households that were selected were selected based on the following vulnerability criteria: Table 7: Parameters that were considered for inclusion criteria Selection criteria Intervention type Unconditional cash transfer Conditional cash transfer Water trucking Outreach animal health Most affected IDP households ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Most affected host households ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Elderly headed households ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Single headed households ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Child headed households ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Households with members living with disability ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Minority and marginalized groups ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Pregnant and lactating women ✔ The results gathered from focus group discussions with community governance structures and key informant interviews with traditional leaders and project staff as well as government staff demonstrate that the people (community governance structures) that were tasked to select the beneficiaries to be included in emergency response interventions were well aware of the criteria to be used. This is particularly important as the effectiveness of targeting mechanism depends heavily on how accurately and specific is the inclusion criteria. To measure the effectiveness of the targeting mechanism used by SomReP in selecting participants for drought response interventions Vision Quest estimated the extent to which Type 1 error (inclusion error) and Type 2 (exclusion error) were minimized so that resources benefits the most deserving based on the

19 inclusion criteria set. Type 1 error or inclusion error as it is often called is when a household is incorrectly selected into the program but does not meet the selection criteria. Type 2 error or exclusion error is when a household is incorrectly excluded from the program but meets the selection criteria (see figure 4). Figure 4: Diagrammatic presentation of inclusion and exclusion errors The inclusion and exclusion errors can arise at the design stage and/or during implementation. Inclusion errors in implementation can occur if applicants misrepresent their true status in order to satisfy the eligibility criteria—say, by claiming to be most vulnerable when they are not—or if corrupt officials collude with ineligible applicants to register them. Exclusion errors in implementation can occur if eligible households miss the registration process (e.g. if pastoralists are away herding livestock) or if communities deliberately exclude marginalized members from a community-based targeting exercise. Both these possibilities remain potential concerns for the program as they lead to inefficient use of resources. The results from the PERM show that 59.1 % of households indicated that they knew some deserving households who were excluded from the drought response interventions. The proportion of households reporting that deserving households were excluded were high among the cash transfer beneficiaries (UCT =61.2%; CCT=61.3%) but low among water trucking and outreach animal health beneficiaries (see table 8). Focus group discussions with village development committee revealed that indeed some most vulnerable households that were most deserving to be included were left out. Well defined vulnerability criteria Household meeting the vulnerability criteria Household not meeting the vulnerability criteria SELECTED to participate in the program NOT SELECTED to participate in the program Correct targeting (INCLUSION) EXCLUSION ERROR in implementation SELECTED to participate in the program NOT SELECTED to participate in the program INCLUSION ERROR by design Correct targeting (EXCLUSION)

20 Table 8: Households who indicated that Household who did not meet the criteria were included Intervention type Proportion of households who reported the following: Were informed of the beneficiary targeting criteria Deserving household were excluded from the program (Exclusion error) None deserving households were included in the program (Inclusion error) Total sampl e size Unconditional cash transfer 1,047 (92.0%) 696 (61.2%) 639 (56.2%) 1,138 Conditional cash transfer 444 (91.0%) 299 (61.3%) 262 (53.7%) 488 Water trucking intervention 112 (74.7%) 54 (36.0%) 54 (36.0%) 150 Outreach veterinary services 81 (94.2%) 34 (39.5%) 31 (36.1%) 86 Overall 1,266 (91.2%) 823 (59.3%) 743 (53.5%) 1,388 One important observation that was noted was that despite the criteria for inclusion mentioned by the community governance structures indicating the child headed households will be prioritized, one member of water committee in Odweyne indicated that one child headed household was excluded from the interventions. “I am aware of one child -headed family which was sidelined even though the household deserve to be included water trucking intervention but because of their ages they could not be included. The children lost their parents during their early age”. The exclusion of children in water trucking activities because of their age beckons another question as to whether this is in tandem with SomReP strategy or merely misinformation. The rationale for exclusion for child headed households is not well known. It is important however to note that SomReP strategy (2019-2023) prioritizes women, the youth and people living with disabilities as some of the most vulnerable groups that the consortium seeks to target. The strategy mainly indicates that the youth will be involved in skills development which mainly relates to resilience building. It does not say how the youth or child headed households will be supported in times of emergency like this which creates a void for unintended exclusion in project participation. It is recommended that the youth should be targeted with for example UCTs, water trucking interventions but not CFW interventions in emergencies like this as that would be tantamount to promoting child labor. The consortium technical unit however needs to provide further guidance to partners and clarify the modus operandi.

21 Another incident was recorded during the discussions with Odweyne VDC. One member of the VDC narrated as follows: “I saw with my naked eye a needy family who were displaced by drought and they reached here Odweyne after the process of registration ended and was not included in the program. The family approximately was made up of 8 household members.” The VDC member narrated. “There are many needy families who lost their livestock and deserves to be registered and they were not included in the program because the target given was limited compare to people affected”, the other members of the VDC added. Similar sentiments were presented in Final narrative report of October 2022 as put below: “The registration process in the targeted villages attracted the attention of the other villages who wanted to be included in the response. Due to limited resources for this project neighboring villages could not be included in the response”. The report further recommends that ”making sure that the available envelope for the response is proportionate to the needs and size of the community would facilitate the community mobilization exercises and the continuous communication with the target communities and their surroundings”. Thus it is evident that some people who were most vulnerable and most deserving were not included in the program for one reason or the other. The examples given above show that limited budget was a big constraint. On the contrary, while all the community governance structures indicated that none was included in the program that was less deserving, households results showed otherwise. The results showed that 53.5% of the beneficiary households reported that they knew of none deserving households that were included in the program and the proportion of households reporting this was high among cash transfer beneficiaries (UCT =56.2%; CCT=53.7%) and low among water trucking and outreach animal health beneficiaries. The household survey results further revealed that 9% of the households had to pay some money to a traditional leader for them to be included in the program. This can be understood in two ways: first, it could mean that such households did not deserve to be included in the program and second, it could be that such households were deserving to be included in the program but could not be included in the program because they face social structure constraints i.e. households coming from minority clans20 face challenges to be included in the program. The minority clans live in conditions of great poverty and suffer numerous forms of discrimination and exclusion21 . These results suggest that while there was effort from SomReP to include the most vulnerable, which indeed happened to some degree as evidenced by the proportion of household with members living with disabilities that were included in the program, and the proportion of internally displaced people that were also included in the program, some most deserving households were excluded, and some none deserving households were included in the program. The fact that none of the community governance structures and local leaders interviewed mentioned this, suggest some element of local elite capture in targeting process. In future programming rather than just relying on partner staff verifying the beneficiary selection list, project partner staff should take more proactive role of guiding the communities to select household that conform to the target 20 The minority clans include Bantu, Bravenese, Rerhamar, Bajuni, Eyle, Galgala, Tumal, Yibir and Gaboye, among others. 21 A study on minorities in Somalia - Somalia | ReliefWeb

22 criteria rather than leaving the targeting process entirely at the discretion of community governance structures. 3.4 Implementation of cash transfer interventions Literature shows that cash-based responses can play a critical role in very challenging contexts, such as under conflict conditions. Cash transfers function as part of a wider ‘system’ of support, rather than forming only a single product provided to a beneficiary. They can help strengthen local markets; build national capacities; and empower individuals and their families to make choices that improve their food security and well-being22 . Cash transfers may take many forms depending on the context; they can be distributed as physical bank notes; e-money; mobile money; or through debit cards or value vouchers redeemable at locally contracted shops. The results from the PERM (table 9) show that 79.3% of the beneficiaries participated in the cash transfer interventions (88.6% UCT; 11.36 CCT). The results further show that 87% of the cash beneficiary households reported that the cash amount they received matched with the cash entitlement they were told prior to implementation of the cash transfer intervention. The proportion of beneficiary households reporting that the cash amount they received matched with the entitlement was high among ACF, ADRA, and WVI cash beneficiaries but significantly low among Oxfam cash beneficiaries. Nearly all the cash beneficiaries (98%), indicated that they got the cash through mobile money. The results further show that 96% of the beneficiaries indicated that they were getting the cash transfer on monthly basis. It should however be noted that 11.3% of Oxfam cash beneficiaries indicated that they were getting the cash transfer every 3 months. From the concept note, it is clearly stated that cash transfers were to be done on monthly basis however the duration of support varied between two months to three months. The fact that these Oxfam beneficiaries could not mention the frequency of cash transfer possibly imply that the beneficiaries were not properly informed or reminded about the cash collection schedule. It is important that beneficiaries are reminded every time when they are coming to collect cash about the next date they are expected to collect cash and for how long will the support last. Finally, the cash beneficiaries were asked to indicate the average time it takes for them to go to the cash distribution site. The results show that on average the household took 15 minutes with the minimum time being 4.7 minutes (ADRA) and maximum time being 18.7 minutes (COOPI). Table 9: Cash entitlements, delivery methods and frequency of cash support Description Implementing agency ACF ADRA COOP I CARE DRC Oxfam WVI Total sample Households who reported cash amount received matched with their entitlement 288 (97%) 104 (96%) 165 (89%) 69 (86%) 243 (88% ) 83 (55%) 39 (95%) 991 (87.1%) Cash delivery method Hard cash 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 3 (2%) 1 (1%) 15 (6%) 1 (1%) 1 (2%) 22 (2%) 22 Cash transfers | World Food Programme (wfp.org)

23 Mobile money 296 (100% ) 107 (99%) 184 (98%) 78 (99%) 258 (94% ) 150 (99%) 43 (98%) 1,116 (98%) Total 296 108 187 79 273 151 44 1,138 Frequency of providing cash Weekly 4 (1%) 0 (0%) 3 (2%) 2 (3%) 3 (1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 12 (3%) Monthly 294 (99%) 108 (100% ) 182 (98%) 78 (97%) 257 (93% ) 133 (89%) 41 (100 %) 1,193 (96%) Every 3 months 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (0%) 0 (0%) 15 (6%) 17 (11.3% ) 0 ((0%) 12 (1%) Total 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 Average time taken to go to distribution site (Minutes) 11.6 12.9 29.9 26.7 28.6 8.6 8.6 21 Sample size 172 11 140 80 272 150 19 844 Average time taken to collect cash at cash point 10.0 4.7 18.7 21.3 17.6 9.4 6.5 15 Sample size 174 6 126 80 274 150 15 825 3.5 Accessibility, safety, and treatment of the cash beneficiaries When providing the humanitarian assistance, it is important that safety of the beneficiaries is prioritized. When providing cash transfer interventions, it is particularly important to look at not just the safety but also accessibility of the service points by different groups of people benefiting from the interventions e.g. pregnant and lactating women, people with disabilities, and the elderly, among others. The results of the PERM (table 10) show that about 19% of the cash beneficiary households indicated that they had security concerns enroute to and at the cash out point. Most of the cash beneficiary households who registered these security concerns were in CARE and targeted locations (see table 6). The results further showed that 9% of the cash beneficiary households bribed some influential leaders for them to be selected into the cash transfer program. The number of people reporting to have bribed some individuals were high among the DRC cash beneficiaries (31%) and COOPI beneficiaries (8%). Most people who reported to have done the bribe, indicated that they bribed local authority leaders (81.7%) with a few (16.4%) reporting that they bribed village leaders, and only 2% indicated that they bribed militia group. Thus even though the proportion of beneficiary households reporting security concerns and bribery cases were few, their issues need to be investigated further and lessons should be drawn to improve delivery of future emergency responses and SomReP mainstream programing activities.

24 Table 10: Safety and accessibility drought response services Description Implementing agency ACF ADR A COOP I CARE DRC Oxfa m WVI Total sample Households who reported security concerns Enroute to cash out point 25 (8%) 9 (8%) 20 (11%) 49 (61%) 100 (36%) 8 (5%) 3 (7%) 214 (19%) At the cash-out point 16 (5%) 5 (5%) 11 (6%) 47 (59%) 121 (44%) 7 (5%) 1 (2%) 208 (18%) Total 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 Households who reported to have bribed influential people to participate in cash transfer interventions 1 (0.3%) 0 (0%) 15 (8.1%) 1 (1.3%) 86 (31%) 0 (0%) 1 (2.4%) 104 (9%) Total 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 Households who reported to have been treated with dignity 253 (85%) 85 (79%) 150 (81%) 66 (83%) 212 (77%) 73 (49%) 38 (93%) 877 (77%) Sample size 172 11 140 80 272 150 19 844 3.6 Complaint, Feedback, and Response Mechanism (CFRM) The results of the PERM (table 11) showed that 77.9% of the targeted beneficiary households (77% female headed and 79% male headed households) were aware of the complaint, feedback and response mechanism used by SomReP partners. The awareness of CFRM was significantly among targeted beneficiaries served by ACF (97.7%), ADRA (92.6%), CARE (80%), DRC (80%), and WVI (75.6%). The awareness was particularly low for beneficiaries targeted by Oxfam (52%) and COOPI (54.8%). It is therefore evident form these results that COOPI and Oxfam needs to create further awareness of the CFRM in place to enable beneficiaries report any concerns they have. The results further show that beneficiaries for cash transfer interventions has higher awareness (UCT 77.9%; CCT 83.2%) than beneficiaries for water trucking (46.2%) and outreach health services (57.2%). Table 11: Utilization of the Complaint, Feedback, and response Mechnism Intervention type Proportion of households who reported the following: Were aware of CFRM Had used the CFRM before the response Were able to report using the CFRM during the response Were satisfied with the CFRM

25 Unconditional cash transfer 886 (77.9%) 658 (74.2%) 585 (79.7%) 460 (95.2%) Conditional cash transfer 218 (83.2%) 185 (84.9%) 162 (80.2%) 156 (96.30%) Water trucking intervention 48 (46.2%) 23 (47.9%) 36 (83.7%) 34 (94.4%) Outreach health services 36 (57.2%) 22 (61.1%) 29 (82.86%) 28 (96.5%) Overall 848 (77.9%) 658 (74.2%) 585 (79.4%) 556 (95.04%) Total sample size 1,138 886 737 585 The results also showed that 74.3% of the targeted beneficiaries (female headed households 71.8%; male headed households 77.8%) indicated that they had used the partner CFRM before the drought response interventions. Among the proportion of households who indicated that they were aware of the CFRM, the proportion of households that reported they had ever used the partner CFRM before were high among beneficiaries served by ADRA (93.0%), CARE (90.6%), DRC (81%), WVI (80.7%), and COOPI (76.7%). It was interesting to note that while majority of the households who indicated that they were aware of the partner CFRM were from ACF, only 68% of the beneficiaries served by ACF had ever used the CFRM before. A bit worrisome was the fact to note Oxfam beneficiaries did not just score low on awareness of the CFRM but also anchored the table on proportion of households who had used the partner CFRM before. Consortium technical unit and Oxfam should consider innovative ways of not just creating awareness but also incentivize the beneficiaries to utilize the existing CFRM. The results also show that the proportion of households indicating they used the partner CFRM before were high among the CCT beneficiaries (84.9%), followed by UCT beneficiaries (74.2%), then outreach health services beneficiaries (61.1%). Water trucking beneficiaries registered the lowest percentage at 47.9%. Households were also asked whether they were able to utilize the partner CFRM during the implementation of drought response interventions to register any feedback (appreciation or concerns) about the response. The results show that 79.4% of the households (female headed households 79.8%; male headed households 78.9%) indicated that they used the CFRM mechanism during the response. The results further showed the proportion households indicating that they used the partner CFRM during the response period were high among beneficiaries served by DRC (95.5%), Oxfam (94.6%), ADRA (92.9%), WVI (88.9%), COOPI (84.2%), CARE (82.8%) and the least was ACF (30.0%). It was important to note despite only few households indicating that they had used the CFRM before the response, the proportion of households who reported to have used the Oxfam CFRM during the response period was very high at 94.6%. This would be as a result of two things jointly or separately. First, it could be because there was more awareness made at the inception of response interventions during the community mobilization

26 and second, it could be because there were many issues and or concerns that warranted the beneficiaries to report. Results from household survey show that Oxfam scored low on proportion of beneficiaries who reported that they cash amount they received matched with the entitlement they were told (55%) and on proportion of household who reported that they were treated with dignity and respect (49%). Across the interventions the results show that about 80% of the targeted beneficiaries under any of the intervention implemented were able to use the partner CFRM to provide feedback on the response. This is commendable as it is an indication that communities were very well briefed about the CFRM and can be singled out as one of the best practices. Finally, the results show that 95% of the households (female headed households 95.5%; male headed households 94.4%) were satisfied with the partner CFRM, while 4.8% of the households (female headed households 4.2%; male headed households 5.6%) were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, and only 0.2% (all female headed households) were dissatisfied with the partner CFRM. At partner level, most beneficiaries were satisfied with partner CFRM with ACF and WVI registering 100% satisfaction rate, COOPI registering satisfaction rate of 99%, Oxfam registering satisfaction rate of 97.9%, and DRC and ADRA registering satisfaction rates of 95.3% and 96.2% respectively. CARE on the other hand, registered lowest satisfaction rate of 76.4% with 23.6% indicating that they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the CFRM. 3.7 Cash beneficiaries’ consumption and expenditure choices To assess how the cash beneficiaries received were utilized, cash beneficiary households were asked to indicate the items they spent their cash on. The majority of the households (99%) indicated that they spent the money on food, while only 51% and 54% beneficiaries indicated that they spent the cash they received on child education and family health respectively (Table 12). These results suggest that households used cash mainly to meet their basic needs with food topping the list. Table 12: Use of the cash that was received through conditional and unconditional cash transfer Description Implementing agency ACF ADRA COOP I CARE DRC Oxfam WVI Total sample Items cash was expended on Food 296 (99%) 108 (100% ) 186 (100% ) 78 (98%) 267 (97% ) 149 (99%) 41 (100 %) 1,125 (99%) Child education 147 (49%) 43 (40%) 23 (12%) 56 (70%) 159 (58% ) 150 (100%) 7 (17%) 585 (51%) Health 73 (25%) 54 (50%) 105 (56%) 53 (66%) 164 (60% ) 150 (100%) 17 (41%) 616 (54%) Clothing 65 (22%) 39 (64%) 96 (52%) 20 (25%) 54 (20% ) 0 (0%) 8 (20%) 283 (25%)

27 Animal health 30 (10%) 4 (4%) 30 (16%) 0 (0%) 7 (3%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 71 (6%) Agricultural inputs 15 (5%) 5 (5%) 64 (34%) 1 (1%) 32 (12% ) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 117 (10%) Utilities 6 (2%) 21 (19%) 6 (3%) 0 (0%) 34 (12% ) 0 (0%) 1 (2%) 68 (6%) Detergents 43 (14%) 56 (52%) 70 (38%) 1 (1%) 20 (7%) 0 (0%) 4 (10%) 194 (17%) Loan repayment 61 (20%) 2 (2%) 44 (24%) 16 (20%) 18 (7%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 141 (12%) Other 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (0%) Total 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 The results (table 13) further show that average amount of cash spent on food was USD $56 with the maximum average expenditure on food reported under ADRA cash beneficiaries (USD $103) and the minimum average expenditure on food reported under DRC cash beneficiaries (USD ($40.7). Apart from the food, households also expend on average USD $23 for child education and USD $22.6 for clothing. This confirms the earlier findings on household expenditure pattern which alluded that cash received was mainly utilized to meet the basic needs of the households. This implies that most of households were vulnerable households who had no incentive to buy luxuries but utilized the cash for their immediate basic needs. Table 13: Average amount spent Average amount spend on each item Implementing agency ACF (USD) ADRA (USD) COOPI (USD) CARE (USD) DRC (USD) Oxfam (USD) WVI (USD) All (USD) Food 52.9 103.2 40.1 32.6 40.7 91.1 46.9 56.1 Child education 21.1 40.9 18.3 17.3 19.2 26.9 17.1 23.0 Health 11.6 45.2 16.2 12.7 19.5 20.0 13.5 19.6 Clothing 9.5 64.1 17.6 11.7 21.7 21.4 22.6 Animal health 7.8 32.5 15.3 20.8 13.7

28 Agricultural inputs 7.3 50 14.1 2 12.2 14.1 Utilities 9.2 30.7 18.7 23.4 5 23.7 Detergents 6 20.6 9.2 13.1 19.5 12.4 Loan repayment 13 42.5 19.7 14.9 16.1 16.9 Total sample 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 Understanding that at design stage, the amount of cash provided was meant to last at least to duration when the next cash disbursement will occur, beneficiaries were asked whether the cash they received lasted for the duration of one month when the next disbursement was to occur. The results of PERM (table 14) show that 61% of the beneficiary households (male headed households 66%; female headed households 58%) indicated that the cash they received lasted until new cash disbursement was done. The results further show that 41% indicated that the cash they received lasted exactly one month while 25% of the beneficiaries indicated that the cash they received lasted for more than one month. Only 33% of the households indicated that the cash they received lasted for less than one month. Most of the beneficiaries who reported that the cash lasted for less than one month were from ACF (61%), ADRA (60%), and WVI (63%) target areas. Although focus group discussions revealed increases in price of food items and basic items, as the main reason why the cash was not adequate, it can further be argued that the prolonged drought exacerbated the situation as it further contributed to increase in food prices. Thus the situation was possibly more challenging for big household sizes even though the correlation between households size and duration the money lasted was negative but weak (-0.0295) and not statistically significant. Table 14: Adequacy of support and duration the cash lasted Description Implementing agency ACF ADR A COO PI CAR E DRC Oxfam WVI Total sample Households who reported cash was adequate to get them through to the next disbursement 152 (51%) 94 (87%) 117 (63%) 50 (63%) 235 (85% ) 22 (15%) 29 (71%) 699 (61%) Duration the cash lasted < 1 month 181 (61%) 65 (60%) 55 (30%) 6 (8%) 43 (16% ) 4 (3%) 26 (63%) 380 (33%)

29 1 month 107 (36%) 36 (33%) 96 (52%) 55 (30%) 142 (52% ) 69 (46%) 14 (34%) 469 (41%) >month 10 (3%) 7 (6%) 35 (19%) 69 (86%) 90 (33% ) 77 (51%) 1 (2%) 289 (25%) Coping mechanism s when cash depleted Sell livestock 136 (98%) 30 (33%) 97 (83) 45 (90%) 144 (63% ) 3 (75%) 15 (52%) 470 (71%) Engaging in casual labour 135 (97%) 35 (38%) 27 (23%) 46 (92%) 180 (79% ) 4 (100%) 14 (48%) 441 (67%) Engaging in casual work 134 (96%) 74 (80%) 92 (77%) 46 (92% 0 207 (90% ) 3 (75%) 12 (41%) 568 (86%) Total 298 108 186 80 275 150 41 1,138 3.8 Coping mechanisms when the cash support was inadequate The households who reported the cash they received did not last for a month were asked to indicate the coping mechanisms they applied until they got the next cash disbursement. The results (figure 5) show that most households (88.6%) used casual labor, casual work, sell of livestock as coping strategies. The results further revealed that majority of households opted for diversified livelihood strategy as a way of coping than specializing in one strategy. These results suggest that Somali households are aware of the importance of spreading the risk to maximize their chances of survival in the most dire need situation. 37.90% 6.80% 54.40% 20.40% 70.30% 0% 88.60% 0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% 100.00% Sell of livestock only Casual labour only Casua work only Sell of livestock and casual labor Sell of livestock and casual work Casual work and casual labor All

30 Figure 5: Coping strategies that were adopted by cash beneficiaries when the cash runout before next disbursement 3.9 Impact of drought response interventions on local markets and beneficiaries The results (figure 6) show that majority of beneficiary households indicated that prices of goods had either greatly increased (44%) or slightly increased (43%) after the response interventions. Only 11% indicated that prices remained the same while 2% indicated that prices decreased. Although most households reported that prices increased, it would be precarious to conclude that the increase in prices of goods in the local market was triggered by the cash transfers that were provided to beneficiaries. This is because of two reasons: first, the global economic crisis continue to impact local economies and trigger general increase in prices. Secondly, the prolonged drought entail that supplies of food for example were becoming limited as such prices of food items were likely to increase with or without cash transfers. As one beneficiary for water interventions in Burco noted: “Before water trucking interventions, water prices for one tank (200litre) had reached USD $ 20 but now after the water trucking support by SomReP, the price of the water returned to the original price and it remaining stable”. This means that the water trucking intervention helped not just the targeted beneficiaries but the community at large through stabilization of water prices. Another beneficiary of unconditional cash transfer indicated that:- “The unconditional cash transfer intervention was the most effective intervention we had ever, because without it, many people could have died due to hunger and lack of water. The unconditional cash transfer support helped many us who were severely affected by the drought to buy food and water which are key to our survival”.

31 Figure 6: Change in prices of goods before and after the drought response interventions The results also show that 95% of the households strongly agreed that the drought response interventions they participated in helped them to meet their basic needs and only 1% indicated that neither agreed nor disagreed. A beneficiary for cash for work interventions indicated that:- “Cash for work has improved the rehabilitation of the structures like roads, water points and other structures to mitigate the effects and impact of prolonged droughts. Another beneficiary who benefited from outreach animal health interventions indicated that “Yes, the veterinary outreach services were very useful as there were offered and free of charge which is not always the case. We generally pay for these services. These results imply that the beneficiaries were appreciating the impacts of the drought response interventions that were provided. Price greatly decreased , 3, 0% Price greatly increased, 507, 44% Price remained unchanged, 122, 11% Price has slightly decreased , 20, 2% Price has slightly increased, 486, 43%

32 Figure 7: Proportion of households who reported the intervention met their basic needs 3.10 Impact of the drought response interventions on household livelihood strategy dynamics To unmask the impact of SOMREP drought response on livelihood dynamics, a livelihood strategy transitional matrix was constructed. SomReP provided the following interventions (cash transfers, veterinary services, water trucking) to support the households to mitigate the impacts of the persistent and prolonged drought to minimize losses of gains made through resilience building. A critical question that was addressed was therefore whether such interventions helped the targeted households to maintain their livelihood strategies or move to more rewarding livelihood strategies or at worst, aid the household not to adopt negative coping strategies. According to Davis (2010), households may diversify their livelihood strategies in response to incentives that may classified as push and pull factors. Push factors drive a survival-led diversification i.e., negative circumstances that may force the households to seek additional livelihood activities just to survive or maintain their living standards. Pull factors on the other hand, drive an opportunity led diversification i.e., positive circumstances that attract households to pursue additional livelihood strategies to improve their living standards (Winters et. al, 2009). SomReP recognizes the push and pull strategies in the strategies and all the interventions provided under drought would in principle be classified as push interventions because the goal was mainly to cushion the very poor individuals and households from the effects of persistent and prolonged drought so that resilience gains can be maintained. The results (table 15) show that majority of the households exhibited little mobility among livelihood strategies before and after the SomReP drought response interventions with only 22% of households showing they had switched strategies. The fact that majority of the households (78%) were confined to the same strategies while other had switched to more stable strategies before and after SomReP drought response interventions is an indication that response interventions not only helped the households to maintain the status quo but also helped a selected few to graduate to other more rewarding and stable strategies such as self-employment. Table 7 shows how many households had switched from one strategy to the other and how many had remained in their initial strategy before and after the drought response interventions. The diagonal Strongly agrees, 1053, 95% Somewhat agrees, 54, 5% neither agrees or disagree, 1, 0% Strongly agrees Somewhat agrees neither agrees or disagree

33 elements (highlighted color green) in the table show the number of households who had remained in the initial strategy and the off-diagonal elements show the number of households who had switched strategies before and after the drought response interventions. It is interesting to note that 73 households (19%) graduated from casual labor as their means of income generating to self-employment within the period of drought response. This is commendable as it signifies that the drought response interventions enabled these households to switch from what could be viewed as survival led diversification to opportunity led diversification. All the households that switched from casual labor to self-employment benefited from cash transfers (unconditional cash transfer 78%, conditional cash transfer 22%). These findings are consistent with the previous findings of cash transfers which concluded that providing unconditional cash transfers, or cash grants without any strings attached, to low-income households can lead to positive welfare benefits for recipients, including increased income, improved psychological wellbeing, and greater empowerment for women23 . Table 15: Livelihood Strategy Transitional Matrix 23 Haushofer, Johannes, and Jeremy Shapiro. 2016. “The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 131 (4): 1973–2042. Income sources After response interventions Casual labor Employe d Crop sales Livestoc k sales Selfemploye d Other Total Before response interventions Casual labor 309 (78%) 0 (0%) 12 (3%) 0 (0%) 73 (19%) 0 (0%) 394 (100%) Employment 2 (3%) 23 (40%) 3 (6%) 2 (3%) 28 (48%) 0 (0%) 58 (100%) Crop sales 20 (13%) 0 (0%) 116 (73%) 11 (7%) 13 (8%) 0 (0%) 160 (100%) Livestock sales 8 (2%) 1 (0%) 28 (6%) 398 (83%) 46 (10%) 0 (0%) 481 (100%) Selfemployment 26 (10%) 1 (0%) 8 (3%) 0 0%) 236 (87%) 0 (0%) 271 (100%) Other 11 2 0 0 4 0 17

34 The results further show that most households (48%) who were employed before SomReP implemented response interventions switched to self-employment while the remaining were engaging in crop sales (5%), livestock sales (3%) and casual labor (3%). The loss of employment could be attributed to shrinking economic opportunities in key economic sectors such as livestock, agriculture, and water, among others, due to perverse effects of prolonged and persistent drought currently considered as one of the worst droughts in the last 10 years. It is further that a small proportion of households (10%) who were engaged in livestock and livestock associated products business switched to self-employment which could be seen as more driven by risk management behavior other than profitability as drought continued to affect the livestock market making it less predictable. Finally, self-employment was the most stable livelihood strategy with only 10% of households becoming worse off (i.e., switching to casual labor after response interventions. Overall, as far as the analysis of the livelihood strategy transitional matric is concerned, the impact of the drought response interventions was stronger than expected as many households were able to maintain their livelihood and some households (12%) even graduated from livelihood strategies that were more prone to be affected by drought to more stable and opportunity driven self-reliant strategies (such as self-employment) that are less affected by effects of drought. Is should further be noted that despite the drought response interventions, 5% of the households could not maintain the stream of their income generating activities (livelihood strategy) as such they switched to casual labor which imply, they rather became worse off despite the support. 3.11 Impact of drought response on household food security The impact of drought response interventions on food security was mentions through the Food Consumption Score (FCS); the Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI); and the Household Hunger Scale (HHS). 3.11.1 Food Consumption Score Food Consumption Score (FCS) is an aggregate seven-day consumption across standardized food groups, weighting food group consumption by both days of intake and a predetermined set of weights designed to reflect the dietary quality of each group. Weights associated to the food groups are then calculated and ranked to given values that are categorized as acceptable, Borderline and poor24 . The results (table 16) of the PERM show that 83.1% of the targeted beneficiary households (female headed households 84.6%; male headed households 81.0%) had acceptable food consumption scores; 11% of targeted beneficiaries (female headed households 10.8%; male headed households 11.3%) had borderline food consumption scores; and only 5.9% of the 24 Ibid (65%) (12%) (0%) (0%) (24%) (0%) (100%) Total 376 (27%) 27 (2%) 167 (12%) 411 (30%) 400 (29%) 0 (0%) 1381 (100% 0

35 targeted households (female headed households 4.6%; male headed households 7.7%) had poor food consumption scores. Compared to previous years, the FCS appear to have improved significantly from 44.9% in 2020 to 50.4% in 2021 and then now to 83.1%. These results imply that despite the prolonged and persistent droughts, household food security situation for the targeted beneficiaries improved significantly which can be attributed greatly to the drought response interventions. Further analysis of the results show that most of the peri-urban beneficiaries (97.4%) had acceptable FCS, followed by pastoral targeted households (88.9%), then fisher folk households (87.5%). Agro-pastoral households have the lowest proportion of households having acceptable FCS (73.4%), however, the food security situation was not worse than it was in 2021. Finally, 98.8% of the households who participated in water trucking interventions had acceptable food consumption scores which imply that for these beneficiaries food was not necessarily their immediate need but justifies the appropriateness and suitability of water trucking intervention. Table 16: Household food consumption scores by gender, livelihood zone and intervention type Description Food consumption scores (FCS) Acceptable FCS Borderline FCS Poor FCS Gender Female headed households 666 (84.6%) 85 (10.8%) 36 (4.6%) Male headed households 487 (81.0%) 68 (11.3%) 46 (7.7%) Livelihood zone Agro-pastoral 428 (73.4%) 90 (15.4%) 65 (11.2%) Fisher folk 14 (87.5%) 0 (0.0%) 2 (12.5%) Pastoral 598 (88.9%) 60 (8.9%) 15 (2.2%) Peri-urban 113 (97.4%) 3 (2.6%) 0 (0.0%) Intervention type UCT 984 (86.5%) 117 (10.3%) 37 (3.3%) CCT 398 (81.6%) 47 (9.6%) 43 (8.8%)

36 Water trucking 133 (88.7%) 12 (8.0%) 5(3.3%) Outreach animal health 85 (98.8%) 0 (0.0%) 1 (1.2%) Overall 1,153 (83.1%) 153 (11.0%) 82 (5.91%) At district level the results show that Badhan, Ceel afweyne, Xudur, Eyl, Salahley, and Baidoa had high proportion of people with acceptable FCS. On the other hand, Doolow, Burco and Lughaye had low proportion of people with acceptable FCS (see table 17). Doolow, and Burco had relatively higher household sizes which entails that the support provided were not lasting long and the households had to strive to source food until the next support is provided. This could possibly explain the low FCS in these districts because when food becomes scarce household priority is mainly ensuring food availability other than food diversity. Table 17: Food consumption scores disaggregated at district level District Little to no hunger Moderate hunger Severe hunger Total Afgooye 58 (76.3%) 13 (17.1%) 5 (6.6%) 76 Badhan 20 (100.0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 20 Baidoa 215 (93.5%) 14 (6.1%) 1 (0.43%) 230 Bosasso 18 (64.3%) 4 (14.3%) 6 (21.4%) 28 Burco 16 (48.5%) 14 (42.4%) 3 (9.1%) 33 Ceel Afwyne 150 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0.0%) 150 Doolow 88 (42.5%) 63 (30.4%) 56 (27.1%) 207 Eyl 169 (96.6%) 6 (3.4%) 0 (0%) 175 Laas Caanod 99 (91.7%) 7 (6.48%) 2 (1.85%) 108 Lughaye 52 (60.5%) 29 (33.7%) 5 (5.8%) 86 Odweyne 34 (97.1%) 1 (2.86%) 0 (0.0%) 35 Salahley 109 (94.8%) 2 (1.74%) 4 (3.48%) 115 Xudur 125 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0.0%) 125

37 Total 1,153 (83.1%) 153 (11.0%) 82 (5.91%) 1,138 3.4.1 Household hunger score The HHS is a household food deprivation scale, derived from research that provides comparable data across different settings. The approach used by the HHS is based on the idea that the experience of household food deprivation causes predictable reactions that can be captured through a survey and summarized in a scale25. Contrary to the food consumption score, there was an overall increase in the number of respondents reporting increased hunger as recorded in the hunger score. The proportion of targeted beneficiaries that were categorized as little to no hunger were 61.0% (female headed households 61.5%; male headed households 60.2%). The proportion households with moderate hunger were 34.8% (female headed households 34.3%; male headed households 35.4%) and the proportion of the beneficiaries that were in severe hunger were only 4.3% (female headed households 4.2%; male headed households (4.3%). Across the livelihood zones, the proportion of households with little to no hunger score were high among the pastoral households (74.0%), and agro-pastoral communities (56.6%) but significantly low among the peri-urban households (12.9%) and fisher-folk households (18.8%). Comparing to previous years, the results imply that the proportion of targeted households with little to no hunger decreased from 73.2% in 2020 to 69.6% in 2021 and to 61.0% in 2022. On the hand, the proportion of households who were categorized as moderate hunger were higher among the fisher folk households (75%), and peri-urban households (68.1%). These results imply that some of the households that were classified as food secure under FCS (34%) were classified as moderate hunger under theHHS. This is generally because HHS is less sensitive measure of food security than FCS. Table 18: Household hunger scale by gender, livelihood zone, and intervention type Description Household Hunger Scale Little to no hunger Moderate hunger Severe hunger Gender Female headed households 484 (61.5%) 270 (34.3%) 33 (4.2%) Male headed households 362 (60.0%) 213 (35.4%) 26 (4.3%) Agro-pastoral 330 (56.6%) 231 (39.6%) 22 (3.77%) 25 https://www.fantaproject.org/sites/default/files/resources/HHS-Indicator-Guide-Aug2011.pdf

38 Livelihood zone Fisher folk 3 (18.8%) 12 (75%) 1 (6.3%) Pastoral 498 (74.0%) 161 (23.9%) 14 (2.1%) Peri-urban 15 (97.4%) 79 (68.1%) 22 (19.0%) Intervention type UCT 743 (65.3%) 368 (32.3%) 27 (2.4%) CCT 247 (50.6%) 206 (42.2%) 35 (7.2%) Water trucking 89 (59.3%) 49 (32.7%) 12 (8.0%) Outreach animal health 53 (61.6%) 33 (38.4%) 0 (0.0%) Overall 846 (61.0%) 483 (34.8%) 59 (4.3%) Across districts, Burco, CeelAfweyne, and Odweyne, and Lughaye had the high proportion of targeted beneficiaries registering little to no hunger score while Bosasso, Badhan, Afgooye, and Odweyne districts had the lowest proportion of households with little to no hunger score (table 19). While overall there is a decrease in proportion of households with little to no hunger compared to last year, almost same time, the situation is not as worse off as many of the households fell in the category of moderate hunger other than severe hunger which is an indication that the drought response interventions helped cushioning the targeted households from falling in severe hunger category. Table 19: Household hunger scale disaggregated at district level District Little to no hunger Moderate hunger Severe hunger Total Afgooye 13 (17.1%) 61 (80.3%) 2 (2.6%) 76 Badhan 2 (10.0%) 17 (85.0%) 1 (5.0%) 20 Baidoa 99 (43.0%) 108 (46.9%) 23 (10.0%) 230 Bosasso 2 (7.1%) 8 (28.6%) 18 (64.3%) 28 Burco 33 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 33

39 Ceel Afwyne 149 (99.3%) 1 (0.7%) 0 (0.0%) 150 Doolow 136 (65.7%) 70 (33.8%) 1 (0.5%) 207 Eyl 126 (72.0%) 48 (27.4%) 1 (0.6%) 175 Laas Caanod 53 (49.1%) 51 (47.2%) 4 (3.7%) 108 Lughaye 84 (97.7%) 2 (2.3%) 0 (0%) 86 Odweyne 32 (91.4%) 3 (8.6%) 0 (0.0%) 35 Salahley 20 (17.4%) 86 (74.8%) 9 (7.8%) 115 Xudur 97 (77.6%) 28 (22.4%) 0 (0.0%) 125 Total 846 (61.0%) 483 (34.8%) 59 (4.25%) 1,138 3.4.2 Reduced Coping Strategies Index The Reduced Coping Strategy Index (RCSI) indicates the kinds of coping behaviors (e.g., limiting portion sizes, relying on less preferred foods) households have had to engage in to cope with food scarcity and/or access issues26. Thus, higher RCSI scores indicate lower food security. However, it is noted that RCSI is highly sensitive to seasonality and therefore variability could be because of season in which data is collected. The results (table 20) show 70.9% of the targeted households (female headed households 70.4%; male headed households 71.6%) had low coping strategy index. The results further show that 28.8% of targeted beneficiaries (female headed households 29.4%; male headed households 28.0) had medium coping strategy index while only 0.4% of targeted (female headed households 0.3%; male headed households 0.5%) had high coping strategy index. Comparing to previous years, the results show that there has been a significant improvement in proportion of households with low coping strategy index from 11.7% in 2020 to 15.6% in 2021 and 70.9% in 2022. The significant improvement can be attributed to the project drought response interventions which cushioned the households from engaging in dangerous coping strategies. This was also evident in how household livelihood strategies before and after response interventions as demonstrated under section 3.10 as it was observed that most households had moved from relying on casual labor to relying on self-employment. Table 20: Reduced coping strategy index by gender, livelihood zone, and intervention type Description Reduced Coping Strategy Index (RCSI) Low coping Medium coping High coping 26 SomRep midline report

40 Gender Female headed households 554 (70.4%) 231 (29.4%) 2 (0.3%) Male headed households 430 (71.6%) 168 (28.0%) 3 (0.5%) Livelihood zone Agro-pastoral 442 (75.8%) 138 (23.7%) 3 (0.5%) Fisher folk 7(43.8%) 9 (56.3%) 0 (0.0%) Pastoral 438 (65.1%) 234 (34.8%) 1 (0.2%) Peri-urban 97 (83.6%) 18 (15.5%) 1 (0.9%) Intervention type UCT 795 (69.9%) 340 (29.9%) 3(0.3%) CCT 405 (83.0%) 82 (16.8%) 1 (0.2%) Water trucking 114 (76.0%) 25 (29.1%) 0 (0.0%) Outreach animal health 984 (70.9%) 399 (28.8%) 5 (0.4%) Overall 846 (61.0%) 483 (34.8%) 59 (4.3%) The results further show that the proportion of targeted households having low reduced coping strategy index was high among per-urban households (83.6%) and agro-pastoral households (75.8%) but significantly low among fisher folk households (43.8%). Most of the fisher folk households had medium reduced coping strategy index (56.3%). Dissecting the results based on intervention type, proportion of households with low reduced coping strategy index was high among CCT target beneficiaries (83%) and water trucking beneficiaries (76%), but relatively low for Outreach animal health targeted beneficiaries (70.9%) and UCT targeted beneficiaries (69.9%). Across the target districts, the proportion of households with low rCSI was high in Burco (100%), Eyl (98.3%), Doolow (94.2%), Odweyne (88.6%), Laas Caanod (87.0%), Baidoa (86.1%) and Afgooye (81%) but significantly low in Bosasso (10.7%), Salahley (20.0%), Badhan (40%), Xudur (43.0%) and Ceel Afweyne (56.0%). Many of the districts that registered low proportion of households with low RCSI, had the most of the targeted households in medium rCSI (table 21). Table 21: Reduce coping strategy index (rCSI) District Low coping Medium coping High coping Total Afgooye 62 (81.6%) 12 (15.8%) 2 (2.6%) 76 Badhan 8 (40.0%) 12 (60.0%) 0 (0.0%) 20 Baidoa 198 (86.1%) 32 (13.9%) 0 (0.0%) 230

41 Bosasso 3 (10.7%) 23 (82.1%) 2 (7.1%) 28 Burco 33 (100%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 33 Ceel Afwyne 69 (46.0%) 81 (54.0%) 0 (0.0%) 150 Doolow 195 (94.2%) 12 (5.8%) 0 (0.0%) 207 Eyl 172 (98.3%) 3 (1.7%) 0 (0%) 175 Laas Caanod 94 (87.0%) 14 (13.0%) 0 (0.0%) 108 Lughaye 42 (48.8%) 44 (51.2%) 0 (0%) 86 Odweyne 31 (88.6%) 4 (11.4%) 0 (0.0%) 35 Salahley 23 (20.0%) 91 (79.1%) 1 (0.9%) 115 Xudur 54 (43.2%) 71 (56.8%) 0 (0.0%) 125 Total 984 (70.9%) 399 (28.8%) 5 (0.4%) 1,138 4 Conclusion From the finding it is evident that community mobilization was effective in creating awareness of the drought response activities that were implemented. Over 90% of the proportion of beneficiaries reported that they were informed of the duration and frequency of support while 91.2% indicated that they were informed of the beneficiary selection criteria. More than 85% of the beneficiaries indicated that they were informed about their entitlements prior to implementation of response interventions. It can further be concluded that while SomReP made a worthwhile effort to include the most vulnerable households in the drought response interventions, which indeed happened to some degree as evidenced by the number and proportion of female headed households, IDPs, and households with members living with disabilities that were included in the program. It was however noted that despite this level of effort, some most deserving households were excluded, and some none deserving households were included in the implementation of response delivery interventions. It was further established that some households had to pay money to local leaders for them to be included in drought response interventions. Such cases were significantly high among cash transfer beneficiaries (UCT =56.2%; CCT=53.7%) but low among water trucking and outreach animal health beneficiaries. In the same vein, it was also established that some children headed households were excluded from participating in the drought response interventions because of their age. Whether children should be excluded in all SomReP interventions or not is a contentious issue that SomReP needs to reflect on. It is important however to note that SomReP strategy prioritizes women, the youth and people living with disabilities as some of the most vulnerable groups that the consortium seeks to target. The strategy mainly indicates that the youth will be involved in skills development which mainly relates to resilience building. It does not say how the youth or child headed households will be supported in time of emergency like this which creates a void for unintended exclusion in project participation. It is recommended that

42 the youth which in some cases could include child headed households should be targeted in emergencies like this with non-labor related interventions such UCTs, water trucking interventions but not CFW interventions as their inclusion in CFW would be tantamount to promoting child labor. The consortium technical unit however needs to provide further guidance to partners and clarify the modus operandi. In addition, while SomReP relies on community based targeting approach and conducts verification of selected beneficiaries, to minimize these incidences in future programing, project partner staff should take more proactive role of guiding the communities to select households that conform to the target criteria rather than leaving the targeting process entirely at the discretion of community governance structures. From the findings it can further be concluded that most of the households (99%) spent the money they received on food, while only 51% and 54% beneficiaries spent their money on child education and family health respectively. It was further noted that for some households (about 41%), the cash they received was not adequate to take them through to the next disbursement which could be attributed to big households sizes and continued increase in commodity prices. It was further concluded that most of the households (97%) confirmed that the cash amount they received matched with the cash entitlement they were told at the beginning during community mobilization. It was also noted that in some districts, households reported that prices of goods including food increased after the interventions, however it would be precarious to attribute the increase in prices to the drought response interventions other than other factors such as global economic crisis and the drought itself. It was also observed that water trucking intervention helped to stabilize prices. It can further be concluded that the drought responsive interventions helped the household to not adopt dangerous coping strategy but rather maintain their income generating activities, and for some selected few, interventions helped them to graduate to other more rewarding and stable strategies such as self-employment. Overall, it can be concluded that the impact of the drought response interventions was stronger than expected as many households were able to maintain their livelihood and some households (12%) even graduated from livelihood strategies that were more prone to be affected by drought to more stable and opportunity driven self-reliant strategies (such as self-employment) that are less affected by effects of drought. It was further concluded that drought response interventions helped to improve food security situation in the targeted districts. This was evident in the significant increases in FCS compared to previous years and with more households having low rCSI compared to previous years. Finally, the results of the PERM showed that most households had utilised the partner CFRM during the implementation of drought response interventions than during the mainstream implementation of SomReP interventions. This is an indication that households were well sensitized of the CFRM at community mobilization which can be considered as one of the best practices from this response. 5 Recommendations • These findings revealed that, except for a few partners, there is disjoint or lack of coherence in understanding on how community plans link to national plans and how SomReP can leverage its resources to enhance community voice in the national development agenda through implementation of the activities in