43 community plans. It is recommended that SomReP technical unit should build the capacity of the partners in this area and ensure that the linkage between community plans and government plans such as the national development plans is clear. 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”. • 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 some of the beneficiary households reported that did not deserve to be included in the drought response interventions were included and some of households that deserved to be included in the drought response interventions were excluded. It is therefore recommended that 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. • It was further observed that child headed households were excluded from drought response interventions for example water trucking because of their age even through 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. It is our observation that while the strategy is very clear on which interventions the youth will be involved in implementation mainstream resilience building activities, the strategy 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 the consortium technical unit should provide further guidance to partners and clarify the modus operandi. It is Vision Quest considered opinion that the youth including children headed households should not wholesomely excluded from participating in SomReP interventions but rather should be excluded from participating in labor related interventions such as cash for work. In emergencies like this, the youth should be allowed to participate in water trucking and unconditional cash transfers, for example. • Finally, it was observed that about 19% of the cash beneficiary households indicated that they had security concerns enroute to the distribution site, at the distribution site and at the cash point. Most of the cash beneficiary households who registered these security concerns were in CARE and targeted locations. Although the proportion of beneficiary households reporting security were few,
44 their concerns need to be taken into account in future programming. SomReP partners should ensure that service points are safe, and accessible roads to and from the sites are also safe.
45 Annex 1 Price change after cash transfer interventions District Greatly decreased Slightly decreased Remained unchanged Slightly increased Greatly increased Total Afgooye 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 28 (37%) 48 (63%) 76 Baidoa 3 (2%) 9 (6%) 4 (3%) 91 (59%) 48 (31%) 155 Bosasso 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (50%) 1 (50%) 2 Burco 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 8 (100%) 8 Ceel Afwyne 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 0 (0%) 149 (99%) 150 Doolow 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 55 (49%) 18 (16%) 40 (35%) 113 Eyl 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 0 (0%) 162 (93%) 11 (6%) 174 Laas Caanod 0 (0%) 6 (6%) 39 (36%) 29 (27%) 34 (31%) 108 Lughaye 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 100 (86%) 86 Odweyne 0 (0%) 3 (9%) 20 (57%) 4 (11%) 8 (23%) 35 Salahley 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 2 (2%) 30 (28%) 74 (69%) 107 Xudur 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 1 (1%) 123 (99%) 0 (0%) 124 Total 3 (0.3%) 20 (2%) 122 (11%) 486 (43%) 509 (45%) 1,138