WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 298

Standard Project Report 2016 Cash Based Transfer and Commodity Voucher Distribution for the Project (USD) Modality Planned (USD) Cash Total Actual (USD) % Actual v. Planned 330,400 226,293 68.5% 330,400 226,293 68.5% Operational Partnerships Emergency preparedness engagements with national stakeholders established prior to Tropical Cyclone (TC) Winston by the WFP Office in Suva, and the presence of logistics and information and communications technology (ICT) technical teams on the ground at the time the cyclone hit, enabled WFP to swiftly provide critical support to the Government during the acute emergency response phase. Through the IR-EMOP, WFP rapidly deployed a response team to support the design of the Government’s response through food security analysis, logistical planning, technical advisory services and assessments. A tripartite agreement with WFP and the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management, and the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, paved the way for a well-coordinated food assistance operation. WFP also collaborated with the Ministry of Economy and the Department of Social Welfare to implement this operation. WFP regularly contributed to inter-cluster and Pacific Humanitarian Team (PHT) meetings, providing strategic guidance to partners in all sectors. WFP collaborated closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Communications in their capacities as designated line ministries of the Food Security, Logistics, and Emergency Telecommunications Clusters, respectively. In addition, WFP supported the rapid scale-up of cluster coordination services, as well as strategic planning and decision-making for cyclone response operations led by the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO). Results/Outcomes WFP provided food assistance through cash-based transfers (CBT) to reduce short-term hunger of 7,965 vulnerable people in the areas most severely affected by the cyclone. The programme made initial operational adjustments to include a third social protection programme, the Social Protection Scheme (SPS), catering for elderly beneficiaries above the age of 68, resulting in a slight shift in the implementation window of the food assistance operation. The CBT distributions for this IR-EMOP took place in May and June 2016 rather than April and May as initially planned for the following reasons: extension of the State of Natural Disaster from an initial period of 30 days to 60 days; ongoing emergency food distributions led by the Government; the resumption of subsistence agriculture activities made possible by the provision of seeds and tools through the Food Security Cluster; and revisions to the targeting of the beneficiaries. Following the signing of a tripartite Letter of Understanding with the Government in April, WFP funds allocated for the roll-out of the CBT intervention were swiftly transferred to the Ministry of Economy and subsequently to the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, which topped-up targeted beneficiaries' entitlements for two months to meet their immediate food needs. Using existing transfer mechanisms, with which recipients were already familiar, WFP increased the purchasing power of beneficiaries’ regular allowances, enabling the rapid access to additional food items to address their most pressing food needs. WFP worked in close collaboration with the Government and cooperating partners to design and conduct monitoring of the food assistance operation. Programme implementation issues, such as inaccurate or outdated beneficiary data, and awareness and information gaps, were immediately relayed to relevant parties and, where possible, swiftly addressed. Under this IR-EMOP, WFP successfully supported the government-led response by providing technical advisory services, cluster coordination and information management support in the areas of food security, logistics and emergency telecommunications. An assessment of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) emergency communications systems led to the subsequent upgrade of its facilities at multiple sites as well as the NDMO Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands (FJ) 14 Single Country IR-EMOP - 200952