Standard Project Report 2016
The complementary cash-based allowances provided by WFP were exchangeable for a variety of food items set by the Government. Upon WFP’ s recommendation, the list of items for purchase was expanded from 90 to 130 food items in order to include fresh fruit and vegetables to compensate for the scarcity of subsistence farming crops, garden vegetables and fruit-bearing trees destroyed by the cyclone. The post-distribution monitoring( PDM) findings showed that 68 percent of assisted households had an acceptable Food Consumption Score( FCS) and that households consumed on average more than six different food groups per day, indicating that the majority of beneficiary households had adequate food intake and a highly diversified diet.
WFP also 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. WFP provided four mobile storage units( MSUs) to augment the capacity of the Government and humanitarian partners to sort, pack and store relief items. Following an assessment of the Government’ s emergency communications systems carried out after TC Winston, WFP worked with the National Disaster Management Office( NDMO) to upgrade existing telecommunications facilities and strengthen the Government’ s disaster response capacities. WFP upgraded the NDMO high frequency( HF) radio network, consisting of 10 sites across Fiji’ s largest island of Vita Levu, and provided onsite training to district and provincial office staff on the use of the upgraded system. WFP also provided two portable HF emergency radio communication packs, and refurbished the communications room at the NDMO headquarters in the capital, Suva. It is expected that with these upgrades the NDMO will enhance its robust early warning and crisis management communication with key counterparts, and that trained district and provincial staff will provide coordinated responses during any crisis.
Progress Towards Gender Equality
This EMOP was developed with the recognition that gender equality and women’ s empowerment present significant challenges in Fiji, and that the impact of Tropical Cyclone( TC) Winston had further exacerbated women’ s vulnerabilities. Damage to homestead gardens and the loss of small livestock, normally both under the control of women, made women more vulnerable to economic hardships. A government-led, multi-agency Post-Disaster Needs Assessment was conducted between April and June 2016 with the support of the World Bank, United Nations agencies and the Secretariat for the Pacific Community. The assessment concluded that the effects of TC Winston increased women’ s dependency on subsistence economic activity, leaving them with no income security and adversely impacting their ability, as primary caregivers, to meet their households ' food, nutrition and familial basic needs.
Contributing to greater gender equality and reducing women’ s poverty, were at the core of WFP’ s emergency response. The food assistance provided under the EMOP was implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, which is the primary government adviser on women’ s empowerment and gender issues in Fiji, and is an active partner of agencies working on gender-sensitive programming such as UN Women and the United Nations Children ' s Fund( UNICEF). By using existing government social safety net platforms to provide cash-based transfers, WFP was able to leverage and scale up gender-sensitive targeting mechanisms already in place and improve vulnerable women’ s immediate access to food. Under the existing social protection schemes, the Poverty Benefit Scheme( PBS), Care and Protection Allowance( CPA) and Social Protection Scheme( SPS), households headed by single women and widows represented over 30 percent of beneficiaries; and 59 percent of beneficiaries registered with the PBS were women.
Protection and Accountability to Affected Populations
Throughout all phases of the emergency operation, WFP worked closely with cooperating partners, the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation, the Department of Social Welfare and district-level social welfare offices, post offices and retailers to ensure that all five commitments to accountability to affected populations developed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee( IASC) were implemented. According to the post-distribution monitoring( PDM), 92 percent of beneficiaries reported feeling safe at the distribution sites. The 8 percent of beneficiaries who reported not feeling secure said that they were concerned that their benefits would be stolen or they would have to pay a bribe on the way home. While no actual incidents were reported, it is important for future interventions to increase mitigation measures such as decreasing the distance beneficiaries must travel to retailers by increasing the number of shops in the local area, and working closely with security staff in the design of the intervention.
Findings from the PDM indicate that 60 percent of interviewees had knowledge of the programme and their corresponding entitlements, redemption cycle and modalities. Beneficiaries received advance notice of their additional entitlements, value and conditions of use through a government-led sensitisation campaign which included radio talk shows, public service announcements in English, Fijian and Hindi, and newspaper
Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands( FJ) 16 Single Country EMOP- 200957