Dear D group Colleagues,

We hope you are well.

On September 2020, the Cash Learning Partnership Working Group on Cash Transfers, with support from DanChurchAid and DANIDA commissioned the development of a guidance and tools to standardise the process of designing, implementing and monitoring Group Cash Transfer (GCT) programmes as well as a report and tip sheet to address the opportunities and constraints towards the uptake of GCTs.

Key Aid Consulting took on this challenge and used a mixed method approach that utilized a structured desk review, Key Informant interviews, an online survey and gathered expert consensus to complete the final outputs in February 2021.

Upon finalization of the work, two consecutive webinars were held on March and March 11.  

With this finalization, we would like to share with you:

-       The Guidance and tools:

-       The Report

-       The Tip Sheet

-       The Webinar recordings (please note that the content for the two days is similar with the only difference being the panel experts who were involved):

o   March 10: https://keyaidconsulting.owncloud.online/s/ig61TfYY2gecWSW

§  Q&A report: https://keyaidconsulting.owncloud.online/s/lPPeVRvISh5Egmt

o   March 11: https://keyaidconsulting.owncloud.online/s/ZZOsZcKXmypvoqh

§  Q&A report: https://keyaidconsulting.owncloud.online/s/XFaprlDq3OJpE9E

-       Accompanying podcast:

o   English version

o   French Version

We hope that you will enjoy and learn from it.

Best regards,

Dear Colleagues,

Please help us with your inputs in developing guidance and tools for cash grants for groups/collective action/community cash*!

(* We have not yet completely defined the terminology, hence including both group grants – collective action grants – community cash grants here.)

For this purpose, we have developed a short online survey (10-15 minutes), which we hope you are willing to answer. The survey can be accessed here (until 25^th of November 2020): https://ee.humanitarianresponse.info/x/wm5MnR75

The survey is available in both English and French (chose language at the top).

As you are probably aware, Key Aid Consulting has been commissioned to lead a study to collect evidence and learnings on cash grants to groups / community cash grants as a response modality. The data we are collecting will feed into the development of guidelines and tools on group cash grants to be part of the CVA toolbox.

Regardless of your experience with group or community cash grants, we are now looking for wider inputs from the CVA community, localisation actors and others on how to shape the guidelines including inputs on challenges and barriers you might be (or expect to be) facing in designing and implementing group cash grants.

Please feel free to share this message wider with your colleagues!

Sincerely,

Maja and Rediet

Dear Community of Practice,

It's me again - with a request on Community Cash Grants :) 

Key Aid Consulting is currently conducting a study on Community Cash Grants to feed into the development of guidelines and tools on community and group cash grants to be part of the technical toolbox for cash and voucher assistance.

(For the purposes of this study, the understanding of community cash grants is as grants that are distributed either to entire communities (e.g. in more rural settings) or to CBOs or smaller self-help groups to support projects that benefit a wider community rather than individuals or individual households. This also includes emergency community grants that are intended to provide relief. Loans/microcredit are not considered to be a part of this.) 

In order to realize the above-stated aims, we are using a survey based on the Delphi technique to validate practices and findings. We are aiming to include inputs from an expert group of humanitarian practitioners engaged in different sectors with experience using Community Cash Grants. This will be done through a medium of an ODK questionnaire that will be deployed in 2 rounds to the expert group to create consensus.

To this end, if you or any other humanitarian practitioner in your network has experience with community cash grants and is willing to take part in the Delphi process as part of an expert group, please reach out to us in either of the following email addresses below.

Contact: maja@...

            : rediet@...


Sincerely, 
Maja 

Community radio and education during Covid-19 in Marsabit, Kenya

This video from Kenyan NGO Iremo describes the work of a local community radio during Covid-19. Marsabit county in Kenya is among other home to a large community of pastoralist women, men, girls and boys. For many of them FM radio is an essential way of getting information as their ability to benefit from TV and internet hosted information is quite restricted.

When Covid-19 reached Marsabit in March 2020, the local Catholic radio station, Radio Jangwani, took up the challenge to keep the areas population informed about Covid-19 in a language and manner, which was suitable to their realities, knowledge and ways of living. An essential part of Radio Janwani’s outreach has been hosting a radio school, where volunteer teachers have worked hard to offer education to all the schoolchildren kept at home during the pandemic.

The video was produced by Mamo Guyo and Darare Gonche for Iremo during September/October 2020. See the video here:

Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TzCdwhJFOqNc75MA2OYGxIAC2jLNxKy9/view

Dear all,

Darare Gonche of Iremo has just shared this new video about Covid-19 and a worsening water shortage in Marsabit county in Kenya. The video - Marsabit’s water crisis during Covid-19 - is produced by Mamo Guyo for Iremo during September/October 2020. See the video here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u1sYQAjCYYsfcqkyQvy8vdYc44DeziXu/view?usp=sharing

 In addition to the video, Iremo shares this background information on covid-19 and water shortage in Marsabit:

During this time of Covid-19, the risks people of Marsabit are exposed to by inadequate water supply are even greater than usual. Due to scarcity of this precious commodity, as well as the inability of many to afford it, residents are unable to follow the guidelines on frequent hand-washing and general hygiene. The video looks at the impact and risks of insufficient water supply during the pandemic in a situation, where the water demand is 20 times higher than the supply. The video also explains about some of the efforts communities and local authorities are taking to preserve the little water they have.

Some parts of Marsabit town have been without water for days as distribution stations meant to help thousands run dry. This makes frequent hand washing and general hygiene for a successful fight against the coronavirus pandemic a challenge. The Haro Bota dam, which particularly the poor depend on, has dried up and now one 20 liter jerrican of water from commercial vendors cost kshs.40 to 50 (around usd 0.5).

The water situation is not only affecting the domestic space but also the cultural practices around religion. Mosques are turning away worshippers due to insufficient water.

Water demand in town is around 4,000 cubic meters per day but the supply capacity is a meagre 200 cubic meters. Previous attempts by the government to address this chronic water crisis in the county evaporated in a massive looting of funds (intended to build a new dam) 13 years ago.

 Currently, the government is constructing the Bakuli 4 dam and some smaller pans in different locations to address the current water crisis in Marsabit Town of Saku Sub County. The other 3 sub counties have areas, which will face similar challenges if the expected short rains fail.

 With the covid-19 still spreading, there is a greater need than ever for water and for the citizens of Marsabit solving the decade long water crisis is more urgent than ever.

Dear community crisis response group,

Are you someone who has experience delivering cash grants to communities or groups, (rather than or alongside individual and household cash grants)?

Key Aid Consulting, represented by Maja Tonning and Rediet Abebe, has been commissioned to lead a study to collect evidence and learnings on community cash grants as a response modality. This will feed into the development of guidelines and tools on community and group cash grants to be part of the CVA toolbox. A working group established under CaLP, consisting of members from DCA, NRC, Oxfam, Action Aid and Women’s Refugee Commission, is supporting this. We are also linked up to local to global and the development on survivor and community led response (sclr). 

The team at Key Aid Consulting is collecting secondary literature (all from project documents to academic papers to guidelines) and will be conducting key informant interviews with professionals who might be able to contribute to the topic of community and group cash grants in relation to their/their agency’s respective engagements.

It is important to note that we are not looking for community-based approaches to targeting household cash grants, but rather projects and experience with distributing cash to communities or groups for their control and use on identified priority needs.

Please get in touch if you think that you have something relevant to share, either for a literature review or potentially as a key informant. You can respond directly to our emails,  maja@... and rediet@....

Do you know of others who have experience with community or group grants? If so, please forward this email to them.

If you are very interested in community and group cash grants but do not have experience or relevant information to share right now, keep an eye out for our further requests for inputs on this.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Rediet and Maja

Key Aid Consulting

Humanitarian consultants 

Cash & markets, evaluation and learning lab

http://www.keyaidconsulting.com

Hello everyone - Darare Gonche greeting you from Marsabit county in Kenya

Please find here the link to a short documentary video on how Covid 19 has impacted on the immunization of children in Marsabit county and how different actors responded to the challenges raised. The video is produced by Mamo Guyo for Iremo - see it here:

Background information on reduction of Immunization in Marsabit County as late August, 2020

The video is produced by Mamo Guyo for Iremo and in collaboration with Christian Aid/Kenya and L2GP - again here is the link: