Income-Generating Activities - Action Against Hunger

Field handbook • Scientific and Technical Department
APPENDIX 19: EXAMPLE OF A PDM REPORT FROM INDONESIA
Introduction
Action contre la Faim started its activities in Ambon, province of Maluku, in April
1999, as a response to the outbreak of violence in the province in January 1999 and the
subsequent large-scale population displacements. ACF responded to immediate, basic
and minimum needs of over a hundred thousand IDPs through the provision of food and
hygienic items. In 2000 ACF served roughly 134,200 beneficiaries in Maluku province.
From early 2001, tensions were still prevailing in Ambon but there was a growing
awareness that the strategy of assisting victims of the conflict by virtue of their status
as IDPs required urgent reviewing. Vulnerability and dependency on food aid had
to be assessed as well as the constraint free food distributions represented on the development
of coping mechanisms or the re-establishment of self-sufficiency among
the IDPs population. ACF considered that a targeting process was relevant and necessary
to be conducted in order to avoid any dependency on the food aid. On the basis
of the Post Distribution Monitoring (PDM), 3% of former food aid beneficiaries were
targeted to be the possible beneficiaries of new programmes of assistance. These
families were identified as vulnerable, the most at risk of food insecurity when the
general food distribution ended. All the results are coming from the double approach
followed by ACF: to focus on the most vulnerable families and to develop an adequate
assistance for those families.
The Income Generating Programme (IGP) implemented in Ambon island (urban,
semi-urban and rural areas) aimed to:
• Boost the vulnerable household’s production capacities
• Generate income for vulnerable families and therefore support the development
of coping mechanisms and household self-sufficiency
• Develop the capacities of production of one community
The expected result is to develop the capacity for a vulnerable family to produce,
sell and capitalise in order to be able to get out of the ongoing spiral of vulnerabilityimpoverishment-assistance.
The assistance to the targeted beneficiaries consisted in
providing them equipment and materials necessary to start up a small-scale activity.
Two IGA programmes have been implemented by ACF in the Maluku province. The first
one from July 2001 until January 2002 and focusing on Ambon island only (urban area
mainly) and the second one from April 2002 until February 2003 focusing on 4 different
islands of the Maluku (rural area). This PDM report concerns the second programme.
92 vulnerable IDPs camps-villages were selected and visited (46 Christians, 46
Moslems). At the end, only 19 Moslems IDPs camps (41% of the total visited) accepted
the principles of focusing on the most vulnerable families. On the Christian side, only
24 IDPs camps (52% of the total visited) accepted the same principles of targeting. 5
INCOME GENERATING ACTIVITIES: A KEY CONCEPT IN SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURTIY
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