Inter-Agency Real Time Evaluation of the Response to Cyclone Nargis

3 Findings and Recommendations3.1 ConsultationReviews of agency reports as well as interviews of agency staff and communities highlight somesignificant efforts to consult communities regarding their needs and priorities (e.g. the PONJA andFAO household surveys). However, while there have been consultations at the village level,communication flows tend to be one-way (upwards), with little or no feedback to communities. Withfew exceptions 6 , there was little evidence during FGD with communities that they were aware ofwhat agencies were planning to do with the information they had collected from assessments orindeed which organizations were planning longer-term engagements.In all 10 villages visited by the RTE team, community members gave the impression thatinterventions have predominantly focused almost exclusively on donations of goods, services or, in afew instances, cash grants. While community members clearly appreciated this assistance, afrequent refrain in virtually every focus group was “we have nothing to do” – i.e. they needed torestore livelihoods.One of the lines of questioning with communities explored various assessment methodologiesemployed by international agencies. The IA RTE team was surprised to learn that none of thevillages they visited appeared to have previous experience of separate male and female focus groupsduring assessments. This was a finding subsequently validated by a number of internationalagencies based in Bogalay, although it should be noted that UNDP set up women’s committees priorto the cyclone which they continued to consult. While the IA RTE found that men and women FGDshared views on most issues, important differences were evident during livelihood discussions. Thisis perhaps not so surprising given that the impact on family and community structures in some areaswhere there has been a high death toll – principally women, children and the elderly. In general,women tended prioritize small livestock and small-scale marketing as livelihood opportunities.In two villages, the IA RTE divided communities into “committee” FGD instead of by gender.Committees have been established by (usually) international NGOs or UN agencies in manycommunities to help in the implementation of project activities; two such committees had beenestablished in the villages visited by the IA RTE team. One of these was a Food ManagementCommittee, which WFP requires cooperating partners to have in place as part of their agreement andin this case was also used by the cooperating partner to facilitate NFI distributions. The othercommittee had been set up by UNDP prior to the cyclone as part of their microfinance program.While these committees did facilitate consultation, it quickly became clear during FGD in bothvillages that multiple committees have created confusion and conflict in the village, which hasoccasionally required the intervention of the head Monk or village chairman to mediate disputes.With few exceptions, committees described their role as facilitating implementation. Probing by theIA RTE team yielded little evidence that they had been consulted on priorities, had been given anydelegated programme authority, received training or have a clear understanding of their TOR. To theteam, the approach seemed almost like a ‘checklist’ initiative whereby an organization’s internalaccountability mechanism calls for creating a committee so field staff do so - “check”. It is supposedto have an odd number of members (although committee members didn’t know why) so it does,“check”. It is supposed to have female members so it does, “check”. The IA RTE team of course6 An exception was WFP food aid deliveries where community members said they were always given advance notice.15