Palestine, Evaluation of Unconditional Resource Transfer Activity under the National Social Safety Net Programme 2018-2020

This decentralized evaluation was commissioned by the WFP Palestine Country Office and covers the Unconditional Resource Transfer (URT) through Cash-Based Transfers (CBT) to non-refugees, poor and severely food insecure people under the National Social Safety Net programme (NSSNP) in Palestine between January 2019 and December 2020.

The evaluation was commissioned to provide information for future programming directions, strategic positioning within the NSSNP in Palestine, and reflect on food insecurity and poverty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip context and was intended for both accountability and learning purposes.  It focused on assessing the relevance and alignment, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the programme. Overarching evaluation questions addressed how relevant is the URT/ CBT/ Voucher to the needs of beneficiaries. How effective and sustainable is the activity and what are the impacts on food security. The evaluation also investigates if there are any unintended impacts on the poverty gap of beneficiaries under NSSNP.

According to this evaluation, the main findings are:

• Under the NSSNP, the URT/ CBT/ Voucher is highly relevant to the context and aligns with the Palestinian Authority’s national priorities and MoSD strategic priorities.
• The outputs and the outcomes of activity 1 were largely met in 2018 and 2019 and were exceeded in 2020. A majority of beneficiaries were found to have an “acceptable” food consumption score (FCS).
• Overall, the URT/CBT/voucher has a positive impact on Food Security and the extent of poverty on beneficiaries.

Key recommendations from the evaluation included:

• Review targeting criteria and voucher values
• Maximize positive effects on female headed households and Minimize unintended effects on households with disabled members
• Consider scaling the URT/CBT/voucher assistance
• Re-consider Consumption-based Coping Strategy Index (rCSI) as one of the food security outcome indicators used in the Gaza Strip
• Prioritize the MoSD/NSSNP/CTP beneficiaries and continue to support MoSD