Maximizing the Value of "Cash for Work"

The following good practices were distilled from a recent Real Time Evaluation (RTE) of an emergency project in Niger that is using cash for work and seed fairs to address food insecurity in the departments of Ouallam and TIllabery. The project was implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and financed by USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). This is part of a larger effort to respond to the Sahel Crisis in which below-average rainfall and crop production shortages in 2011 have resulted in reduced food and livestock fodder availability and increasing environmental degradation. Lack of ground cover increases erosion and environmentally negative coping strategies are used to compensate for lack of production and livestock. Many vulnerable families are still recovering from the 2009/2010 food crisis. Cash for Work projects are especially important now before households' own livelihoods/agriculture activities begin. We arrived at these good practices by responding to evaluation questions posed to the RTE team by project managers. Our responses were informed by the 2011 SPHERE standards, document review, observation, interviews and focus groups with project participants, community leaders and key informants. We hope this document will reinforce familiar good practices as well as highlight new ones.