Evaluation of the 2017 Somalia Humanitarian Cash-Based Response

Cash Based Assistance (CBA) has been used by humanitarian organisations in Somalia to assist people in need since 2003. After several years of poor rainfall, the humanitarian community responded to a famine alert issued in January 2017 with a significant scale-up of funding and programmes. Having originally published a 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) in November 2016, by May 2017, the Somalia Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) revised the HRP upwards to target 5.5 million people needing assistance. The United Nations (UN), Red Cross, Red Crescent Movement and numerous international and national NGOs delivered a wide variety of life-saving and livelihood support CBA to vulnerable people across the country.

Evaluation Objective and Methodology: In late 2017, a multi-stakeholder process led by the Somalia Cash Working Group (CWG) managed the planning, funding and implementation of an evaluation in early 2018. The evaluation objective was to review the joint performance and impact of the humanitarian CBA in the 2017 drought response in Somalia. It also examined different ways of continuing the use of CBA on a large scale and related sustainability questions in order to inform the on-going 2018 response.