HSNP beneficiaries receiving payments at Laisamis, MarsabitGreater funds accountability for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially within the third world where corruption levels are high, will be a key success factor in realising set milestones.
The recent advent of cash transfer programmes such as Kenya’s Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) that targets Turkana, Mandera, Wajir and Marsabit, raises the key question of whether to utilise intermediary implementing organisations or if it is more effective to directly transfer cash to the target populations.
Recent media reports reveal the bulk of funds raised by development agencies for the vulnerable are instead channelled towards attractive perks and hefty salaries. The unfortunate scenario is that the vulnerable and poor people, in whose name the millions of dollars are raised, continue to languish in poverty upon completion of the project. In the last decade, I was deployed to most major disasters across the continent, ranging from the food crisis at the Horn of Africa, conflict-riddled Goma in eastern DRC, war torn Darfur, political conflict in South Sudan and later the severe food crisis in West Africa. I have participated in major relief responses in these areas that had long winding queues of exhausted, starving people (many of them children), patiently lining up for food hand-outs and other relief rations from humanitarian organisations. That was then. Unlike a decade ago when the world stood in solidarity with the affected after a disaster and raised millions of dollars for Darfur, Eastern DRC food crises or displacement of people following floods, the situation today is different. Appeals for the Central Africa Republic (CAR) or Syria are not attracting commensurate resources.
Article by Michael Arunga, The Standard Newsletter, 28th September 2015
Read more at: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000177823/cash-transfers-to-the-needy-not-rations-way-forward