Recent evaluations show that Ivorian households are using aid cash to generate further income.

The disputed presidential election in November 2010 generated an immense humanitarian crisis, affecting millions of people, with heavy fighting between contesting forces causing extensive displacement throughout Cote d’Ivoire. Since the arrest of the former president in mid-April 2011, conditions have undoubtedly improved, particularly in the economic capital of Abidjan. In most neighbourhoods of ACTED’s emergency intervention in the city, which targets the heavily affected communes of Abobo and Yopougon, displacement rates were in some cases as high as 95%.

By now, however, just four months after the crisis, the vast majority has returned, banks and local markets have reopened, prices of food and non-food items are slowly returning to their pre-crisis level, and local authorities are reinstalling themselves and resuming basic services. Nevertheless, due to the population movements and accompanied looting (on average, about 60% of ACTED’s current beneficiaries were victims of pillaging), returnees struggle at re-securing a stable source of revenue, creating an environment of frustration and despair.

Indeed, 80% of ACTED’s current beneficiaries reported they were unable to re-establish their former source of income, primarily due to a lack of financial means. Half of households live on less than 40,000 CFA (€ 61) per month, a figure that includes the 20,000 CFA (€ 30.5) given to each household by ACTED’s emergency intervention. This is below the minimum survival threshold of 48,000 CFA set out by the World Food Programme (WFP) in Cote d’Ivoire. Not surprisingly, most of ACTED’s beneficiaries live on one or two meals per day, whereas before the crisis, the average was well between 2 and 3 meals per day.

Preparing future livelihoods

In order to help affected populations escape their current plight, emergency interventions, including ACTED’s Cash-For-Work programme financed by the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department, have generally targeted the distribution of food-baskets and/or the injection of cash in an effort to alleviate the food security crisis. These interventions were undoubtedly effective at easing the immediate needs after the end of open combat. Indeed, over 60% of cash transferred by ACTED to vulnerable households has been spent on satisfying basic needs (including 50% on food alone). This helped to increase daily food consumption slightly, securing 2 meals per day for ACTED’s beneficiaries.

Post distribution surveys have however shown that the vast majority of ACTED’s beneficiaries preferred to sacrifice a third meal per day by spending 40% of injected cash into income-generating activities (IGAs). This suggests that households are eager to escape the crisis and prepare for a period without financial assistance from external actors. More than half of people benefiting from ACTED’s intervention had a stable and sufficient source of revenue before the crisis, engaging in various petit commerce activities.

ACTED believes that these attempts should be encouraged in an effort to help affected communities ‘help themselves’ and escape their current plight in a sustainable manner. To this end, ACTED is considering an emergency IGA program targeting particularly households that lost their source of revenue as a direct result of the crisis, but demonstrate sufficient capacity to reengage in a profitable activity if adequate material, financial assistance and training are provided. For those households who are incapable of engaging in any productive work, ACTED intends to continue its emergency assistance with a more elaborate cash transfer scheme that seeks to support the most vulnerable households over a prolonged period.

Christoph Wille took on the position of Cash for Work project manager in May in the streets of a torn-apart Abidjan, which is barely recovering from the turmoil that followed the presidential elections earlier this year. Four months after the end of the crisis, he gives an insight into post-conflict recovery.

How can you describe the post-conflict recovery in Cote d’Ivoire?

I guess the question of what is being built during conflicts is just as important as the question of what is being destroyed. What was being built is recognition of what was here before, a reconsideration of this country’s amazing history and place in Africa. You can see this every day, because every day, the speed of recovery amazes you. Really, if you came to Cote d’Ivoire in April, you would have thought you were literally in a war zone. Now, you think you’re in a classic development context, with a few people of course who are still displaced. This speed of recovery is only possible because the people have a force in themselves, a spirit to survive, to go back to their lives, a spirit that the war has actually influenced. I guess many people are just happy that things go on again. The reaction of the people is something fascinating; the power to recover in contexts as harsh as these.

How does ACTED’s project contribute to people’s recovery?

This project is helping people to get back on their feet and make some changes among themselves and for the community, but one should talk of personal recovery rather than country reconstruction. I don’t think we’re yet at this stage. People are reconstructing their very intimate personal environment. To be more concrete, we have to be very clear that this is an emergency project with an emergency focus. The idea is not to revitalize the economy or to get people out of the crisis. It is literally only to help them cope a little better for a limited time within this crisis. So the money we are giving through the cash grants program helps people buy some food, do a little commerce on the side if lucky, and maybe even buy some medicine. But that’s it. We have two systems: unconditional cash grants and Cash-for-Work. In the latter system, people are also contributing a little to community hygiene awareness and to cleaning up the mess in the villages, in some cases opening access a little. We are serving about 7,000 beneficiaries in total, which is a lot for the little staff we have. The targets are enormous.