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Yemen, the historical country of the Middle East and the home of 30.5 million citizens is now facing the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Today, more than 70% of the population is facing extreme poor conditions. According to the World Food Programme, 15.9 million people wake up with hunger, and the number can go up to 20 million. In the shade of this situation, UNICEF (Jordan) contracted us to implement the Emergency Cash Transfer Project (ECTP). The ECTP used Yemen’s Social Welfare Fund’s (SWF) Beneficiary List for 2013 and 2014 due to the emergency context of the country and to the lack of the appropriate time to conduct a targeting process. As a result, the Project provided emergency cash transfers to 1.5 million households, which is approximately equal to 8 million beneficiaries. Our consultancy for the ECTP started on April 2017 and ended on January 2019. During the consultancy, our permanent staff in Jordan, backstopped by the staff in headquarters, provided technical and administrative support in the management of the Project throughout its two first Payment Cycles. As part of the management, the firm, provided operational documents such as; operations manual, technical annexes, training guidelines and protocols, among others, for each of the Project’s Processes including: Facilitation, Verification, Community Validation of Identity, Grievance Redressal and Payments. Furthermore, our company delivered a Management Information System (MIS) in the form of online and offline applications to adapt to the country’s connection issues. The MIS served in managing all the processes within the project and delivered rapid response to the emerging issues. An on-field staff was also present to support the training and to provide immediate communication of any issues/challenges that might occur during the Project’s implementation. The Project faced many challenges due to the country’s context, however, our staff managed to constantly create solutions to overcome all obstacles and challenges, leading to a successful implementation of the Project! Date March 20, 2019 ...

The Malawi Social Cash Transfer Program (SCTP), also known as Mtukula Pakhomo, is currently underway and as of March 2019, approximately 280 thousand households have enrolled to the program. The SCTP covers all 28 districts in Malawi and focuses on the ultra-poor and labor constrained households in this country. The firm was hired to continue co-managing the SCTP program until December 2019. Duties include the financial management of the program resources, coordinating the operational activities, supervising the procurement procedures, and providing support in the management and maintenance of the SCTP Management Information System (MIS). As per SCTP regulations, retargeting is required every four years to see if beneficiaries still meet the program’s eligibility criteria. The process recollects beneficiary household data and its results determine if beneficiaries can remain or are to leave the program. After participating in previous consultancies, we were hired for a new contract with the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare (MoGCDSW) for this present stage. In addition to co-managing the program, this new stage also includes the provision of technical assistance in the design and implementation of retargeting, recertification, and activities for non-recertified households (beneficiaries who cannot continue in the SCTP). The firm is also cooperating with Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR) Unit to secure a smooth data collection process in all 14 districts (districts financed by KFW and the EU). For this, the firm prepares material and coordinates training activities of field staff, supervising spot check activities. This consultancy includes development of technical documentation, guidelines and training materials for these new processes, and developing of new functionalities for the SCTP MIS to assist in the implementation for the retargeting and for the non-recertified households’ processes.      We remain firm in our commitment in providing quality service and supporting the implementation of the SCTP so that beneficiaries can have a better quality of life!   DATE: MARCH 14, 2019 ...