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International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

MISSION REPORT

on

POST DISTRIBUTION MONITORING

OF THE EMERGENCY CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMME IN

THREE FLOOD-HIT PROVINCES

Monitoring sites Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh Province

Reported by Tran Trieu Ngoa Huyen

Ta Thi Thanh Thuy

Duong Viet Anh

May, 2011

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Table of Contents

List of tables and charts ........................................................................................................................ 3

1 Background ....................................................................................................................................... 4

2 Objectives and focused points ................................................................................................... 4

3 Methods .............................................................................................................................................. 4

3.1 Methods applied .............................................................................................................. 4

3.2 Roles of partners ............................................................................................................. 5

3.3 Process of monitoring ..................................................................................................... 5

3.4 Ethical considerations .................................................................................................... 6

3.5 Limitations ....................................................................................................................... 6

4 Findings .............................................................................................................................................. 7

4.1 Profile of beneficiaries .................................................................................................... 7

4.2 Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution ........................................................... 9

4.3 Transparency ................................................................................................................. 11

4.4 Management and experiences of the distribution ...................................................... 16

5 Conclusion and Recommendations ....................................................................................... 18

5.1 To collect missing documentations for the distribution ............................................ 19

5.2 To improve future programs........................................................................................ 19

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List of tables and charts

Table 1: Profile of monitoring areas ................................................................................................................ 7

Table 2: Percentage of age and sex forward to target groups ............................................................... 8

Table 3: Description of the money received by each group ................................................................ 13

Chart 1: Percentage of getting cash distribution ........................................................................................ 9

Chart 2: Percentage of usage of fund received ......................................................................................... 10

Chart 3: Percentage of households received money compared with the ratified amount. ..... 13

Chart 4: Percentage of households with re-distribution of fund granted...................................... 14

Chart 5: Percentage of households signed upon receiving the money ........................................... 17

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1 Background

Following destructions caused by flood in October 2010, the International Federation of

Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) launched emergency appeal seeking CHF 1,070,620 to

assist 28,500 families in three provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh in Vietnam.

Under this framework, the Viet Nam Red Cross (VNRC) has distributed cash for food and

livelihood in January 2011. About 10,274 households received this cash support. In

addition, 3,000 households also received cash grants from VNRC as livelihood support to

buy seeds and fertilizers.

The IFRC’s internal procedures for cash distribution require detailed post distribution

monitoring of the programme. The IFRC delegation in Viet Nam therefore requests a post-

distribution monitoring of cash for food and cash for livelihood in the three provinces.

The monitoring led by three team leaders independently recruited by IFRC office and

supported by relevant VNRC staff and IFRC finance officers has been conducted. Each team

leader, with their responsibility, has written three independent reports on their monitoring

results at the specific site they were in charge of.

This report is a consolidation of the three documents above.

2 Objectives and focused points

As described in the TOR, the specific objectives of this monitoring are:

-- To review effectiveness and relevance of the distribution through beneficiary feedback.

-- To take stock of experience with overall and financial management in cash transfers

within VNRC and suggest for improvements.

-- To collect missing documentation for the distribution.

From these objectives, the focus of this monitoring includes:

-- Basic information of the target beneficiaries.

-- Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution.

-- Transparency and experience with management.

-- Recommendations for cash distribution in the future.

3 Methods

3.1 Methods applied

The monitoring involved a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Tools for

collecting information included questionnaire, in-depth interview, focus group discussion

and observation.

For each area, IFRC provided a list of highlighted issues which needed to receive better

attention during the monitoring. Copy of lists of beneficiaries, financial documents and

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questionnaire developed by IFRC were also provided. Those were very important materials

which helped the team to focus better on the concerned issues during the field work.

The key method used was individual household interviews. From the list of beneficiaries

provided by IFRC, the team randomly selected the households for in-depth interviews. The

special cases in the list were noted.

Meetings with groups of beneficiaries were also arranged. Besides, even though not

required by IFRC, the team interviewed people who are not in the list of beneficiaries

submitted by the commune to VNRC and IFRC. These additional interviews were conducted

to have more information on the distribution.

After each working day, a briefing session was conducted for all team members to share

their experiences during the day.

3.2 Roles of partners

Team Leader

The team leader took overall responsibility for professional activities of the whole team. In

particular, the leader:

-- Provided technical support to team members.

-- Took lead role in facilitating focus group discussions.

-- Ensured the team functioned and overall progress was made

-- Chaired team meeting at the end of each working day to review the work done and plan

for the next day.

-- Consolidated filled questionnaires

-- Analysed data and wrote the monitoring report

VNRC officers and local staffs

VNRC officers from central, provincial, district and commune levels also participated in the

monitoring exercise

The VNRC officers at the central level supervised the information collecting process and

gave feedback with the consultants on the preliminary findings at the monitored sites.

The VNRC officers at provincial and district levels helped to organize the monitoring and

provided information about the cash distribution process at local sites.

The communes’ authorities and Red Cross staff participated in focus group discussions to

provide information and feedback to the monitoring teams about findings at the end of

every day during the process.

3.3 Process of monitoring

The main steps of the monitoring included:

-- Preparing:

Developing TOR and tools for information collecting

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Recruiting, training volunteers

Adjusting data collecting tools – the first time

Pilot information collecting exercise in Nghe An and adjusting data collecting tools –

the second time

-- Collecting information, analyzing and giving feedback on initial findings to the local

authorities at the sites.

-- Writing three independent reports for each of the three monitoring areas. These were

written by monitoring team leaders. A workshop was conducted to share the survey

findings and finalize the reports with comments from the workshop.

-- Synthesising all information to make a summary report for the 3 independent

monitoring reports.

3.4 Ethical considerations

-- Students, selected through interviews by IFRC, volunteered to participate in this

monitoring exercise. This group, along with the team leaders, were trained about Seven

Fundamental Principles and Code of Conducts of IFRC.

-- Before interviewing participants in the monitoring exercise, the interviewer explained

in detail the objectives and expectations. All the interviews were conducted with (oral)

informed consent from the participants.

-- Interviewees were advised that they could stop the interview at anytime or skip a

question if they were not comfortable answering it.

-- All the interviews were conducted in a private place and with informed consent from

the participants, without the presence of any local authorities.

-- All the interviewers followed the rules of keeping study information confidential. All the

interviews, notes, codes, and interviewee lists were kept safe and confidential.

Respondents’ names were not written in the survey report.

-- Team members were always respectful and friendly when interacting with local

inhabitants and officials. The volunteers always cleverly and skilfully handled the

situation to complete tasks without compromising the prestige of the IFRC in the

locality.

3.5 Limitations

-- Despite the fact that the monitoring group visited all households in the list, the

interview ratio was 72%1. The reasons are below:

Households had migrated for economic reasons

The house owners or adults were working all day and only came back home late.

The house owners, the beneficiaries did not have communication capacities (hearing

impairment, too old or very sick etc.)

1 Without counting the number of households at Nam Thuong commune, Nam Dan district, Nghe An province because this area has been considered as the practising venue for volunteers and pilot venue for the monitoring tools.

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-- There wasn’t enough time to re –visit the households where members were not

available the first time.

-- Signatures on the beneficiary list and monitoring questionnaires were compared and

did not match always.The volunteers were quite experienced in dealing with rural

people. However, being young students, they lacked the experience and skills required

in a monitoring exercise like this. Some communes have received a huge amount of

support from different sources at the same time. So it was quite difficult for local people

to remember exactly the amount they received from each of the sources.

4 Findings

4.1 Profile of beneficiaries

Monitoring teams administered the questionnaire in 1,646 households across 29

communes in 15 districts of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces.

Table 1: Profile of monitoring areas

Provinces Districts Communes No. of households interviewed

Nghe An Nam Dan Nam Thuong 51

Ha Tinh

Duc Tho Lien Minh 36

Huong Son

Son Phuc 75

Son Hong 90

Son Tra 92

Son Bang 39

Vu Quang

Son Tho 28

Duc Huong 28

Huong Khe

Huong Xuan 26

Huong Vinh 31

Huong Long 36

Can Loc

Trung Loc 80

Son Loc 95

Thach Ha Thach Luu 69

Ha Tinh

Thach Trung 46

Tan Giang 34

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Provinces Districts Communes No. of households interviewed

Cam Xuyen

Cam Nhuong 93

Cam Loc 104

Cam Ha 95

Ky Anh

Ky Lam 18

Ky Thuong 44

Ky Tay 30

Quang Binh

Le Thuy Loc Thuy 93

Quang Ninh Truong Xuan 27

Dong Hoi

Nghia Ninh 86

Loc Ninh 80

Quang Trach Quang Minh 34

Quanh Thuy 25

Minh Hoa Tan Hoa 61

Total 1,646

The monitoring team interviewed all households in the relief beneficiaries’ lists provided

for the interviews. When they arrived at the households, the interviewers gave priority to

the person whose name was in the provided list and interviewed him/her. Often the person

was the head of the household. When the person in the list was not available, the

interviewers would interview their wife/husband. If the couples were not at home, the

interview was conducted with an adult in the family who was aware of the relief support for

the flooding.

The majority of people who participated in the interview were house owners (55%), house

owner’s spouse (28.1%) and other family members such as their parents, children or

siblings etc. (16.9%).

On an average, every family has 3.96 members. Households with 1 to 3 members accounted

for 40.2% of total households. Other information related to target beneficiaries includes:

Table 2: Percentage of age and sex forward to target groups

Characteristics Beneficiaries as listed Interviewees

Age Mean 57.2 53.7

Sex Male (%) 64.2 35.3

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Female (%) 35.8 64.7

The median age of beneficiaries and interviewees is quite high due to the following

reasons:

-- The common family structure in a rural Vietnamese household includes (i)

grandparents (paternal/ maternal), (ii) their children and their children’s spouses and

(iii) their grand children. The household owner or head is often the grandparent.

-- Guidelines on selecting beneficiaries of IFRC and VNRC spoke of the priority

beneficiariessuch as old people, sick people or people who did not have working

capacity.

-- Young household owners were often did not present at home at the time of the

interviews because they had to work and did not come back home until late evening.

-- This monitoring was carried out during a period of crop failure. As a result, the

migration for economic purposes among poor – young families was quite common (both

short and long term migration).

Beneficiaries listed were household owners. Commonly they are males in the family. It was

easy to meet females at home to conduct interviews due to housewifery. This explains why

the proportion of males was high in the list of beneficiaries, but low in the list of

interviewees.

4.2 Effectiveness and relevance of the distribution

The flood hit the central provinces severely and caused huge amounts of damage and losses.

The people from flooded areas have been receiving assistance from many donors such as

Government of Vietnam, State’s organizations, international organizations, enterprises and

individuals. The assistance included cash, food, clothes, school facilities for children, and

other necessities.

In total, 92% interviewees said that their family received cash support from Red Cross

Association in early 2011 (before Tet – the Lunar New Year).

Chart 1: Percentage of getting cash distribution

They were aware that the money was from Red Cross and they got this information via:

-- Village meeting to select households for receiving relief

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-- Written words and symbol on vouchers to receive relief money

-- Written words and symbols on banners at the relief centres where money was delivered

-- Written words and symbols on uniforms of the relief money delivering officers

-- Direct information from village leaders and villagers in the community

All people that the monitoring teams met, whether or not they were in the list of

beneficiaries provided by IFRC, expressed their high appreciation of the assistance and

support they received - both financially and spiritually - from benefactors.

A majority of households used the received money to buy food (68.4%). The rest used it for

sources of livelihood, improving health and shopping for the Lunar New Year Tet. The main

sources of livelihood that people spent on were pig, chicken, duck and fertilizer. One

household may have split the fund to several options.

Chart 2: Percentage of usage of fund received

Most of the interviewees (85.5%) said that they received the support money once, 5.9% for

twice and 8.6% did not remember how many times

Although a majority of the interviewees could not remember the date when they received it,

they all confirmed it was sometimes within one week, at the Kitchen God worship week,

before Tet - the Lunar New Year.

If the venue was at a commune people committee’s hall, the money was often delivered by

officers from the commune Red Cross, representatives of the commune’s People Committee,

hamlets’ leaders, volunteers and sometimes the districts’ Red Cross officers.

The venue for receiving the money was commune people committee’s halls in most cases.

The rest were direct handovers at households, at village leader’s houses.

A majority of the householders (94.3%) said they were satisfied with the money received.

Through group discussions it was gathered that they were satisfied because of the

following reasons:

-- During the floods, people needed instant food, clean water and necessities like clothes,

lights. But after the floods, the need and living conditions varied from household to

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household. Therefore, assistance in cash was preferred and was consideredmore

effective as people could best satisfy their need with the money received.

-- Lunar New Year Festival requires more spending from almost all families in Vietnam.

This is also the starting of a new cultivation season. Capital is mostly needed to cover

these events, especially for the poor households.

-- Money was delivered/received quickly with simple procedures.

-- Officers giving out the relief were cheerful and enthusiastic

Local officers considered cash relief as more ‘appropriate’ due to the following reasons:

-- VNRC has clear guidelines on delivering and receiving of cash relief. Local officers were

trained to do this job

-- Delivering cash relief was more convenient compared to relief in the form of food or

goods (e.g. convenient transportation, no storage requirements, no risk of damamge)

Some challenges faced in the program have been noted as below:

-- At the time of delivering relief money, the price of rice increased by 3,000 VND per kilo

compared to before the flooding. If the people use the relief money to buy 20 kilograms

of rice they have to add 60,000 VND (3,000 VND x 20 kg).

-- Local Red Cross officers have experience about delivering relief but lack of experience in

accountancy and book keeping. However, training provided did not focus on this

capacity weakness.

-- Financial issues were not supervised at the same time that the relief programme was

implemented. The requirements for missing or necessary accounting records and

papers came 4 - 5 months later after the relief program was delivered. This put local

Red- Cross staff in difficulties as the relief delivering program ended long time before

and it was not easy to fulfil the requirement of providing missing documentation after

such a long time.

4.3 Transparency

Relief’s Granting Procedures

Procedures for selecting and granting the monetary relief in reality was as follows:

-- VNRC announced the monetary relief to the provincial Red Cross chapters. The Red

Cross considered the relief’s allocation according to the level of impact and financial

reality of different places. Subsequently, it allocated specific relief amounts to district

Red Cross. The district Red Cross then continued to allocate the amount to communes.

The commune Red Cross (together with commune people committee) continued to

allocate the amount to each village or hamlet.

-- Village leaders (including the party secretary, senior member ) provided the beneficiary

list according to the guidelines of IFRC and VNRC.

-- Leaders organised hamlets’ meetings for local villagers to assess and got agreement.

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-- Lists of village households to receive the monetary relief then was transferred to the

commune people committee for assessment, then to district Red Cross, provincial Red

Cross and VNRC.

-- Money was transferred from VNRC to Red Cross at provincial, district and commune

level to deliver to the approved lists.

Through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, all participants said that it would

be appropriate for them to receive cash support, due to the following reasons:

-- Households were ranked as poor

-- Most of the households in the village were damaged seriously by this flood, including

them.

Commune and village officials complained that there were many households eligible for

cash support as per VNRC’s guidelines butdid not receive any due to limited funding.

Households in the list answered they did not receive the relief money and cases

received the money but were not in the list

4.6% of interviewees said that their families did not receive the money from Red Cross and

3.2% did not answer this question or answered that they do not remember.

The situation where interviewees said they did not receive anything from RC but were on

the list, can be explained as follows:

-- They really did not receive anything from Red Cross.

-- They received money from Red Cross but didn’t remember this

-- They received money from Red Cross but assumed that the money was from the State

to support for the lunar New Year Tet or support from other sources.

On the contract, there were households that received the money but their names were not

in the list. The sequence of this situation is as below:

-- Initially, the local authorities made an initial list of households to receive relief from Red

Cross.

During the waiting time for Red Cross relief, there were other relief groups that came to

support. Local authorities selected the households that would receive support from the

initial list. Then the relief money from Red Cross arrived. Since households in the initial

list already got support from other sources or groups, they would not receive support

from Red Cross (they didn’t receive the money but their names were in the list); and

instead new households would receive Red Cross relief money (these households did

receive the money but their names were not in the list).

-- These householdswere selected in surplus thanks to the practice of increasing the

number of beneficiary households by reducing the amount of relief money received per

household. Since this practice was not approved by IFRC and VNRC, local authorities

did not put their names in the household list that was sent to VNRC.

The situation of increasing beneficiary households by reducing the amount of

relief money received per household

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Even though the relief’s guidelines mentioned clearly that ‘it is absolute not to choose more

beneficiaries by reducing the received relief money amount for each household’, some local

authorities still went against it.

According to the relief delivery regulations, households with 4 or more members were to

receive 800,000 VND and households with 1 to 3 members were to receive 400,000 VND.

Due to this distribution, the group of households with 4 or more members were more

disadvantaged. The reasons are as follows:

-- While only 34.1% of households with 4 or more members received the ratified relief

amount (i.e. received 800,000 VND), far more households with 1 to 3 members (62.6%)

received the ratified relief amount (i.e. received 400,000 VND).

58.5% of households with 4 or more members, in contrast to 9.8% of the households

with 1 to 3 members, received less than the ratified relief amount. Only 2.9% of

households with 4 or more members, in contrast to 26.2% of households with 1 to 3

members received more than the ratified relief amount.Chart 3: Percentage of

households received money compared with the ratified amount.

On an average, every household with 4 or more members received 609,000 VND (lesser

than the ratified amount of 800,000 VND). Every household with 1 to 3 members received

on an average 458,000 VND (more than the ratified amount of 400,000 VND). Inspite of

that, mode value showed that the number of households that received enough money (or

the ratified relief amount) still accounted for a higher percentage than the others. The

following table describes in detail the money amount received by each group of

households.

Table 3: Description of the money received by each group

households with 4 members and above

households with 1 to 3 members

mean 609,000 458,000

minimum 60,000 80,000

maximum 2,700,000 1,600,000

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mode 800,000 400,000

There are two ways to legalize the receipts of the household to be submitted to IFRC and

VNRC by local authorities when they applied the practice of increasing beneficiary

households by reducing the amount of relief money allocated for each household:

-- Way 1:

Local authorities distributed distributed the relief money equally among many

households – more than those on the list. Therefore, the listed households received a

smaller amount than they would have otherwise received. The households signed

receipts for the amount they actually received and they did not have to be persuaded to

submit any money back.

However the receipts that they signed were not accordant with VNRC regulations.

Therefore, local authority officers had to issue another recepient list which showed

that households received amounts of money according to the regulations, and they

signed the receipts on behalf of each household.

-- Way 2:

After households received the amount of money according to the regulations and

signed the receipt, they submitted the money back to local authorities for a final re-

distribution so that all households got an equal share.

This way was more convenient because households signed directly on the receipts that

showed the amount ratified by regulations. Local authority officers did not have to

generate a second set of receipts, unlike way 1. However, then local authorities had to

persuade households to give back some of the money they first received so that it could

be redistributed among others..

Re-distribution of fund granted

Although 58.5% of households with > = 4 members received less money compared with the

ratified amount, only 6.9% of these households said that they had submitted the money

back after receiving it. This showed that the money that was received by most of the

households with > = 4 members was cut down in advance, so that they were not required

to return any amount back. Way 1 to legalize the receipts of households described above

was applied wisely at local sites.

Chart 4: Percentage of households with re-distribution of fund granted

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Among the households that submitted the money back (Way 2) and still remember the

submitted amount, the following points were noted:

-- Households with > = 4 members gave back 349,000 VND on an average

-- Households with 1 to 3 members gave back 281,000 VND on an average

-- Both groups of households gave back 327,000 VND on an average

As gathered from the local people, the reasons to give back the money were:

-- To voluntarily share the money with more households

-- It is impossible to have an agreed upon list of households selected for receiving the

support. Therefore, households must accept the way of equally sharing the money

amount.

-- They did not know why they had to give back the money

Local Red Cross officers and authorities’ explanation for for the redistribution of funds was

as follos:

-- The local authorities directed local Red Cross officers and village leaders to share the

total amount with several households, inkeeping with the spirit of ‘together we share

the misfortune and together we share the benefits’.

-- There was a big need for support while the available relief amount was limited. Village

meetings could not come up with a final beneficiary list - this meant it could not decide

who would not receive the relief money. So they decided to share the amount equally.

-- According to the initial plan of the program, every household would receive 20kg of rice,

equivalent to 250,000VND. Villages selected and voted for the list of households to

receive rice. Then the program changed the form of relief to cash with a higher value

and the number of beneficiary households would be less. But local authorities could not

discard the previous voted household list to make a new one.

Besides, this monitoring also recognised cases who answered that the amount of money

their family received was less than the figure written in the list because of the following

reasons:

-- The households forgot and did not say the exact money amount they received in reality.

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-- Members in the households who came to get the money could hide some money for

personal purposes.

4.4 Management and experiences of the distribution

Challenges noted in identifying beneficiary list

-- Some village meetings had difficulties in coming up with a beneficiary list that everyone

agreed upon. So, households and village leaders had to compromise and share the

amount equally so that everyone could receive the money, even though they knew that

to do so was not inkeeping with VNRC’s guidelines.

-- It was difficult to generate a beneficiary list that everyone agreed upon because of two

major difficulties:

The wide disparity in relief money for households with 3 members (400,000 VND)

and households with 4 members (800,000 VND)

Change of form of relief from 20 kg rice/household (equal 250,000VND) to cash

amounts of 400,000 VND or 800,000 VND/household reduced the number of

beneficiary households compared to the initial selected household list.

-- With a fixed amount of relief money allocation, for example 125 million VND/commune,

local authorities found it difficult to do the calculations and decide how many

households should receive 400,000 VND and how many should receive 800,000 VND.

They, for instance, had to work out a math exercise of finding “the number of

households with 3 members and less and to receive 400,000 VND” and “the number of

households with 4 members and above to receive 800,000 VND”, at both the village and

commune level, which must total up to the fixed amount of relief money allocated for

the commune. .

-- Better-off households invested more in production, thus they lost more in flooding.

However, they also recovered or settled down better thanks to having more money. So

the relationship is that: Better-off households lost more in the flooding yet life after

flooding is still better; while poorer household lost less in the flooding but after flooding

life is more difficult. While choosing households to give supporting money, some local

authorities had difficulties in selecting between two criteria:

No. 1: living in difficult conditions (but less impacted by the flooding)

No. 2: being impacted seriously in the flood (but currently is quite settled down)

-- Guidelines on selecting households for granting the support money also gave more

priority to households that have not received significant support from Red Cross and/or

other agencies. In reality, most of the poor households or much affected households

already received a lot of support from programs by the government or other agencies.

Households that have not received any support often are the better-off families or

households with less financial difficulties. Some locals said that households with less

financial difficulties are the households that need consolatory support in the post-

emergency period. Cash relief from Red Cross was required for such households in the

post-emergency period.

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-- In some communes, it was noted that households having good living conditions and not

seriously affected by the flood were still selected as beneficiaries and granted support.

Some beneficiaries are family members or relatives of local officials. Similarly, some

members of local Red Cross received priority as beneficiaries. The reason for this was

that the members have been contributing to the local Red Cross fund on a monthly

basis, therefore they are eligible and should have priority in receiving assistance from

Red Cross, in particular, this grant in cash from IFRC.

Challenges noted in distributing with ID card, Household Registration Book

-- The relief money was given on a priority basis to pregnant and lactating women,

disabled persons, elders and sick people. These people had difficulty in travelling to

collect the money. The VNRC’s guidelines mentioned clearly that money “can not be

received on behalf of“2 However, the relief money invitation did not mention this

matter. Therefore, in many cases people came to receive on behalf of the others. At that

point, the relief group just skipped this regulation.

-- All financial documents relating to this distribution require ID card or Number of

Household Registration Book to receive the grant. The regulation was omitted by some

places. These communes explained that:

These households were identified and approved immediately by village leaders at

the venue. Therefore it was not necessary to show their IDs.

Some households had lost all personal papers in flood and did not get new ones.

-- In most cases, numbers were collected and quoted in the Grant Notice or list of

beneficiaries with signatures. However, Annex 0 – Guidelines for distribution from

VNRC, says that there was no requirement for beneficiaries to show their ID cards or

Number of Household Registration Book when receiving money. In Annex 3 –

distribution monitoring, there is no criterion on beneficiaries showing ID card or

Number of Household Registration Book. This explains why ID cards or Number of

Household Registration Books are missing for some households.

Signing upon receiving the money

Guidelines from VNRC on the distribution are very detailed and easy to understand.

Requirements on one way in one way out, venue, sound facilities, furniture, envelopes,

slogan, were properly followed. However, as informed by local people, it was still possible

for one person to sign on behalf of several households while this is not allowed.

Most of the interviewees said that when they received the supporting money, they did sign

the receipts. Detailed figures are presented in the following chart:

Chart 5: Percentage of households signed upon receiving the money

2 Relatives or friends of the household owners could not receive on their behalf. An alternative

was that Red Cross Volunteers to take the relief money to the beneficiary houses if they could not make their way to the venue for some special reasons, and the volunteers asked them to sign in the beneficiary name list (drawing from granting and delivering guidelines).

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However, when signatures on the beneficiary list and monitoring questionnaires were

compared, only 43.3% of the signatures matched. But several factors may have interfered

with the signature matching process:

-- Data collectors were not professional signature identification experts

-- Local people do not always use signatures. Therefore one person can sign differently at

different signing times, i.e. at the time of receiving the money and at the time of filling

out the monitoring questionnaire.

-- The key beneficiaries whose names were in the list for some reasons could not go to get

the money (sick, old, weak, busy etc.) and their family members (spouse, children,

siblings etc.) went to take the money for them and signed under the beneficiaries names.

-- When the local authorities wanted to increase the number of beneficiary households by

reducing the relief money, they let the beneficiaries sign receipts with the real money

received But these receipts were not submitted to VNRC. The authorities made an

additional copy of the receiptsigned on behalf of the official beneficial households and

submitted to VNRC for official payment procedures.

5 Conclusion and Recommendations

The relief money of IFRC and VNRC reached to the majority (92%) of the households in the

list. This actually helped several households with very difficult situations in buying food and

preparation for the Traditional Lunar New Year Tet. This relief program has been highly

appreciated from both sides of the beneficiaries and implementing parties.

Due to the fact that local authorities have challenges in selecting and assessing beneficiary

households; and the thinking of ‘levelling down everything’ of communities, there has been

the situation of increasing beneficiary households by reducing relief money amount

allocated per household. The disparity of beneficiaries’ signatures or amount of relief

money they received was the consequence of the selection that was in-accordance to the

guidelines.

Financial documents are very important to prove the accuracy and transparency of the

disbursement. However, the documentations that local VNRC submitted to IFRC are not

sufficient. Information is still missing, most of those are ID or household record number.

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Even IFRC provided quite detailed information on missing documentations, the team still

hardly collected the missing ones due to limited time and human resources.

The following recommendations are suggested to improve the future programs:

5.1 To collect missing documentations for the distribution

-- It is recommended that IFRC prepare a list of cases missing information on village basis

and request the district and commune Red Cross to provide supplement information.

-- Additional information should be verified by provincial Red Cross before sending to

VNRC and IFRC.

5.2 To improve future programs

Designing the program structure

-- IFRC and VNRC should conduct a sample survey to understand better the needs of

victims and quota for distribution before designing the norms, criteria for selection of

beneficiaries and distribution method. This might help to avoid the re-allocation that

had happened at all villages under this grant.

-- The program should be consistent with one relief format from the beginning till the end

by either support with rice or cash support to avoid causing troubles for commune and

village local authorities in selecting the beneficial households. This consistence also

helps the relief program to be delivered quickly.

-- When changing from granting rice to cash, it should take in account the increase in price

of food and daily necessities of the market after disasters.

-- The program should adjust the difference in relief support for households with 3

members and less and households with 4 members and above in a way that there

should not be a big gap as the current amount (currently they are 400,000 VND and

800,000 VND respectively).

Training, supporting and monitoring

-- The training for local officers needs to focus on guidance on the relief’s delivering and

receiving formats, papers and accountancy procedures of payment and balance sheet.

-- Technical supports on accountancy and finance of IFRC and VNRC for Red Cross at

provincial, district and commune levels need to be conducted in parallel with the

program implementing activities

-- Red Cross at provincial and district levels should increase monitoring at the program’

sites. Supervising the household selecting process to make sure they do not reduce the

monetary relief amount per household to increase the beneficiary numbers. Supervising

the delivering process to ensure that there is no case of receiving and signing the cash

support on other’s behalf.

Transparency

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-- The minute of beneficiaries selected meeting should be signed by three persons: village

leader, secretary and representative of the household that nominated by the household

attending the meeting. The minutes including list of beneficiaries should be made right

at the meeting and in three copies. One copy should be kept by the household

representative to compare to the public ones. This will help to ensure fair selection of

beneficiaries and accurate list of beneficiaries to what agreed upon at the meeting.

-- One action could be taken to avoid in-transparent activities from local authorities is to

widely announce to the local people that they do not have to return any part of the

support received, to anyone under obligation.

-- Hotline and email of person in charge from IFRC, VNRC or provincial Red Cross chapters

could be informed openly for people to inform any in-proper action from any party on

the support received from IFRC or VNRC.

-- The program needs to strictly follow the regulation of receiving relief program that

people need to have ID or Household Registration Book with them. In reality, there is

very rare case where people do not have these either papers.

-- With cases where the person in the name list could not come to receive the relief money,

the program should have a clear decision on either solution below:

Volunteers to visit the house and deliver the relief directly at the beneficial house

(according to the guidelines of IFRC and VNRC), or

Their family’s members have to show the required papers to receive the relief and

the village’s leaders to confirm this case with the relief implementing groups (the

practical solution done by locals).

Post distribution monitoring

-- The post distribution monitoring and evaluation should be added as a compulsory step

in the chain of activities to ensure the quality of our program as well as to withdraw

learn lessons in order to improve future activities.

-- Financial materials should be provided to team leader before the trip. This will allow the

team leader to have sufficient time to study the documents and have better

understanding on the situation at the places to be monitored. This will help to choose

more suitable monitoring method and strategy for each site, leading to a better result of

the monitoring.

-- Sample size, distances between monitoring sites, number of interviewers should be

considered and adjusted to ensure the monitoring team would have enough time each

day for day-end meeting and to regain health for next working day.