Briefing for Protection Cluster
Key findings from FSAC gender study
Policies and capacities
1. Protection implies implementing projects in impartial and non-discriminatory ways that promote the safety,
dignity and integrity of the people receiving assistance. It also implies actively enquiring how (or if)
protection risks related to gender in the Food Security sector are identified and mitigated; whether
agencies’ interventions put the affected populations at a greater risk (Do No Harm); and how are
protection mechanisms mainstreams in line with gender analysis in the project cycle. Since gender and
protection are interlinked at various levels, and one affects the other, in the FSAC study on gender equality
programming protection was also included.
2. Due to lack of conceptual understanding of theory and practice of protection on the ground, many
agencies are already engaged in protection activities without being aware of it. However, these activities
are often uncoordinated and not captured in project design.
3. In capacity mapping of 18 FSAC agencies, the following trends emerged:
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For effective gender equality programming, prior rapport with community is crucial.
To set realistic goals in gender equality programmes, especially in the context of emergency where prior
rapport with community is absent, important to take approaches such as Do No Harm and the Do Some
Good. Do No Harm is being aware of gender inequality and trying to bring no further gender inequality by
interventions and Do Some Good implies trying to create an atmosphere where different roles, positions
and needs of women and men can be addressed
4 out of 18 FSAC agencies participating in this study have protection policy (Protection for Participating
Populations, child protection and GBV policy).
Almost 80% of the participating agencies reported to have staff code of conduct.
Only 3 agencies reported to have received training on specific aspects of protection such as GBV and child
protection but not on mainstreaming protection in food security.
Only WFP has a protection policy (concentric model circle) that is relevant for identifying and addressing
protection issues in food security interventions
Most of the gender advisors play a twin role with gender and protection being the most natural combination
of skills.
WFP has a protection policy which is based on a concentric model. In the inner circle of the concentric circle,
protection problems directly related to hunger are housed, in the middle circle protection issues related to food
security for which agencies have an entry point are placed and in the outer circle the overall operational context
where protection issues exist are identified. Issues such as targeting vulnerable members of the community,
collecting Sex and Age Disaggregated Data (SADD), ensuring nondiscrimination and impartiality by engaging
community members across gender, age, diversity (such as people with disabilities, ethnic minorities) in
community consultation, decision making and representation, setting up protection mechanisms in various
interventions (reducing risks of GBV, child labour, exclusion, exploitation of labour/land rights and other threats)
and making those accessible to all are some of the issues that fall within the inner circle. These issues have a
direct bearing to gender equality programming. However, this model is still fully not applied in Afghanistan,
although a few WFP staff members have been trained. Nonetheless, WFP reports that the implementation of
this model has been included in WFP’s annual plan for 2013.
Key findings
Project cycle
4. Assessment and risk analysis
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Sex and Age Disaggregated Data (SADD) collection varies across agencies, while a few of them
collect SADD during baseline survey; a few maintain disaggregated records only of the selected
beneficiaries. SADD of the overall community provides an overall picture and SADD of project
beneficiaries provide information on what percentage of the overall populations, broken down by
sex and age, have received assistance. In the absence of this correlation, it is difficult to get a grasp
of what assistance was provided to whom in a given community.
Agencies also mention that collection of SADD is a resource intensive process. Those few agencies
that are collecting SADD as a part of their needs assessment are doing so because of donor
requirement.
Integrating protection into programme designing implies ensuring that protection risks associated
with the interventions are identified at an early stage and addressed or mitigated in a systematic
way. Protection, within the context of food security, has a wide range of issues but the risk
assessments are mostly focused on security situation. While the security situation is critical it is not
always linked with impact on gender; besides other aspects of protection, especially relating to Do
No Harm, and identification and referring to protection risks, are not being systematically or
consistently addressed.
5. Targeting and beneficiary selection
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Beneficiary selection and targeting takes places mostly with Community Development Councils
(CDCs), which is in line with National Solidarity Programme’s efforts for decentralization and
building the capacity at the grassroots.
Nonetheless, many agencies said that there are significant challenges, including protection risks
such as illegal taxation, with beneficiary selection through CDCs unless a thorough mechanism for
verification is put in place.
Furthermore, there is confusion over the selection process in relation to gender, age and disability.
The problem many staff members face in determining selection criteria stems from lack of clarity on
determining degree of vulnerability. Questions such as who is more vulnerable: a female headed
household that receives remittances from outside or a household headed by an older man with
limited physical capacity to work?
Good practices: Oxfam GB, along with its partners OHW measures vulnerability as number of
dependents versus ability to work and resources; ACTED social safety net methodology, ActionAid
Participatory Vulnerability Analysis: all these targeting methods focus on the intersection between
household criteria and socio-economic criteria for beneficiary selection but are time consuming.
6. Protection concerns in delivery modalities
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FSAC members mentioned that a large number of affected populations still do not have Tazkera, so
in the majority of cases, beneficiaries’ identity is verified by the CDCs and village elders. However,
for IDPs, UNHCR registration process also helps in determining identity. Therefore, for large scale
blanket General Food Distribution, verification of identity can pose a significant challenge as
opposed to more specifically targeted projects for smaller groups of populations.
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For some other kinds of food assistance and cash transfer, a few agencies could issue identity
cards to the selected beneficiaries. Some partners reported to have issued identity cards with
pictures of both males and females, but others issue identity cards with pictures only for males.
Food distribution and cash distribution needs thorough protection analysis and the preference for
modality differs from place to place. In some places, face to face distribution of cash and food is
preferred over distribution via CDCs. Many times “safety” takes over “access.”
FSAC agencies emphasizes the importance of having clear and transparent communication with
community leaders as their support is crucial in not only in creating a positive environment for the
implementation of projects but also for ensuring a protective environment for various disadvantaged
groups to feel safe when participating in those activities. Oxfam GB mentioned the need to set up
and train “dialogue teams” for diffusing tension with community elders.
7. Monitoring process and complaint mechanism
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There is a definite indication that food security interventions also contribute to a protective
environment. As demonstrated by the Post Distribution Monitoring and other reports, with lessening
burden on families through various food security related interventions, there are greater chances of
easing intra household tensions. The safe livelihood approach used by NRC as one of the ways to
provide a protective environment to individuals that are at risk of GBV is another example of
enhancing protection
A number of protection issues around food security interventions are mostly anecdotal rather than
supported by concrete data.
Child labour issues have reportedly been identified in some of Cash for Work and Food for Work
activities.
There has been feedback that boys dropped out of school in a few areas, discouraged by the
incentive given only to girls. However, it is unclear if the boys dropped out of school to take up the
responsibility of herding cattle for their families or if there is really any direct relation to girls getting
incentives to attend schools.
A significant and recurring protection threat faced by the beneficiaries is the demand for taxes
(which as per some reports can be upto 80% of the cash transfer) by the CDC members and other
community leaders. In this case, those households that are especially vulnerable such as the
female headed, or headed by older people, people with disabilities and IDPs have no choice but to
share their benefit from the project with the CDC, which implies that the intended benefit of the
project will not meet its purpose.
There is also lack of data to clearly demonstrate the cause and effect between food security
interventions and Gender Based Violence. HAWCA reported, over 80% of the GBV cases are
because of domestic violence, whether there is any correlation between food assistance and
incidence of domestic violence is not established.
There is evidence that women’s increased participation in public fora have made them more
vulnerable to threats, harassment and aggression, mainly due to society’s rejection of females
being active outside their homes.1
There is also an indication that when women, older people or people with disabilities have to
depend on other community members for transporting their food items or cash, there is an
underlying protection risk of getting those services/assistance in exchange of “favours”.
There is also a gap in picking up indicative data from various assessments and to explore further to
verify those with a strong protection component. For instance, the EFSL 2012 (draft) indicated that
girls under 05 years and older people over 65 years are the most food insecure groups given that
their household consumption rate is in the negative. However, both these groups are “supposedly
well looked after” by family and community support as per traditions. However, such findings have
not been discussed further to identify reasons why these groups are worse off than many others, in
Protection and GBV mission report. WFP. 2009
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the face of extreme poverty and resource crunch, is there a breakdown of family support system for
the children, older people and people with disabilities
Food access and quality has also been identified as one of the top three protection priorities. IDPs’
inabilities to meet their food needs forced them to resort to several negative coping strategies:
reduce the quality and quantity of the food, entire day(s) without eating and restrict consumption by
adults in order for small children to eat. UNHCR identifies the most vulnerable members among the
IDPs as Persons with Specific Needs, but as already reported in an earlier chapter, often times the
delay in providing food assistance to such people due to the paperwork involved pushes them
further into adopting negative coping mechanisms.
Many FSAC members, even after capturing or identifying protection issues from their monitoring
process do not know how to take these cases forward for further action. Similarly in cases of abuse
and neglect of individuals (especially in the case of older family members, or those who are sick
and disabled), there is not enough knowledge on how to address these issues.
Preliminary Recommendations
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Promote available resources on protection, especially those relevant to food security, by holding
short introductory sessions in FSAC meetings. Integrate brief sessions on gender and protection in
the FSAC training calendar. For example, in trainings for proposal development, introduce a
session on gender and protection analysis.
Integrate overlapping issues of age, disability and protection in gender trainings.
Maintain a roster of gender and protection trainers for inter-agency use
Maintain a calendar of trainings held by various agencies across Afghanistan for appropriate
linkages and sharing of resources.
Organize trainings on humanitarian standards, gender, age, protection at a Cluster level by linking
with various well know trainings such as IASC training module on gender, HelpAge training module
“HOPE: Helping Older People in Emergencies,” and RedR ToT on Sphere standards.
Set up simple referral mechanism for identified protection cases from food security interventions.
Consider including network of CBOs, NSP CDCs, paralegals, Reflect Circles and other available
protection resources in 3W and disseminating the information to various FSAC agencies.
Common grounds in age, gender and
protection mainstreaming
Protection
Age and
disability
Gender
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Collection, analysis and use of
Sex and Age Disaggregated
Data to inform programming
Gender and protection
Inclusive needs assessments
Targeting methodology
Needs based interventions
Accountability to Affected
populations including feedback
and complaint mechanisms
Referral pathway for identified
cases
Humanitarian standards