Rakhine State in Myanmar has experienced armed conflict, localized violence, political instability and extremely high levels of forced displacement, together with heightened vulnerability to flooding. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the local population faced further and compounding disruptions to livelihoods, and local government institutions and administrations experienced operational challenges.

In this complex situation, FAO assisted over 7500 vulnerable households by delivering cash assistance complemented (hence the term Cash+) by distribution of agricultural inputs, information materials, hygiene kits, agricultural training and aquaculture production support. To do so, the intervention established links with the social protection programme “Maternal cash assistance for pregnant and lactating women,” which informed the cash assistance modality and the value amount of transfers. The intervention was part of the broader EU-funded initiative of the Global Network Against Food Crises Partnership Programme, which aimed to increase the resilience of households to socioeconomic shocks and disasters, by focusing on reducing vulnerability to conflict and malnutrition, and bolstering agricultural productivity.

A country-level monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) plan was developed to track changes in resilience and food security indicators resulting from country investments. This social protection and resilience good practice fact sheet aims at presenting answers to the learning questions identified, regarding the actual contribution of the project interventions to resilience and the added value of implementing these in alignment to the national social protection system.

SOME KEY TAKEAWAYS

• On social protection: Aligning the distribution of cash assistance to an existing government-led social protection programme proved to improve efficiency and effectiveness. More specifically, the intervention used an existing well-established cash delivery modality and delivered an amount of cash that matched the value of regular assistance.

• On cash: Extensive evidence suggests that adopting a Cash+ approach (i.e combining Cash assistance with agricultural inputs and capacity development) is more effective in strengthening the resilience of agricultural livelihoods, including improving productivity, food security and nutrition. For this reason, the intervention targeted agricultural households with both cash assistance and agricultural inputs and training.

• On conflict sensitivity: The protracted conflict continues to increase levels of vulnerability, especially for the Rohingya, an ethnic group that mostly resided in Rakhine State but emigrated in great numbers because of conflict and instability. Given the operational context and the need for a conflict-sensitive approach, local communities, and village leaders (formal and informal) were consulted throughout the project to ensure that perceptions and opinions were incorporated in project interventions to do no harm. Conflict-sensitive assessments helped ensure activities were designed to address the specific needs, vulnerabilities and interests of the different livelihood, ethnic and gender groups in the targeted villages and to promote social cohesion between the various groups.

• On social cohesion: Concrete steps were taken during project’s implementation to minimize the risk of exacerbating tensions and to contribute to addressing the root causes of conflict. For example: support provided to targeted villages included both Muslim and Rohingya majority villages; some of the agricultural machinery distributed had to be shared by Muslim and Rohingya communities; and beneficiary selection criteria included land use accessibility instead of land ownership. This intervention shows that cash for work interventions targeting whole communities have the potential to contribute to improved inter-community relations while building or rehabilitating infrastructure useful to the community. Moreover, targeted unconditional cash transfers need careful communication, transparency, community validation and effective mechanisms to address exclusion complaints in a satisfactory manner.