A Spreadsheet Helps Bring Humanitarian Relief

October 02, 2019 03:45:05 PM Published by: PERL

PERL's Stories of Change Series

Humanitarian Intervention Tracking By Voice and Accountability Platform Humanitarian Intervention Tracking By Voice and Accountability Platform

Most people living in the camps had left their homes to flee violence caused by the nine-year conflict between the Nigerian military and armed groups such as Boko Haram. While government-run camps in Yobe were closed down in 2018, with residents going back to their homes, the “self-made” camps remain because not everyone is ready to go back - new bouts of violence have led to further movements of people, and many displaced people do not have many promising opportunities to go back to.

When local civil society monitoring the delivery of humanitarian aid in Yobe came to the camps in early 2017, they used the “Humanitarian Intervention Tracking Tool” - a spreadsheet at its base - to check what services, if any, were being delivered there. They found that residents were in dire need of services. Neither the government nor humanitarian organisations were providing adequate relief. Insufficient food, water, health services, and adequate shelter had translated to malnutrition, disease and insecurity.

Using the tracking tool, the organisations recorded residents’ needs, including how many people required support, and shared this information with citizens groups. The citizens groups then turned to humanitarian organisations to ask them to provide support to the camps.

As a result, more services and supplies began arriving in the camps. All five camps received food and other items, such as soap and cooking pots. In the biggest camp, in Kukareta, the UNHCR provided materials for 300 shelters, as well as cash for all residents. Médecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) began delivering health services, including antenatal care and medicines, and the Community and Social Development Project built houses. The camp also received solar water boreholes. In the Kalallawa camp, the International Rescue Committee built a health clinic, and the Fune, Abbari/YBC, and Kasaisa Camps received shelters.

Data gaps on humanitarian need

The sheer number of humanitarian challenges in northeast Nigeria, where over seven million people are in need of assistance, along with the fluctuating security situation, have meant that even with government assistance and international support there are communities that do not receive aid, or whose exact needs are not known. Moreover, at times, aid that is promised to communities is not delivered, whether due to mistakes, complications or corruption.

 

 The Humanitarian Intervention Tracking Tool was developed to monitor whether relief was being delivered by the government and by non-governmental organisations, including large players such as the UN, and whether there were any gaps in the delivery of relief. While at its core the tool is a spreadsheet, populated with information on needs, on who is and isn’t receiving support, and on which goods or services from the government or from relief organisations are reaching the intended beneficiaries, it is also the tangible representation of an entire process of recording what has been budgeted for or promised, of going out to communities to identify what has been done, and of analysing the data so that it can be used for advocacy.

 

A budget tracking tool transformed

The Humanitarian Intervention Tracking Tool was adapted from a spreadsheet and a process that were being used to monitor whether government agencies were spending money on public services, as allocated in government budgets. When the data showed that interventions allocated for in a budget had not been delivered, advocacy groups could use this information to advocate for the services to be included in the next years’ budget. In other words, it was a way to push for government accountability. For example, if the state budget had a line item for a school to be built, citizens’ groups would use the tool to check that the school was actually built. If it hadn’t been, the information could be used to advocate for money to be allocated for a school in the subsequent budget.

The original budget tracking tool had been developed by citizens groups and advocacy organisations partnering with the UK aid funded PERL programme, through the Voice and Accountability Platform. PERL had helped its partner organisations set up the platform, which comprises of representatives of civil society groups, traditional institutions and government who discuss bottlenecks to service delivery and now operates at the state, senatorial, and constituency levels.

A return of insurgency in the region in 2017 led to an upsurge in humanitarian need. PERL worked with its partners through the Voice and Accountability platform to help them understand humanitarian issues and recovery efforts and to adapt the original budget tracking tool so that it could be used to monitor humanitarian needs and relief. The new tool would track whether food was delivered, if shelters were built, if there was access to healthcare, and more. Importantly, it would hold not only the government to account, but also humanitarian organisations working in the region.

Initially, however, humanitarian organisations were not interested in participating in the tracking process. Some had concerns over sharing data on the populations they supported, and others were wary of the situation as a result of inadequate government plans for recovery. Some humanitarians also worried that working too closely with government actors could compromise their need to maintain neutral and apolitical.

But in 2018, with PERL’s support and in response to findings made using the tracking tool, the Yobe House of Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on Recovery convened a meeting between the House of Assembly, humanitarian organisations and citizens’ groups. Thanks to the tracking tool, it had become clear that duplication of efforts was identified   in  a nutrition facility in the Jakusko Local Government Authority, which was  reported resolved by Government and nutrition cluster working group   where one community was getting nutrition help from two organisations, while there were other communities that were not getting such help at all. This contributed to the decision by government and partners to move the other organization  support to a different location. It was the beginning of a turning point - humanitarian actors started coming on board.

Today, the more the conflict flares up in Yobe, the more the tracking tool is used to collect data on humanitarian needs. With upsurges in violence, the situation changes more quickly and monitoring has to be more frequent.

Filling gaps in service delivery

In addition to reducing the duplication of efforts, when the data collected through the tracking tool shows that there are gaps in service delivery, this information can be used to get the government or others to provide the services. This is what happened in the IDP camps. This is also what happened in permanent communities in Yobe.

 

 The conflict had destroyed or severely damaged buildings and infrastructure and had disrupted or eradicated people’s livelihoods. When in early 2017 the Humanitarian Intervention Tracking Tool highlighted service delivery gaps there, citizens’ groups advocated for inclusion of specific recovery activities in the 2018 budget, as well as for support from humanitarian organisations. As a result, six schools were rebuilt, as were a health centre and a secretariat. The government repaired boreholes and reconstructed a bridge, and relief organisations implemented interventions to improve livelihoods and to empower women.

“We had limited access to health facility in the period of the insurgency,” explained a resident of Bara, Yobe State, after a health centre was rebuilt in his town. “We [had] to travel to a distant place like Nafada in Gombe State [one and a half hours away]. But now all our problem was solved, our wives attend to the facility for ante-natal services”.

PERL’s partners are now looking into how to get community members to collect the data themselves, in a way that ensures that the data is accurate. They are also trying to get humanitarian actors in Borno State to use the tracking tool. And civil society organisations in neighbouring Adamawa State have expressed an interest in adapting the tool to their own context, so PERL is helping them do that.

 

Click here to learn more about activities by the Voice and Accountability Platform, Yobe state.