Assessing impact of interventions on children

Children receiving food aid are often stigmatised and maltreated by guardians, according to the findings of a pilot project in Zimbabwe to assess the impact of food interventions on children. The project was prompted by a lack of "humanitarian accountability to beneficiaries" and the fact that feedback from children had never been considered in the significant number of interventions taking place in Zimbabwe, said Chris McIvor of the UK-Based NGO, Save the Children, which conducted the study. "One of the recommendations of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Humanitarian Crises, established in March 2002, was that agencies must be more accountable to beneficiary population, including children," he explained. The IASC Task Force was created after allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of refugees in West Africa. Save the Children set up seven children's feedback committees earlier this year in Mutorashanga in the Zvimba district of Mashonaland West province, where the NGO has been working for the last four years. Fifty children were trained in information gathering to provide feedback, complaints and suggestions from other children to an independent ombudsperson, who provided the core point of contact between the committees and the programme. The ombudsperson in turn reported to a board comprising a representative each from government, the organisation's principal donor, Save the Children and another humanitarian agency, which responded to the feedback. The board also had the mandate to redirect food aid operations in response to the children's reports. The project provided information of a "nature and quality that may not have been possible through normal post-distribution monitoring visits conducted by international NGOs," McIvor commented. The board learnt that children often had to miss school to access food aid, which led to food aid agencies visiting areas on public holidays or at times convenient to the children, he said. "Marginalisation of orphans by caregivers prioritising their own children at mealtimes," has now prompted "organisations to monitor more closely what happens to food after it is collected from distribution points," McIvor noted. Zimbabwe has a large number of child-headed households as a result of the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS; such families are marginalised in community structures, often leading to their exclusion as beneficiaries from programmes, Save the Children learnt. When child-headed households were included in programmes, they often did not have access to information on their entitlements, roles and responsibilities. "Children indicated that they were unwilling to make complaints either within the community or to agency staff, for fear that food aid might be terminated," McIvor said. Cases of abuse, including sexual exploitation, physical punishment, refusal to support orphans' attendance at school and excessive child labour were also reported to the board. "These generally relate to the vulnerability of children under the care of step-parents or other guardians," he added. Following the success of the pilot project, Save the Children intends to promote the formation of children feedback committees to cover a variety of interventions, including water and sanitation programmes, health delivery projects, and orphan care and support programmes.