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ESSN Mid-Term Review 2018/2019, February 2020

Страны
Türkiye
Источники
WFP
Дата публикации

Executive Summary

  1. The World Food Programme (WFP) Turkey Country Office on behalf of the ESSN stakeholders commissioned this mid-term review of the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), funded by the Directorate General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO). The first phase of the ESSN (ESSN 1) ran from September 2016, with roll-out starting in early 2017; while ESSN 2 commenced in January 2018 and will run until March 2020. This Review covers the period from May 2018 to November 2019. The intended users of the review include WFP; TK; the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Family, Labour, and Social Services (MoFLSS) and DG ECHO; as well as other organizations providing assistance to refugees in Turkey.

  2. Turkey currently hosts more refugees than any other country in the world. There are 4 million registered refugees1 in Turkey, of whom 3.6 million are Syrian refugees. The ESSN launched in December 2016 with the objective of stabilising or improving living standards of the most vulnerable out of camp refugee households. The ESSN was designed in conjunction with the Government of Turkey and is implemented through a partnership between WFP, TK, the Ministry of Family, Labour, and Social Services (MoFLSS) and Halkbank.

Methodology

  1. This review focusses on four programmatic developments, specifically: (1) the SASF discretionary allowance, (2) outreach teams, (3) protection referrals and (4) the severe disability allowance. This review also examines the impact of the 2018 economic slowdown in Turkey on ESSN beneficiaries (5).

  2. In order to examine these five topics, the research team adopted a mixed method approach. The sources of evidence used to answer the research questions include a literature review, qualitative data from structured Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) at Ankara and Provincial level, as well as beneficiary consultations through focus group discussions (FGDs) and household case studies (HHCS) in two provinces. Quantitative data sources included various household surveys and administration datasets.

The SASF discretionary allowance

  1. The SASF discretionary allowance serves as a complementary mechanism to reach vulnerable households who may be excluded by the programme’s demographic targeting criteria. It was introduced in November 2018 with the objective of decreasing exclusion errors and started to be implemented in December 2018. The scheme enables each SASF office to select, on a discretionary basis, a small number of vulnerable applicants who were not eligible under the established criteria, to be included as ESSN beneficiaries. Each SASF office is entitled to a quota of allowances calculated as 5% of total applications received by that SASF in October 2018.

  2. Based on household visits the SASF may recommend to include the family as an ESSN beneficiary. As of April 2019, it was reported that SASFs had visited 100,106 non beneficiary, applicant households (42% of the total). There is variation in how beneficiary HHs are identified. Only in contexts of a small ESSN caseload have all ESSN applicants been visited. Resource constraints, specifically insufficient SASF staff time, lack of transport budgets and interpreters for household visits, were key constraints in the rollout of the allowance, despite TK support with vehicles, staff and interpreter support.

  3. The assessment process required SASFs to use the Decision Support Mechanism Algorithm (DSMA) to screen households for the SASF discretionary allowance. However, there was consistent feedback from Government stakeholders that the use of the DSMA as a strict criterion for eligibility was problematic. As intended, the process of selecting beneficiary households relies heavily on the judgement of SASF officers in the field. The judgement of SASF officers proved to be accurate: the SASF discretionary allowance was effectively targeted, to relatively poorer households. However, due to the relatively small proportion of households that can be reached (even with the full use of the quota), this had a limited impact on the overall exclusion error.

  4. There has been a policy of restricting public dissemination of information on this allowance and beneficiaries had little awareness of the SASF discretionary allowance.
    Information had been shared with civil society actors on the new allowance through Task Force meetings. However, information on the allowance had clearly not spread uniformly in the wider civil society community who may not have participated in the TF meetings and NGOs interviewed believed that they did not have a role in suggesting candidate HHs to SASFs.

Recommendations

  1. Based on the findings and conclusions the following recommendations are made:

i. The ESSN should continue to liaise with the MoFLSS to find the most appropriate and effective ways to support the SASF offices with the necessary support to complete household visits.

ii. Guidance on the use of the DSMA to screen households should be revised and the allowance should be allocated by the SASF on the basis of the judgement of the SASF officers, with accountability provided through on-going monitoring.

iii. There should be the provision to redistribute the existing quota of SASF discretionary allowance between Provinces, from areas where the full quota is not needed to areas where demand is higher.