Distributing, monitoring and rebuilding livelihoods

1Organising a distribution

A distribution must be prepared: validated lists, beneficiary cards, safe site with shade and water, trained team, crowd management, prior information on the date, contents and complaints mechanism. On the day: identity check, handover of the basket or transfer, signature or fingerprint, priority for vulnerable people, stock counts at the start and end of the day.

Reconciliation between planned, distributed and remaining quantities is done the same day. Any discrepancy is explained and reported. Commodity tracking, from the port to the beneficiary's hands, protects against diversion.

2Post-distribution monitoring and outcomes

Post-distribution monitoring (PDM) surveys a sample of households a few weeks later: did they receive the right quantity? How did they use it? Did they face security problems or abuse? Has their consumption improved?

Outcome indicators (FCS, rCSI, coping strategies) are tracked against the baseline, as well as market prices. The results, including complaints, are used to adjust targeting, transfer values and organisation.

3From relief to recovery

As soon as possible, the response seeks to protect and rebuild livelihoods: seeds and tools before the rainy season, livestock vaccination and feed, cash for work to rehabilitate useful infrastructure, support for small businesses, savings groups. The seasonal calendar guides the timing of each intervention.

The link with nutrition, water and national social protection is essential: where a national safety net system exists, humanitarian assistance can build on it or prepare the transition (“humanitarian-development nexus”).

4The Food Security cluster

The Food Security cluster is co-led globally by WFP and FAO. It coordinates analysis (IPC, joint assessments), 4W mapping, harmonisation of food baskets and transfer values, prevention of duplication and advocacy.

It works with the Cash Working Group (CWG) and the Nutrition and WASH clusters. For an NGO, taking part means sharing its areas and figures, aligning its transfer values with those agreed and avoiding assisting the same households twice.

5Planning an in-kind distribution: calculations, site and team

A successful distribution is decided three to six weeks before distribution day. Sphere standard 6.3 (targeting, distribution and delivery) requires distribution methods to be efficient, equitable, safe, accessible and respectful of dignity, and people to be informed in advance of their entitlements. The steps below are those that a project manager or distribution manager must master.

1. Calculating commodity requirements

The starting point is the daily ration per person, the size of registered households (not a theoretical average size) and the period covered. For the standard ration from day 5 (cereals 450 g, pulses 50 g, oil 30 g, salt 5 g, sugar 20 g), a 30-day month represents per person 13.5 kg of cereals, 1.5 kg of pulses, 0.9 kg of oil, 0.15 kg of salt and 0.6 kg of sugar, i.e. about 16.65 kg. Households are then grouped by size to create household rations that are easy to hand over (for example a "1 to 3 people", "4 to 6" and "7 and over" ration), checking that rounding does not penalise large households.

A margin for transport and handling losses (depending on contracts and past experience, often around 1 to 2%) and a contingency stock for registrations validated after complaints (2 to 5% depending on the context) are added to the net total.

2. Choosing and organising the sites

• Number and location: reduce walking time, especially for older people and persons with disabilities; a journey that forces people to leave before dawn or return after dark is a signal to open an additional site or organise a mobile distribution.
• Site selection: flat ground, shade, drinking water, sex-segregated latrines, shelter for waiting, truck access, no military or politically sensitive location, with the agreement of the authorities and the community.
• Site layout: a one-way flow (entry, verification, handover, exit), a waiting area separate from the storage area, a priority queue, an information and complaints desk at the exit, a rest area. Barriers (ropes, posts) channel the crowd without confining it.

3. Sizing the throughput and the team

Throughput depends on identity verification, the type of ration and the organisation of the site. A benchmark used by many teams is 300 to 500 households per day per distribution line when rations are pre-packed or standardised and verification is electronic; it falls much lower with scooping and paper lists. Days and lines are planned accordingly, with households called in by time slot (by village or by letter) rather than all at opening time.

4. Informing people before distribution day

At least one week beforehand: date, place, schedule by group, exact content of the ration (in kilos, by household size), documents to bring, the option of designating a proxy, the fact that assistance is entirely free, complaint channels. This information is provided through several channels (separate meetings for men and women, local radio, voice messages, posters with pictograms).

5. Distribution day and the day after

1. Stock count at opening, in the presence of the storekeeper and the site manager, recorded and signed.
2. Team briefing: roles, code of conduct, suspension procedure, how to handle a sensitive complaint.
3. Handover with verification and signature or fingerprint; random weighing of one ration in twenty.
4. Closing count and same-day reconciliation: opening stock minus rations handed over (in quantities) must equal closing stock, give or take documented losses.
5. Distribution report within 24 to 48 hours: households served, absentees, quantities, discrepancies, incidents, complaints.
6. Updating the lists: absentees are contacted; a catch-up distribution is organised according to a written procedure.

6Stock management and commodity traceability

Traceability along the supply chain, from supplier to household, is the first requirement of donors and auditors for in-kind assistance. It rests on a few simple documents, rigorously kept.

The basic documents

Warehouse management rules

• First expired, first out: batches with the nearest expiry date are issued first, not the most recent arrivals.
• Storage on pallets, away from walls, in limited stacks labelled by batch; ventilation, rodent and insect control, fumigation by qualified staff.
• Quality control on receipt and in storage: moisture content of cereals, condition of packaging, smell, presence of insects; quarantine and testing in case of doubt; documented and authorised destruction of commodities unfit for consumption.
• Restricted access, two keys held by two different people, register of people entering and leaving.

Supply chain reconciliation

A monthly reconciliation compares, for each commodity: quantities received from suppliers, quantities taken into the warehouse, issues to sites, quantities handed over to households, returns and losses, closing stock. The control formula is simple: opening stock + receipts − issues − losses = theoretical closing stock, to be compared with the physical inventory. Any discrepancy above the threshold set in the procedures is the subject of an explanatory note and, if necessary, an investigation.

An unreported discrepancy is more serious than a reported one. Donors and UN agencies take a hard line on concealed losses; by contrast, they accept losses that are documented, explained and accompanied by corrective measures. Reporting promptly protects the organisation and the people involved.

7Post-distribution monitoring and outcome monitoring: the method

Monitoring a food assistance programme involves three levels that must not be confused: process monitoring (did the distribution go well?), post-distribution monitoring (what did households receive, what did they do with it, what problems did they face?) and outcome monitoring (has the food situation of households changed?). PDM often combines the last two.

Timing

• Distribution monitoring: on the day itself, through observation and exit interviews (10 to 20 households per site).
• PDM: two to six weeks after the transfer or distribution, to allow time to consume or spend, but not so late that households no longer remember.
• Baseline: before the first distribution, among targeted households, with the same indicators as the PDM. Without it, no effect can be measured.
• Frequency: one PDM after the first distribution (to correct quickly), then every two to three months, and an endline survey.

Sample

As PDM is carried out on the beneficiary list, a sampling frame is available: simple or systematic random sampling is possible, without a significant design effect. To estimate a proportion with a precision of ±7 to ±10 percentage points, 100 to 200 households per stratum are often enough. Strata are planned if modalities, areas or partners are to be compared.

Questionnaire modules

Analysing and deciding

Results are compared with the baseline, the targets and, if possible, a non-assisted group with a comparable profile (to distinguish the programme's effect from the seasonal effect). They are presented at a learning meeting within two weeks of data collection, with a list of decisions and people responsible. A PDM without decisions is just one more report.

8Worked example: the July distribution in Sarakoro, from calculation to PDM

Continuing the fictional example from day 2: in Sarakoro, the road is cut in July and August. "Terres Solidaires" therefore replaces cash with in-kind food for these two months, for the 4,100 households selected.

1. Calculating requirements

The team checked that the actual average size of the "7 and over" group is 8.7 people: the ration for 9 therefore does not penalise these households. Net requirements for one month: 27,240 × 13.5 kg = 367.7 tonnes of cereals; 40.9 t of pulses; 24.5 t of oil; 4.1 t of salt; 16.3 t of sugar; a total of 453.5 tonnes. With a 2% margin for losses and a 3% contingency for registrations validated after complaints, the order comes to around 476 tonnes, i.e. 16 30-tonne trucks to be prepositioned before the road is cut.

2. Organisation

Four sites, two distribution lines per site, rations pre-packed in kits by household size, verification by barcode card. With around 400 households per line per day, each site serves its roughly 1,000 households in a day and a half; two teams rotate across the four sites over eight days. Households are called in by village and by half-day.

3. Cereal reconciliation

At site 3, the 1.35-tonne discrepancy corresponds to 27 50-kg bags. The site manager reports it the same evening; a recount confirms it. The internal investigation establishes that the bags were handed to a committee member "for the sick who could not come", with no list or signature. The designated proxy procedure existed but had not been explained to the committee. Measures: recovery of 19 bags, documented handover of 8 bags to verified households, written reminder of the procedure to all committees, replacement of the committee member concerned, note to the donor in the monthly report.

4. PDM four weeks later

Random sample of 180 households drawn from the list, compared with the baseline carried out in March among the same targeted households.

5. Decisions from the learning meeting

• Add a small cash amount for August (or a milling voucher negotiated with millers) covering the cost of milling.
• Treat requests for payment as allegations of fraud: report to the integrity unit, investigate, publicly announce in the two villages that assistance is free, rotate committee members.
• Strengthen information on complaint channels (radio messages, a poster at each site, a verbal reminder at the exit point).
• Add a debt module to the next PDM and explore, with the livelihoods component, a response to indebtedness after the harvest.

9Programming livelihood recovery: technical parameters

Recovery does not begin after the emergency: it is prepared from the first months, in line with the seasonal calendar. The Sphere livelihoods standards (primary production, income and employment), the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS) and the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (MERS, from the SEEP Network) provide the framework.

Seeds and agricultural inputs

• Analyse before distributing: is the problem seed availability, access (purchasing power) or quality? The Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA, developed by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and CRS) shows that, in many crises, seeds are available locally and the problem is access. The response is then a voucher or a seed fair rather than a distribution of imported seed.
• Timing: seeds must be in farmers' hands two to four weeks before the first effective rains; a late distribution is useless and the seed is often eaten.
• Quality: known varieties adapted to the rainfall cycle, verified germination rate (at least the national standard threshold, often around 80% for cereals), free of disease. No new, untested varieties in an emergency.
• Seed protection: combine with a ration or transfer during the sowing period to prevent the seed from being eaten.

Livestock (LEGS)

Cash for work

• Daily rate: generally set at or slightly below the local wage for unskilled labour, harmonised through the cluster, so as not to draw labour away from agricultural work and to encourage self-targeting.
• Number of days: calculated so that income covers the targeted gap (for example 12 days per month to cover half of a household's food basket), with a cap per household.
• Budget structure: the share devoted to wages is generally the largest; tools, materials and technical supervision must nonetheless be sufficient for the work to be useful and lasting.
• Inclusion: adapted working hours, light work, childcare, and unconditional transfers for households without able-bodied labour. Insurance and first aid on work sites.
• Usefulness: works chosen with the community and technical services, with a maintenance plan. A useless piece of infrastructure discredits the entire programme.

Income and small-scale activities

Grants for small businesses with a simple business plan, savings and loan groups, vocational training based on a labour market analysis. The MERS standards stress not competing with existing economic actors and commercial viability: training 200 seamstresses for a market that can absorb 20 creates frustration, not income.

10The cluster in practice, variations by context and donor expectations

What participating in the cluster actually involves

The IASC Reference Module for Cluster Coordination at Country Level sets out the core functions of a cluster: supporting service delivery, informing the Humanitarian Coordinator's strategy and decisions, planning and strategy development, monitoring and evaluating performance, building preparedness and capacity, advocacy, and accountability to affected populations. For a member NGO, this translates into specific monthly tasks:

Variations by context

• Sudden-onset shock: rapid general distributions, standardised kits, light PDM in the first month; early recovery as soon as markets reopen (seeds if the season is approaching).
• Protracted crisis: transition to more predictable transfers, integration with social protection, multi-year livelihoods programmes, outcome monitoring over several seasons.
• Camp: highly organised regular distributions, frequent biometric registration, management of tensions linked to ration cuts; livelihoods constrained by the legal framework (right to work, access to land).
• Urban setting: little or no in-kind distribution; transfers via mobile money or cards; employment and training programmes based on the labour market.
• Remote management: third-party monitoring, telephone verification of a sample of beneficiaries, geotagged photos of sites and warehouses, spot checks by partner staff, more frequent reconciliations.
• High insecurity: smaller, more frequent rations, short distributions not announced long in advance, no large stocks on site.
• Local partner with limited capacity: support in setting up stock documents, joint first distributions, gradual increase in the volumes entrusted.

Common mistakes

• Distributing seeds after the rains have started.
• Reconciling stocks at the end of the month rather than on the same day.
• Conducting PDM without a baseline, or with a different questionnaire.
• Ignoring hidden costs for households (milling, transport, agent fees).
• Reporting cumulative "beneficiaries" to the cluster that count the same households several times.
• Ending assistance without an exit strategy or prior notice.

What donors and auditors look for

• Full traceability of the supply chain and signed reconciliations.
• Losses reported with their causes and measures, within the deadlines set by the agreement.
• Outcome indicators (FCS, rCSI, LCS) measured against a baseline, disaggregated by sex of the head of household and by area.
• Data from the complaints mechanism and the follow-up given.
• Consistency between figures reported to the donor, to the cluster and in internal documents.

11Interview questions and key references

Interview questions

1. "At reconciliation, 3% of the commodities are missing at one site. What are your first actions?"

A good answer: recount and check the documents on the same day (release notes, lists, returns), report immediately to line management according to the procedure, do not accuse anyone without evidence, secure the remaining stock, document, inform the donor within the timeframe set by the agreement, then analyse the causes and correct the procedure.

2. "PDM shows that 30% of households sell part of their ration. Is this a problem?"

The answer explains that it depends on what is sold and why: selling to pay for milling or to buy missing foods reveals an inappropriate ration or uncovered costs, and may justify a mixed modality; selling because the ration exceeds needs may indicate an inclusion error. It proposes analysing by household group and adjusting.

3. "How would you design a cash-for-work programme that does not exclude the most vulnerable?"

The answer cites the wage rate, the cap on days, light work, working hours, childcare, the unconditional component, work-site safety and participatory selection of the works.

4. "What is your typical contribution to the Food Security Cluster?"

The answer describes 5W reporting, sharing assessments, alignment with agreed transfer values and indicators, participation in technical working groups and in the response plan, and escalating field problems (access, duplication, tensions).

5. "How do you prepare the exit from a food assistance programme?"

The answer mentions exit criteria set at the design stage, early information for households, a gradual phase-down, links with livelihoods and social protection, the seasonal calendar (never exit at the start of the lean season) and post-exit monitoring.

Key references

• The Sphere Handbook (2018), standards 6.3 (targeting, distribution and delivery), 6.4 (food use) and the livelihoods standards.
• WFP logistics and commodity management manuals and the Logistics Cluster's Logistics Operational Guide.
• Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS), latest edition.
• Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (MERS): SEEP Network.
• Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA) tools: Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT and CRS.
• Reference Module for Cluster Coordination at Country Level: IASC.
• Indicator handbook of the Global Food Security Cluster: Global Food Security Cluster.
• Core Humanitarian Standard on Quality and Accountability (CHS, 2024).