Period covered by this Final Report: 4 June 2012 to 31 March 2013.
Appeal target: CHF 1,042,363
Appeal coverage: 72%
Appeal history:
· This Emergency Appeal was launched on 7 June 2012 for CHF 2,537,138 to assist 142,740 beneficiaries (21,960 households) for 9 months.
· Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF): CHF 258,538 was initially allocated on 5 June 2012 from the Federation’s to support the Mali Red Cross (MRC) in delivering assistance.
· A Revised Emergency Appeal was issued on 18 October 2012 and reduced the budget to CHF 1,042,363 and the number of beneficiaries to 58,500 (9,000 households).The 9 months’ timeframe remained unchanged.
· A 6-month summary update was issued on 14 January 2013 and provided an update of the operation progress for the initial 6 months of the operation.
· An Operations update n° 2 was issued on 25 January 2013 to announce a 1 month extension of the operation timeframe in order to complete the community garden activities. All activities were completed at the end of March 2013.
Summary: In February 2012, the Government of Mali identified 1,841,513 people in 111 communes as being food insecure. However, because of the political instability that prevailed in Mali in 2012, it took time for the authorities to make an official request for international humanitarian assistance to help with the food crisis; the Emergency Appeal for Mali was therefore delayed and the last to be launched out the seven countries affected by food insecurity. The interventions were aligned to the priorities defined by the Malian authorities and FAO to respond to the food crisis and focused on the 2012 seasonal agricultural calendar.
At the start of the emergency operation, the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners agreed that the ICRC would be leading the assistance in the three Northern provinces, whilst the IFRC would support MRC in the five southern regions of: Kayes, Koulikoro, Mopti, Ségou and Sikasso[1]. The activities which began in July 2012 have concentrated on a twin-track approach covering emergency needs with food and fodder assistance simultaneously with mid to longer term food security interventions and livelihood support.
Despite slow and low funding, the tripartite partnership signed in September 2012 between WFP, MRC and IFRC allowed to scale up assistance with food and fodder ration distributions to support communities during the lean season and avoid the beneficiaries from resorting to negative coping strategies such as the sale of their livestock. In October 2012 funding allowed the implementation of the second phase of the appeal which sought to improve the targeted communities’ resilience to food access by reinforcing vegetable garden crop production through the distribution of certified seeds; the rehabilitation of farming and irrigation infrastructure and training women in improved gardening techniques.
Today the country is recovering from the effects of the drought and the 2012/2013 harvest has proved generally above average in most of the Sahel countries. However food shortages and the high price of food continues to have a negative impact particularly in northern and central Mali due to the ongoing conflict and the limited livelihoods of poor households in the northern rice-growing and agro pastoral areas.
Financial situation: The appeal budget of CHF 1,042,363 was 72 percent funded by partners including Danish RC/Government, Canadian RC/Government, Japanese RC, Red Cross of Monaco and WFP. A total of CHF 1,015,471 income was received including in kind contribution (personnel) amounting to CHF 135,280 as well as a DREF of CHF 258,538. The short-fall in funding required an appeal revision in October 2012, and the budget was reduced to CHF 1,042,363 and the number of beneficiaries reduced from 142,740 to 58,500 people.
The initial DREF loan to the appeal will be reimbursed partly with the CHF 141,685 remaining at the close of the operation.
Lessons learned:
· The timeframe for setting up the community vegetable gardens was too short since the construction of the garden perimeters required 6 months instead of 3 months as originally planned.
· In order to avoid wrong estimations before the excavation of wells, hydrological surveys took place to estimate the depth required to access water.
· The rehabilitation and the building of new irrigation systems were based on past experience which required the use simple technology in order to assure sustainability.
· Activities were based on the seasonal calendar (established by Fewsnet) which provided the mapping of critical timings to respect for the seed distributions so that beneficiaries could plant on time at the start of the rains for main harvest season. The calendar will be used for longer-term food security planning by Movement partners in Mali.
· Better coordination with government and NGOs through the cluster and regional administration would have improved the identification of beneficiary coverage gaps.
· Involving the communities at the start of the recovery phase and allowed them the choice of the type of assistance they required and was unquestionably an added value reaching a high level satisfaction among the beneficiaries.
· The operations employed local technical services which helped avoid possible mistakes and ensured the vegetable garden associations to be able to count on long-term support.
· The operations somewhat suffered from a lack of a financial expertise. It is recommended in future that a strong finance RDRT be deployed from the start of the operations, in order to support the National Society adopt to the required reporting procedures.
· Despite lower funding than planned, the over commitment of the Mali Red Cross combined with the changing priorities with the situation unfolding in the northern part of the country did not allow the money at hand to be spend according to plans.
· In order to relieve the National Society from too many operational demands the IFRC has put in place a Movement Coordinator to encourage a better geographical and thematic coordination of support needed in Mali and how to better capture resources to adequately support the work of MRC
The IFRC, on behalf of Mali Red Cross Society, would like to extend thanks to all partners for their generous contributions.
