3.3: How to turn an idea into reality? 3 Ps: Policies, processes and partnerships

Turning an idea into reality first requires a clear vision and commitment. In this episode, our guests discuss the process of translating this vision into concrete actions, and ultimately, scaling up the use of cash within an organization. Three key themes emerge: policies, processes, and partnerships.

This episode features insights from:

 ·  Anna Kondakhchyan: Head of Cash and Markets at NORCAP/Norwegian Refugee Council

·  Dr. Kathryn Taetzsch: World Vision International's Senior Director, Global Humanitarian and Development Capacity and Capabilities

·  Sindhy Obias: Executive Director of the Assistance and Cooperation for Community Resilience and Development (ACCORD)

Key themes explored in this episode:

 ·  The importance of translating policy commitments into tangible actions that permeate the entire organisation.

·  The need to recognise that changes in policy then involve numerous practical changes across an organisation, which can present challenges related to adapting to new systems and processes.

·  The importance of investing in evidence building and learning during the process of scaling up the use of cash.

·  The value of engaging stakeholders in the change process, addressing concerns, and ensuring that everyone is onboard.

·  The need to recognise that cash assistance may not be immediately feasible in every context and to adapt accordingly.

·  The value of fostering robust partnerships, particularly with local governments, to facilitate sustainability and maximise impact in communities.

Listen to this episode to understand how these key elements can effectively drive the transition from the vision of change to practical action.

Transcript

Episode 3.3: How to turn an idea into reality? 3 Ps: Policies, processes and partnerships

Guests: Anna, Kathryn and Sindhy

Karen: Hello, welcome to the second episode of this series of CashCast. I am your host, Karen Peachey. 

In this series we’ve been looking at how to make transformational change happen in an organization. 

We've spoken to about the need for clarity of vision and the mindsets needed to propel the use of cash assistance as part of humanitarian response. We've also talked about how to get people on board with change. 

In this episode, we dig further into what it takes to translate the vision into practice and scale up the use of cash in an organization. 

Three P's come out the conversations - policies, processes, and partnerships and that's what we'll focus on now. Let’s get started! 

-Transitional music – 

Anna: So how do you translate that beautiful policy commitment to change in practice across the whole organization down to the last mile? How do you make sure that it changes the behaviors and the risk exposure where there's an interface with the most vulnerable people? With the people at the end of the day that we're trying to work with.

Karen: That's Anna Kondakhchyan, Head of Cash and Markets at NORCAP/Norwegian Refugee Council, who we heard from earlier in this series, posing the same question as us. Luckily, with her extensive experience of change in humanitarian organizations and networks, she’s got some great insights into how to answer this question. 

Anna: So I'd like to reflect on my work on data responsibility, specifically data responsibility as it relates to cash, because of course the question of data responsibility is much broader. So here I'd say process with a big P is hugely important. 

The organization I worked with for at the time was actually a leader on the subject of responsible data. It was the first international NGO to develop and endorse responsible data policy. But it was also clear that that policy was just a start.

And what helped with the adoption process at the time was to really think through what would be your carrots, what would be your sticks, and also what would be your rollout strategy. And the stick was the general data protection regulation that at the time has just landed. So being responsible with the use of data was suddenly no longer a nice to have. It actually carried legal responsibility. And even though the responsible data policy, of course, was a lot broader than GDPR and it included a number of important ethical commitments for the organization,

Karen: Jumping in, Anna just mentioned GDPR which stands for General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR was introduced in Europe in 2016. As well as providing a comprehensive data protection law which applies to any company or organisation in the EU, GDPR has since influenced data protection policies and regulations in many other parts of the world. Now back to Anna.

Anna:GDPR was the stick that helped with the adoption. Then the carrot part was identifying your champions, the people who have an interest in the topic or have seen firsthand in their interfaces with the most vulnerable people where it truly where misuse of data truly has an impact when it really and truly resonates when the policy is not followed. The carrot was actually bringing those real-life examples out, documenting them, talking about them. And now back to the process, the next step was to combine carrots and the sticks into a coherent training strategy, relying on champions as well as on data protection officers for rollout.

I think what was a really inspired choice for the organization that I worked for is when they decided to make the training pack publicly available to really push the agenda forward. So yes, process is important. And I think in that example, it was a success.

Karen: So in this case it was about carrots and sticks, with a clear roll-out plan. While progress was accelerated by legal requirements, there was still need for work to influence hearts and minds in the organization, with champions helping create momentum for change.  

Whether big or small, change usually takes time and, from my experience, it’s generally a lot more than we anticipate. The challenge is that translating policy into practice is not about one change, but that a policy commitment may imply the need for hundreds of changes across an organization. Inevitably, there are challenges, beginning with adapting to new systems and processes. 

Dr Kathryn Taetzsch, World Vision International's Snr. Director, global Humanitarian and Development Capacity and Capabilities, who has over 25 years of strategic and operational humanitarian experience reflects on how World Vision approached adapting to change – starting back in 2016. 

Kathryn: …When this big shift came, this World Humanitarian Summit challenged or was supposed to challenge a lot of the, let's say traditional humanitarian assistance frameworks, approaches, perspectives. Our president did a very, I think, very audacious statement and said, we will try to deliver up to 50 percent of our humanitarian portfolio via cash voucher modality in the next five to six years, which is massive for World Vision.

Karen: Moving from that major policy commitment to making it happen was never going to be easy. Kathyrn explains further.

Kathryn:Unfortunately, in the following years, no one really took charge for long term on how to systematically then set the strategy, set the processes, the systems, and actually ensure that we also would track how we are doing against what the target is and how well communities would receive this or what the issues would be there. 

Karen:But, in time, things did start to move and World Vision built on the trials that had been doing and started work to scale up its use of cash.  Looking back, Kathryn reflects on what it took to move from trials to scaling up the use of cash.

Kathryn: At that time then World Vision started to ... not only trial, but really scale up its work using cash and voucher, mainly first in the food security, food assistance sector, and also doing some ... operational research with HPG ODI. 

And at that time it was in Lesotho, small kingdom in Southern Africa a mountainous kingdom, very difficult to access. People were affected by drought and the HIV pandemic. And so the idea there was, oh, we'll do cash transfer with actually handing out banknotes and envelopes to people .... And at that point, no one knew how would community members react if there is this massive influx of cash suddenly to communities that were very vulnerable, very poor. 

….And when we actually did the research, what came out was very interesting. People had not such an issue around who, which gender would be prioritized as head of household for these distributions, but actually there was an intergenerational conflict. Youngsters in the households always had a reallocation or their share of the in-kind assistance that was distributed, whether that's food or other assistance. And so they expected now that they would get their cash share of what was allocated to the household. So there were quite some tensions that came up. 

And with that, we then realized we need to look at the whole fabric and the whole context as in any other humanitarian assistance or development approach and see what impact, what harm, what actually connectors we can avoid or create using this particular modality.

Karen: Clearly investing in evidence building and learning was important for World Vision, as it started to increase its use of cash. 

Also, with the commitment by the President of World Vision, to increase the use of cash to 50% of its assistance there was need to track what was happening and change many systems and processes, involving some big investments of time and money. There were challenge as changes were made but also lots of discoveries along the way.

Kathryn: ... we have had challenges like everyone else in tracking cash and voucher. So every month we would make new discoveries, although we have quite a strong system and process set up over the years that was already kind of set up previously for our food in kind tracking that then was actually modified to help to track where cash would be spent, how it's transferred. 

We also quite early in 2018/9 developed a digital beneficiary registration and tracking mechanism that could actually detail which household received what assistance, the last mile mobile solution, which later had a e-voucher electronic voucher capability and now will soon have a mobile money transfer capability as well on top of the tracking. 

So with that, at least we had some kind of understanding where what was going, but the challenge was that in many contexts, cash was used in developmental context and assistance, and no one properly recorded or tracked that. 

So we had to work with our finance teams, with obviously our global audit team, with many different entities and partners in World Vision to ensure that field offices would know how to track, how to identify, and how to follow up on the data sets that were in databases.  

Karen: Things have moved on and while World Vision is still pushing towards its 50% target, it has made great progress.

Kathryn: We've reached 8.6 million people with 436 million US dollars as cash voucher spent. That is quite amazing if we look where we were some years ago. 

Karen: To recap on some key lessons we can take away from World Vision’s approach, is that moving the policy commitments into practice takes time: with research, trials, setting-up and adapting systems, and of course, engaging many stakeholders in the process. 

But of course, cash assistance isn't immediately feasible in every context. What then?

Sindhy Obias is the executive director of Accord, a national humanitarian organization, that provides multi -sectoral support to disaster affected communities in the Philippines. She has over 20 years of experience in community-based humanitarian and development work in the Philippines.

Sindy reflects on the current challenges Accord is facing when moving cash policy into practice, and what they are doing about it.   

Sindhy: For Accord, in terms of using cash, while we see it as effective and efficient way of supporting disaster affected populations, we have experiences that cash transfers empower people by giving them the flexibility to address their specific needs… however, cash is not always preferred modality for some communities. I am saying this in the context of the off-grid, hard-to-reach communities that are geographically isolated and disadvantaged. 

The reason why is that we work mostly in these types of communities where systems and mechanisms to enable cash transfer programming are not yet present. And often these are the areas with least access to basic services. The situations are aggravated by their exposure to various hazards, their tropical cyclones, landslides, even armed conflict and violence…. All these concerns may significantly erode the intended benefits of the assistance. So these are the type of challenges that we discuss also among ourselves, among our partners. 

There have been instances where our partners, including the local governments, have varying perceptions about cash programming. So I'm talking about our experience with an island community affected by tropical cyloan. So we consider cash as a viable option for humanitarian aid. You know, we found that commercial establishments were present, though they were struggling, they could still support the basic needs of the communities there, of the local populations. 

There are also local financial service providers who could assist in the disbursements. Many are in favor of the cash transfers due to the advantages. However, the local leaders were hesitant about cash transfers due to concerns over potential misuse….

Karen: Concerns about misuse of cash are not uncommon, often related to fears about so called ‘temptation goods’ - though the evidence does not support these fears. But, in the context Sindhy is discussing the concerns about misuse were different

Sindhy: Unconditional cash assistance can ... potentially disrupt the local practices and even the programs of the government being implemented during that time which during that time they require people to participate in community activities. 

So from the perspective of the local leaders, people receiving aid should not be seen only as a recipient of assistance but also have the social responsibilities to fulfill. So we try to understand that point of view from the side of the local leaders, from the local governments. 

And so, to address these concerns, we facilitated consultations and dialogues with the communities and the local leaders. We presented the process, the mechanisms to them to ensure that cash will not be misused. We also shared some successful examples from other areas from our previous humanitarian interventions. 

Sindhy: Ultimately, after thorough discussions, there was a collective agreement to proceed with cash transfer. But part of the agreement was that we make it conditional, where our project participants, the recipients of the aid, will be required to participate in community meetings and social preparatory activities, such as on risk communication and community engagement and IEC on protection and health before receiving cash. So those are the things that are not really difficult for the communities to do. And in the end, these things are beneficial to everyone.

Karen: For Sindhy, working closely with local government is important and its not just about enabling the work of Accord, but it's about guaranteeing sustainability of the work and its impact in the community. 

Sindhy: We are a humanitarian organization and we also recognize our independence… But at the same time, we work with local governments because we see them as the main duty bearers… So, yeah, it's always a strategy that at the very least we coordinate our actions with the local governments. But at the highest objective of that, is that we try to influence the local governments in terms of policies, in terms of planning, so that they are better able to provide services to the people, especially to those who are at the last mile communities or who have the least access to the services, especially by the government. 

So, yeah, in terms of cash programming, it's...It's an opportunity, we see that as an opportunity to demonstrate how is it done from the beginning, even from the assessments until the monitoring and post distribution monitoring. We try to engage the local government so that we both learn from the process. We listen to their feedback also and how we can improve or actions or if there are any problems that need to be resolved. So they are also present there. They have the resources and what we do is we complement with their programs. We have to look into how these actions can be integrated into what they are doing so that we are able to provide a more comprehensive, a more appropriate interventions to the communities and importantly, a more sustainable interventions that are beneficial to the communities. 

Karen: So, as well as responding to immediate needs, Acord has a long term view which is built on partnerships with the community, with government and its donors.

Sindhy: we see the importance of working together, working to local communities, the local governments and also escalating that advocacy to the national level in terms of policy, in terms of influencing policies, plans, whether it is at the national or sub -national or at the local level. So it's important that we are able to link these experiences at the communities at the national level where decision makers are, what policy makers are and translate that into plans, into investments in order to better support to provide better support to the communities.

Karen: As we come to the end of this episode, it's clear that organizational change to scale up the use of cash requires time, new capabilities, changes to systems and processes, and dialogue – lots of it, both with the organization and with external stakeholders. It is possible, with the vision, courage and commitment that was discussed in an earlier episode. 

Let’s continue the conversation, we want to hear from you, please share your thoughts with us through our different channels indicated in the description of this episode. 

I hope we meet again in the next episode, where we discuss where money fits into the picture of change, the role of donors, and the impact of funding on scaling up. 

Until next time!