Cash is changing lives in Mogadishu’s IDP camps
“Cash is much better because you can buy both food and non-food items.”
“Cash assistance has changed my life for the better,” says 60-year old Hawo Aden Mohamed. She leans forward in her chair, sheltered inside a simple structure of timber and corrugated iron in the Sheikh Hassan Barsane camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital city.
“It has enabled me to meet my needs.”
Hawo is one of 2.9 million Somalis who have been internally displaced, in many cases due to political tensions and insecurity, but also as a result of natural crises and climate shocks.
Hawo herself, along with her family of three adults and eight children, was forced to flee her home in Qoryooleey in the Lower Shabelle region because of a combination of inter-clan conflict and severe drought.
With the support of donors like the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) provides crisis relief assistance to Hawo — as it does to millions of IDPs and other vulnerable Somalis — in the form of cash.
Cash assistance accounts for an increasing percentage of WFP’s humanitarian support in its operations worldwide, and Somalia is no exception; WFP in Somalia transferred a total of US$108 million to those in need in 2019 alone.
While WFP also supports many people with the more traditional distribution of in-kind food items, particularly in areas where market and banking infrastructure is lacking, cash has many important advantages.
Cash assistance — which can be supplied via physical banknotes, vouchers, or even electronic transfers — empowers vulnerable people with more choice in purchasing their own food, and thus more dignity.
Recipients will usually buy food produced by local suppliers and sold through local retailers, so cash assistance programming also represents a significant and sustained boost for local economies.
Innovations such as the WFP Somalia e-Shop, an e-commerce platform that takes advantage of the strong penetration of mobile internet even in the IDP camps, connect cash assistance recipients and retailers directly and virtually — further enhancing choice and making cash assistance a safer option for all.
Additionally, cash assistance provides a very important level of flexibility to beneficiaries. IDPs, some of the most vulnerable people in Somalia, often struggle to meet many of their essential needs, including housing and education, on top of getting enough food to eat.
With cash assistance provided to ensure they can cover their basic food needs, they have more flexibility to cover all of these critical requirements.
“I have been receiving assistance from WFP for three years; before that… I could not afford to buy [food], pay house rent or school fees for the children,” says Hawo.
“Cash is much better [than in-kind food] because you can buy both food and non-food items.”
