Food for Work/Recovery

Purpose and principles

The purpose of food for work is to provide food insecure households with opportunities for paid work from which to earn food- a livelihood, to be able simultaneously produce outputs that are of benefit to themselves and the community. The capable bodies or households should be identified in the community, preferably among the priority target groups. Informed bodies from within the target groups themselves could be consulted and activities should be selected by them and planned with their participation. Using local resources for sustaining the continuity of the program is essential. At the same time ideas previously studied from the same climate societies could be introduced and explored additionally to build local capacities. Activated should not be disincentive to local agricultural production nor should they undermine long term development projects.

Food for work FFW

The FFW modality is also used in development programmes. In order to avoid undermining the standards applied in such development programme activities, FFW in emergencies must meet similar standards. To this end technical supervision as well as appropriate tools and materials must be available to ensure that outputs are of satisfactory quality, and therefore useful and durable. There must be cautioned to set proper level of wage based on work norms in accordance to the local circumstances. Typically it provides workers with the equivalent of about 80% of minimum local wage.

Food for recovery FFR

During an acute emergency, especially immediately after a sudden disaster, less structured short term FFR activities can contribute to initial recovery and serve as an alternative to free distributions. Activities should be entirely within the capabilities of the population and should not require outside technical supervision, and remuneration should be on a daily basis, or a fixed amount of food should be supplied for a specified task. Remuneration should be referred to as an incentive provided to help people to undertake tasks that are of direct benefit to themselves.

Food incentives for service providers

Food may be used as incentives to community service workers in refugee and IDP camps. Before providing food incentives to personnel, e.g. Teachers and health workers, in other contexts, it is important to ensure that an exit/phasing out strategy is in place. Examples that situations in which FFW/R can be appropriate could be:
During slow on set crises or in response to early warnings: FFW for the construction or repair of water conservation structures or irrigation channels; other public works.
After sudden disasters such as floods, cyclones, earthquakes:
FFR for debris removal and general clean up operations, labour intensive repair of roads, embankments, other public infra structure. It may be the only food related intervention in response to some small scale disasters.

During long term/complex emergencies
Including refugees and IDPs, once the situation has stabilized:
FFW/R for the maintenance of access roads, the construction and maintenance of community service facilities, land clearance for food production. This approach may be introduced or expanded as general distributions are reduced.

Practical considerations
Local authority or NGO partners with experience in such operations are needed to provide technical, managerial and material non food inputs, including on site supervision of the FFW activities. Except for immediate post disaster FFR operations, plan to start modestly and expand progressively as capacity allows. It is rarely possible to organize FFW activities quickly on a large scale. FFW/R can be self-targeting in some situations, but not in all. When large numbers of people are in need, administrative or community targeting methods will be required in order to select beneficiary households and limit participation to one worker per household or to numbers defined in relation to household size. When choosing commodities, their economic transfer value should be taken account for and their attractiveness to the target beneficiaries and others. Creating an excess of any particular item on the local market should be avoided. The number of commodities in the food basket in order to simplify logistics and accounting should be limited.

Source: WFP Emergency Field Operations Pocketbook, 2002