Aide Memoire: Kenya CT-OVC Programme JRIS Mission, May 9-20, 2011

June 15, 2011

Aide Memoire

Kenya Cash Transfer Programme for Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Joint Review And Implementation Support Mission

May 9-20, 2011

I.Introduction

  1. A Joint Review and Implementation Support (JRIS) Mission for the Kenya Cash Transfer Programme for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) was carried-out from May 9 to 20, 2011. The Mission objective was to review progress made since the previous Mission in the expansion of the Programme and to identify actions that were necessary to further strengthen implementation. The Mission comprised representatives of the Government of Kenya (GoK) and Development Partners (DP), including DFID, SIDA, UNICEF and the World Bank. Annex 1 lists the people participating in the Mission.

II.Mission Process

  1. The Mission held joint discussions between the Development Partners and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development (MGCSD), in particular with the CT-OVC Secretariat in the Department of Children Services (DCS). The Mission discussed progress on key operational issues including payments, fiduciary issues, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, accountability, and co-responsibilities.[1]
  2. The Mission concluded with a wrap-up meeting, chaired by Mr. Jackson Kinyanjui, Director, External Resources Department (ERD) in the Ministry of Finance.The Mission would like to acknowledge the leadership of Dr. James Nyikal, Permanent Secretary, MGCSD, as well as all Government officials, particularly the staff of the CT-OVC Secretariat, who contributed to the Mission’s activities. This Aide Memoire outlines the findings and agreements reached during the Mission. A detailed Action Plan is presented in Annex 2.

III. Disclosure

  1. The Development Partners and the Government confirmed their understanding ofand agreement to publicly disclose this Aide Memoire. The disclosure of this Aide Memoire was discussed and agreed by the Permanent Secretary of the MGCSD at a wrap-up meeting that took place on June 7, 2011.[2]

IV.Background

  1. The CT-OVC Programme aims to strengthen the capacity of poor households to protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) within their families and communities. Transfers are provided every two months to poor households taking care of OVCs to promote health and education outcomes for the OVCs. The Programme also aims to enhance caring practices as well as to improve birth registration for OVCs.
  2. The November 2010 JRIS Mission recognized the significant expansion in the coverage of the Programme and measures taken to strengthen implementation. The Mission identified a number of strategic issues that couldundermine the impact of the Programme and progress towards its development objectives. These issues were: (i) adjusting the value of the transfer for inflation and household size; (ii) ensuring effective financial management (FM) and timely delivery of transfers; (iii) programme capacity; and, (iv) building programme coordination mechanisms.

Steps were agreed to address each of these issues (see the November 2010 Action Plan) and further agreements related to these areas are documented in this Aide Memoire.

V. Programme Implementation Progress in FY 2010/11

  1. Progress towards Development Objective.The Programme continued to expand during this Fiscal Year. The total number of households enrolled in the Programme and paid rose from 82,047 in October 2010 to 103,307[3] in April 2011. It is anticipated that the Programme will reach 126,920 households in 60 districtsby the end of June 2011.[4]The expansion planfor Fiscal Year 2011/12 is in Annex 3.Since the November 2010 JRIS Mission, three payments cycles were made to beneficiary households totalling Kenyan Shillings (Ksh.) 835 million, which are enabling better care for OVCs. The impact of the Programme on beneficiary households will be evaluated during the second half of 2011 (see paragraph 31).
  2. Financing.Sincethe beginning of the FY 2010/11[5], a total of Ksh. 1.079 billion has been transferred to beneficiaries. This amount was financed by the Government and the Development Partners, with the Government contributing Ksh. 335 million, UNICEF contributing Ksh. 132.34 million, and the World Bank contributing Ksh. 214.48 million. Additionally, due to delays in disbursements from the World Bank/DFID Multi-donor Trust Fund through which DFID channels financing, the World Bank and UNICEF met the needs of these beneficiaries amounting to Ksh. 397.03million for the period[6].
  3. Implementation Performance. Since the November 2010 JRIS Mission, advances have been made in a number of areas resulting in improved programme implementation.The Mission reviewed the November 2010 JRIS Mission Action Plan, noting that progress had been made on the agreements reached, with the exception of those related to the appeals and grievance mechanism.These are detailed in the sections below. Notwithstanding, further actions are required in a large number of areas to ensure that important processes are completed.
  4. Programme Governance. With regard to strengthening programme governance, a number of key processes have been significantly advanced.Following the finalization of the design of the complaints and grievance mechanism, the English version of the Programme Charteris being printed for distribution to beneficiaries with the May-June payment. The effectiveness of the Charter will be evaluated through the external monitoring system by September 2011. Concurrently, the Mission agreed that the Kiswahili version would be finalized before the end of this Fiscal Year for printing and distribution in the July-August payment cycle. A range of communication materials that will improve awareness of the Programme, particularly at local levels, have been distributed. These include leaflets, posters, and the programme handbook.
  5. As agreed in the November 2010 Mission, the ToR for theLocational OVC Committees (LOCs) were revised, informed by a review of theircurrent functioning. It was agreed that the mandate of the LOCs will be restricted to programme targeting and enrolment. Beneficiary Welfare Committees (BWC) will be established to strengthen the voice of beneficiaries in programme implementation, including oversight of payments.
  6. Co-responsibilities Pilot. The re-design of the co-responsibilities pilot is at an advanced stage of completion. This redesign aims to simplify the process of monitoring the mandatory use of health and education services by beneficiary households. Detailed operational guidelines and a training manual have been drafted. A consultant was recruited to support the Secretariat in the implementation of the pilot.
  7. Capacity Building. As agreed in the November 2010 Aide Memoire, a financial management specialist has been contracted by the Secretariat to provide long-term support to the Programme. The Secretariat also recruited (i) a Communication Specialist; (ii) a Management Information System (MIS) Specialist; and, (iii) a Procurement Specialist. The addition of this Technical Assistance (TA) to the Secretariat is expected to result in significantly improved implementation capacity.The Ministry similarly reported progress with the recruitment of TA to build the capacity of the Social Protection Secretariat. Candidates for the Social Protection Advisor and Communications TA have been short-listed, while those for the M&E TA are being evaluated. All three positions will be filled by June 30, 2011. Additionally, the MGCSD seconded two staff to the Secretariat, including the Programme Coordinator and ICT Specialist.
  8. Financial Management. A number of steps have been taken to strengthen the financial management of the Programme. The Financial Management Committee has been constituted and is meeting regularly. The members of the Internal Audit Committee are being appointed. The reporting functionality of the financial module was configured. This will allowthe production of regular financial management reports that provide historic and current information on budgets, approved estimates and actual transactions for the Programme covering all sources of financing. An unqualified External Audit and Management letter for the financial year ending June 30, 2010 was received in December 2010. An Internal Audit for the period ending June 30, 2010 was also received in March 2011 and circulated to all partners. However it was noted that this was received significantly after the agreed deadline of August 31, 2010. Following these reviews, a consolidated fiduciary risk register was developed for the Programme to enable more systematic monitoring. The register details actions arising from all programme fiduciary reviews conducted since May 2009 (Annex 4).[7]
  9. Social Protection Policy. The process to finalize the social protection policy was recently revitalized, with a strong commitment by key ministries involved in Social Protection programming, including MGCSD and Ministry of Labour, to deliver the policy to Cabinet by June 30, 2011. For this, the draft policy will be revised to better articulate a broader view of social protection that includes social security and social health insurance in addition to social assistance.

VI.Strategic issues

  1. Adjusting the Transfer Value. As documented in the November 2010 Aide Memoire, inflation has significantly eroded the purchasing power of the transfer.At the same time, the uniform transfer has limited the impact of the Programme on larger households. The November 2010 JRIS Mission had therefore recommended that the value of the transfer be increased to Ksh.2, 000 per month for households with four or more children. Moreover, the Mission observed that recent food price inflation is further eroding the purchasing power of the transfer. Food prices increased 19.4 percent from April 2010 to April 2011.[8]This is likely to significantly reduce the ability of the Programme to deliver on its stated objectives. In response, the MGCSD made a request to Treasury for the Ksh. 80 million additional funding to finance this adjustment. The Mission understood that additional funding has been made available for the FY 2011/2012 and the MGCSD is considering how best to deploy these funds to support programme, including possibly increasing the value of the transfer.
  2. Improving Programme Payment Systems.The Government is in the process of contracting Equity Bank as an alternative payment service provider (PSP) to the Programme. This would establish a more secure and accessible payment system based on the agency model leveraging the mobile network and smart cards using biometrics. In the first instance, this alternative PSP will be rolled-out to 25 districts[9] to test the model before considering further scale up. In the remaining 22 districts, Government is extending the contract with the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) for one year to continue to provide payments. The Mission highlighted that while PCK provides a more secure payment system than the District Treasuries, emerging evidence points to weaknesses in this system. This further supports the need to expedite the transition to Equity Bank for programme payments.After completing the transition away from the use of District Treasuries for Government payments (as documented in the November 2010 Aide Memoire), the Mission learned that the Government paid beneficiaries through the District Treasuries in the 13 new programme districts, where targetingwas recently completed. The Government highlighted that this was necessitated by the need to ensure that Government financing was spent on a timely basis before the end of the fiscal year. The Government further confirmed that payments from August 2010 would be made through PCK for these 13 districts.[10] The Development Partners stressed that ensuring secure and transparent payments for all programme beneficiaries is paramount for protecting ongoing and future financing to the Programme. Furthermore, the Mission agreed to continue discussions with Treasury to explore how to improve the predictability of Government fund flows thus ensuring that programme processes can be completed on a timely basis.
  3. Delivering the Internal Audit. The ToR for the internal audit review for the period ending December 31, 2010 was agreed by MGCSD, the Internal AuditDepartment in Treasury and Development Partners. This audit will cover all sources of programme financing in the 47 programme districts. It will audit programme systems and will review historic transactions dating back to January 2008. This broader scope responds to a request of Development Partners and the Internal Audit Department. MGCSD agreed with Development Partners and the Internal Audit Department that this more extensive audit would provide assurance that programme fiduciary systems are effective and robust. Development Partners reiterated the importance of delivering this internal audit on time to meet the stipulations of IDA financing detailed in the Financing Agreement between IDA and the Government and to inform decisions for phase two of DFID financing to the Programme. Further agreements concerning the internal audit function are found in paragraph 37to 39below.

VII.Operational Issues

  1. Annual Work Plan and Budget. The Mission reviewed the draft Annual Work Plan and Budget for the CT-OVC Secretariat for FY 2011/12 (Annex 5 and 6). The Mission noted that significant work was required to develop these documents in preparation for the Mission, although there was insufficient time for adequate consultation before their submission to Treasury. To avoid this problem in the future, it was agreed that an initial internal process to formulate the Annual Work Plan and Budget each year would start in early January.
  2. The Mission agreed that the Social Protection Secretariat would formulate an Annual Work Plan for the budgeted resources in FY11/12. The Mission discussed that more timely participation from the Social Protection Secretariat is required to ensure that the activities financed by IDA through the CT-OVC Project are reflected in the Annual Budget. The Mission confirmed that while activities and financing for the Social Protection Secretariat are included in the overall Project budget and work plan, the execution of these activities are the responsibility of the Social Protection Secretariat.
  3. Programme Oversight. The Mission reconfirmed that there are two structures that provide oversight to the CT-OVC Programme: (i)the National Steering Committee (NSC) for OVCs plays an oversight role for the CT-OVC Programme, situating the Programme within the context of broader support to OVCs in the country. The NSC provides oversight on all issues related to OVC, including the CT-OVC programme. Following a recent meeting of the NSC for OVCs, the Ministry advised that the ToR for this Committee would be revised to better reflect its mandate; and (ii) theCT-OVC Programme Management Oversight Committee[11], comprised of all programme partners, chaired by the Secretary for Children’s Affairs, which offers strategic direction on policy and implementation issues on the Programme. The Mission reconfirmed the agreement that this Committee will meet on a six-monthly basis, three months after each JRIS Mission. The next meeting of this second Committee will therefore be in August 2011.
  4. Programme Document and Operation Manual.The Mission reviewed the draft Programme Document, which benefited from significant inputs from all partners. It was noted that aharmonized programmelogical framework (logframe) remains outstanding and it was agreed that DCS will present the draft logframe for discussion with thepartners.Once the logframe has been completed, the Programme Document would be disseminated to all implementers. Revisions to the Operations Manual (OM) were also completed, with the exception of the Annex on co-responsibilities. The OM is currently being edited. The Mission agreed that (i) the OM will be finalized without the Annex on co-responsibilities given that this applies to a small pilot within the Programme (see paragraph 23); and (ii) the financial management section of the OM will berevised to reflect current programme FM arrangements and to reflect the agreements on fixed asset and fuel management, which are detailed in paragraphs 35 and 36. Once finalized, the OM will be submitted to the Development Partners for endorsement and subsequently issued by the Permanent Secretary of MGCSD. The Operations Manual would be reviewed to ensure consistency with the Programme Document.It was agreed that the Programme Document and OM would be finalized before the end of this Fiscal Year.
  5. The New Payment ServiceProvider. As detailed in paragraph 17, Equity Bank is being contracted as an alternative PSP for the Programme. This has implications for a range of operational issues, including enrollment, the MIS and the co-responsibilities pilot. The Mission agreed that a small team will be established immediately to identify changes in operational procedures and to determine a way forward to support the roll out of this PSP.
  6. Co-Responsibilities Pilot.The DCS presented the revised design document and operational tools for the implementation of the co-responsibilities pilot (see paragraph 12 above). The Mission reviewed and provided comments on the documents. The DCS will incorporate the comments, finalize the guidelines and share them with the TWG for endorsement by June 30, 2011. Prior to the finalization of these documents, the DCS plans to field-test the tools in a district outside of the co-responsibilities locations. The Development Partners agreed that this would be a useful exercise and therefore requested the DCS to provide a concept note outlining the objectives of the field test. In order to support the implementation of the pilot, the Mission agreed that the services of a third-party organisation will be procured by the World Bank early in the next financial year. The firm will manage the training of field personnel, community awareness-creation activities and the recruitment of enumerators to collect data on the co-responsibilities and transmit these to the MIS. The ToR for this work will be drafted by the DCS before May 30, 2011. Given that the DCS plans to implement the co-responsibilitiespilot during the October 2011 payment cycle, the Mission indicated that it isimperative that the firm is procured and providing the requisite servicesbeforeSeptember 2011.
  7. Complaints and Grievances. As mentioned above (paragraph 10), the complaints and grievance system was designed and field-tested in 2010. The Mission confirmed that the Secretariat would contract a firm to operate this system for the duration of the Programme. This has been included in the procurement plan (Annex 7). To initiate this process, the Secretariat will draft a ToRas a matter of urgency. Additionally,the World Bank has put in place an interim contract until February 2012 with the existing service provider (Kimetrica International) to ensure continuity.It had initially been planned that, in order to support the consolidation of internal and external grievance data, theprogram MIS would be upgraded.The Mission learnt that a second option for consolidating this data was available. Kimetricaindicated that they would be able to share software with the DCS that would allow the DCS to input information received through internal systems as well as be used to capture external grievances. The Missionconsequently agreed that the MIS department of the Secretariat would explore these options and decide on the most appropriate way forward as a matter of urgency.
  8. Moreover, the Secretariat reported progress in establishing internal complaints and grievance handling structures. They clarified that an Anti-Corruption Committee has been created,reporting to the Departmental Anti-Corruption Committee, which reviews and responds to all complaints received on the Programme. Similarly, a dedicated officer has been identified and tasked with managing the receipt, documentation and feedbackwith respect to complaints and grievances received through the DCS structures. This officer will work closely with the firm managing the external grievance mechanism.
  9. Location OVC and Beneficiary Welfare Committees. Consistent with recommendations made in the November 2010 JRISMission, the DCS instituted a review of the roles and responsibilities of the Location OVC Committees. This was done by a committeedrawn from the TWG, which also reviewedthe potential benefits, functions and responsibilities of alternative community-based structures termed Beneficiary Welfare Committees (BWCs). ToRs for the revised functions of the LOCs and the new BWCs were reviewed during the Mission. The Mission endorsed the ToRs and recommended that minor revisions be made by the committeethat developed them. The Mission further recommended that the committeeconsult with a selected number of LOC members and beneficiaries prior to finalizing the ToRs, as well as consult with other programs, notably the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP), which makes use of similar community-level committees. Following the finalization of theToRs, a detailed implementation plan, including a pilot roll-out phase, will be developed and shared with the TWG.
  10. Communication Strategy.The Communication Strategy developed and discussed during the previous Mission has not been revised. However,the DCS has developed an annual communication work plan through which the broader communication strategy will be implemented over the next financial year. The Mission reviewed the draft work plan and agreed that it was a useful tool for implementing important communication activities. Having reviewed the document, the Mission shared comments on and suggested that the plan beedited and tabled at the next TWG. The Mission was also informed the University of North Carolina (UNC) has offered to produce, in close consultation with the DCS, policy briefs based on the 2007-2009 ProgrammeImpactEvaluation (paragraph 31). The Mission indicated that this will be a key element of the communication plan for the coming financial year. The M&E Unit of the Secretariat will agree with the UNC on how to move this work forward. The Mission agreed that the policy briefs will be completed by August 2011.

VIII. Monitoring and evaluation