1 | Cash Steering Committee Meeting, 2 March 2015
CASH STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING
Room 529 YIAS, RCBC Tower 2, Makati City
MINUTES OF MEETING
Attendees:
1 | Cash Steering Committee Meeting, 2 March 2015
1. Emilio Paz, Plan International
2. Demos Militante, ACF
3. Dyan Armie Rodriguez, ACF
4. Araceli Bayabay-Mercado, CARE
5. Afrhill Rances, Save the Children
6. Augusto Rodriguez, UNICEF
7. Michael L. Belaro, PRC
8. Wadel S. Cabrera III, CALP
9. David Carden, OCHA
10. Agnes T. Palacio, OCHA
11. Mayen N. Olmedo, OCHA
1 | Cash Steering Committee Meeting, 2 March 2015
Agenda:
1. Finalization of the Terms of Reference (TOR)
2. Prioritize three preparedness activities for the working group
3. Preparations for the First Cash working Group meeting
4. Any Other Business (if any)
1. Finalization of the Terms of Reference (TOR)
Before proceeding to the review and finalization of the TOR, it was deemed necessary to determine how the group shall be named, either a core group or steering committee. Coming from the premise that the group will work on the operational and technical concerns in relation to CTP[1] in the absence of the bigger Cash Working Group (CWG)[2], it shall be named ‘steering committee’ rather than “core group”. Core group implies an exclusive group while steering committee is more of action-oriented and focused on specific tasks or assignments.
Based on the review of the TOR, the following changes have to be made: (Attached, please find the revised TOR)
- Section 3.1: The maximum number of member institutions is 11.
- Section 3.2.2: (a) The permanent and alternate cash focal point should be a Filipino national or permanent resident. “National expats” means a Filipino national hired from outside the country to work in the Philippines or a foreign national who, in either case, should have a good understanding of the Philippines’ context and culture/dynamics and has a longer term contract (at least one year). This relates to the member institution that qualifies if it has a long term presence in the country.
- 3.3: Change number of member institution from 10 to 11. CALP should be included in the list of member institutions being one of the prime movers in establishing the Cash Working Group from the Haiyan experience.
- Section 3.4: Section 2.2. should be 3.2
- Section 4.3, bullet #2: add “as needed”, at the end of the statement.
- Section 5.1, Non-Emergency: delete the frequency as to holding the CWG meeting. This should be determined by the CWG when it meets. The TOR should only cover the steering committee. In emergency cases, the frequency of meetings, both by the steering committee and CWG, will be proposed to the CWG, to be as frequent as needed during the onset of the emergency. It will then be lessened to once every two weeks when situation permits or as may be determined by the CWG.
- Section 5.2, bullet #2: Non-emergency: OCHA will provide coordination oversight in terms of supporting the assigned chair in the meeting preparations, sending of meeting notices, other announcements to members and act as repository of documentation and resource materials to ensure continuity and keeping the group’s “institutional memory”. The assigned chair of the steering committee will take charge of setting the agenda and minutes taking.
- Section 5.2: Chair and Secretariat, Emergency: The provisions on the National (Manila-based) working groups and subnational cash coordination or working group shall be proposed to the Cash Working Group for comment and approval.
- Section 6.2: add as the second paragraph, “The Steering Committee is a recommendatory body to the CWG. It is not authorized to make decisions in behalf of CWG. All policy positions, tools and all other outputs of the Steering Committee shall be endorsed to the CWG for review and approval”.
Further, the group agreed that the steering committee meetings will be every 1st Tuesday of the month. The assigned chairs for each month are the following:
- April: UNICEF
- May: ACF
- June: WFP
- July: PRC
- August: Oxfam
- September: Save the Children
- October: Plan
- November: CARE
- December: World Vision
2. Prioritize three preparedness activities for the working group
Based on previous meetings and lesson learned exercises, the priority preparedness activities that were proposed to the group are:
1. Finalize the TORs for the Cash Steering Committee and Cash Working Group.
2. Come up with a template for MOU[3] that can be used/drawn between: (1) I/NGOs and FSPs, and (2) UN Agencies and FSPs during emergencies. This can be used to expedite the drawing of contracts for CTP delivery. The CTP practitioners will be requested to share the contracts they have used for Haiyan response and come up with a common template that will be shared.
3. The FSP mapping as initiated through the SIMM[4] covered the Haiyan-affected areas in Visayas. Therefore, the proposal for the FSP mapping is to cover the location of the FSPs in the entire country. It is expected that the FSPs captured in the map will be the partners of the CTP-implementing agencies. This map will be used to overlay the locations of the agencies currently implementing CTP, starting with the members of the steering committee members that have long term programmes in the Philippines.
In relation to reporting CTP implementation, it was discussed that cash is a mode of delivery, therefore cuts across the different clusters. In the current 3Ws managed by OCHA, cash related interventions are subsumed under the specific cluster it is being implemented. There is no separate mechanism to report on CTP regardless of cluster making it more challenging to capture the real contribution of cash to humanitarian response. The committee members mentioned that for the moment, they are open to reporting both to the cluster they are working in and to the CWG separately to capture CTP implementation. Therefore, the committee agreed on the following:
1. OCHA to review its IM capacity and discuss with IM team how the current 3Ws format be reconfigured to include reporting of modality of CTP implementation per cluster
2. Present this proposal to the CWG and enquire from the group which FSPs they are working with, including the delivery mechanisms used, and agree on the minimum information that should be reported as a group particularly in relation to the FSP mapping.
4. A fourth priority activity was included. This is in relation to the market assessment tool that may be used as a CTP-implementing group. Oxfam has a current tool being used that may be useful for reference to other members. It was agreed, therefore, that OCHA will communicate with Oxfam about this proposal and link Oxfam with ACF to start the discussions on this. Both agencies can update the committee on its next meeting in April.
3. Preparations for the First Cash working Group meeting
The meeting is set on March 24 at 10am. Venue will be announced later. OCHA will chair and host the meeting. Chair of succeeding meetings will be determined during the said meeting. The proposed agenda for the CWG are:
1. Presentation of the Steering Committee TOR
2. Proposed TOR for the CWG
3. Presentation of Meeting Outputs of the Steering Committee, to include priority preparedness activities and FSP/ IA mapping
4. Presentation of CTP Pilot Projects of Oxfam and World Vision
Oxfam has already signified its intent to present its pilot project to the CWG. OCHA is tasked to check if World Vision is willing to present. This will allow both agencies to present their respective experience in relation to working with major card companies (e.g. Visa and Mastercard).
4. Any Other Business (if any)
- The Cash infographics shared on January 27th and presented again during this meeting is endorsed by the committee. This may be shared to the larger public.
- The members are requested to submit the letter of commitment from their head of agency to identify the permanent and alternate representative to the Steering Committee.
- David Carden mentioned that there is growing interest on CTP as captured in the recent Inter-Agency Humanitarian Evaluation (IAHE) for Typhoon Haiyan. OCHA as an agency globally has recognized the need to put resources and focus on cash coordination. Hence, OCHA will be actively involved in cash coordination, working with the implementing agencies as well as mainstreaming this in the Inter-Cluster Coordination and Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) structures.
- In relation to the point above, OCHA will present to the HCT on February 19th, during its regular meeting, the updates and progress that has been accomplished on Cash Coordination. The presentation will be circulated to steering committee members for review and comments.
[1] Cash Transfer Programme
[2] The CWG composes of the CTP community of practice that includes, but not limited to, I/NGOs, UN agencies, community-based organizations of people’s organizations, financial service providers, micro-finance institutions, rural and commercial banks, remittance centers and government line agencies.
[3] Memorandum of Understanding
[4] Scaling up Innovations in Mobile Money (SIMM) project of the USAID