together, reached a consensus on the relative severity of problems in each Division and Location.

However, in 1997, since the whole District was hit by drought, every Location received relief food:

the worst hit areas were prioritized by larger shares (compare the national level allocation to

Districts).  When the quantity of food received from Nairobi is less than requested, the DSDDC

reduces the allocated ration per person rather than reducing the number of people to be covered.

At the Location level, the Chief (being the government representative) takes responsibility for

allocating the food among the villages.  The actual distribution of food is done at Division

headquarters, and information is sent out to the relevant areas for people to come and collect it.

Apart from the disabled and old, who can deputize the Chief to collect their rations for them,  those

who do not come to the distribution are assumed not to be needy. Everyone who does come,

apparently, receives some food aid.  Reportedly it is women who collect the food rations, and who

are considered household heads for the purpose of ration distribution.

Discussions in the villages visited confirm that there was systematic prioritization of areas   for

example, people in Nzalaani said that other areas in their Division (Kyuso) had received food

earlier than them because their harvest was worse, and that household rations were different in

different areas (an observation confirmed by Action Aid field staff).  However, the quantities

received were very small everywhere, by all accounts.  One informant commented:

 Last year we didn't receive any 

[government]

  relief food   well, it was only 2kg, and

only once   can you call that relief?    

[villager in Ukasi Location, Nguni Division]

Since this comment came from a village with an IFSP E FFW project, and the DSDDC take

account of where GTZ food is going when they allocate free relief, this community would not be

expected to receive large quantities of relief.  Nevertheless, the impact of such small handouts

must have been negligible while the cumulative cost must have been quite high. Concentrating

resources on the communities and people least able to cope with the effects of the drought would

produce a more effective and efficient targeting outcome.

Even assuming no leakage and perfect accountability, the distribution system within the District

seems designed to spread relief as widely as possible: it can hardly be criticised for not selectively

targeting only the neediest places and people, since it is not intended to do so, and local

government officials have no instructions or incentives from central government to do so. There

are a number of  capacity and training issues in local government targeting which could be

addressed through technical guidelines, capacity building projects in selected food insecure areas,

training, workshops etc. However, without the backing of a targeting policy from Nairobi  such local

initiatives may have limited success.

Food for Work

Mwingi was the only focus area in the three country study where the team was able to look closely

at targeting in the context of FFW.   Key issues were the relative effectiveness  of self targeting in

relation to community selection of participants, and the scope for using FFW in place of free

distributions.

Food for Work is used by GTZ's IFSP E in Mwingi as a tool for addressing both acute and chronic

food insecurity [Aguko 1998, ref 83]. Food inputs are programmed to support community based

projects according to the general food situation in the area 

20

, so that  there is a safety net aspect

to the design of the program.  In 1997,  the project's FFW Co ordinator estimated they had

provided about 800 MT in total for about 6,000 households by this means. Discussions with both

20

 Since the project started in Mwingi, FFW has been implemented during three food stress periods: October

1994 to July 1995;  August 1996 to March 1997; and April to December 1997 [IFSP E 1998, Report on the

Workshop on FFW Operations, June]

A 42