Regional Food Assistance].  The FFW payment would thus appear to be quite a good daily rate

compared to casual work during most of the year, especially when the extra costs and risks of

working outside the village are taken into account.  None of the beneficiaries or community leaders

interviewed mentioned the payment rate as a factor in deciding whether or not to participate in the

projects.

The second problem with setting a self targeting payment rate in relation to the labor market is that

it may be incompatible with nutritional criteria which also enter into the decision:  in the IFSP E's

case, the ration was established on the basis of 1,900 KCal per person per day, for a family of six

[Aguko, ref 83].  This is a perfectly reasonable basis on which to fix food payments, but it is difficult

to simultaneously match the value to the labor market.

Community management

 and self reliance are an important part of the overall IFSP E approach.

Therefore, when community projects are implemented with FFW, the final decision on who should

participate (as well as other aspects of the project management) rests with the community, through

FFW management committees formed to run the projects:

 The decision concerning participant targeting is left as much as possible to the

communities (committees), who are expected to hold thorough and transparent

discussions with the community members to avoid the exclusion of certain groups and

families. The program staff (social and technical) is always represented in these forums 

[Aguko, ref 83]

Participatory wealth ranking has been extensively used by the project to identify vulnerable groups

and prioritize  project needs. However, the expectation that this would also be used as a basis for

community targeting decisions seems to have been realized only to a small extent.  The FFW Co 

ordinator commented that only recently, after three years of work, have some committees started

to make targeting decisions based on the types of criteria identified during wealth ranking (e.g.

excluding someone because their son has a job or their cow recently calved).  More often,

participation is open to everyone.

Beneficiaries in the villages visited were very positive about the FFW projects, especially as

compared to government relief distributions, because the quantities of food received by

participating households was enough to make a significant difference in a time of hardship, and

because they could see the value of the work and its outcome.    However, no one we talked to

supported the idea of selecting only the poor to participate.  Development objectives, as well as

the values and perceptions of the community, can weigh against  the aim of targeting the

vulnerable. As one local leader put it,

  If you're going to get the community involved in this kind of project 

[building a rock

water catchment]

  you can't allocate food only for the poor and weak    you won't get the

work done.  Anyway, everyone's hungry        

[Project Chairman, Mulinde village,  Nguni

Division]

To sum up the targeting aspects of FFW in this focus area, the most important level of targeting

was the selection of beneficiary 

communities

 (i.e., Stage 2 area targeting using objective survey

data for administrative selection).  Within the project communities, the self targeting effect of FFW

had not been clear, and it cannot be assumed that it is automatically the poorest who participate in

such projects.   Community management had been important in deciding on participation by all or

most members of the villages involved, and the objective of completing the work could sometimes

be in contradiction to the idea of selecting only the poorest.

A 44