Rakhine State in Myanmar has experienced years of armed conflict, endemic violence, political instability and extremely high levels of forced displacement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, local residents faced further disruption to their lives and local government institutions and administration faced operational challenges.
In this complex context, in the midst of the pandemic, FAO supported more than 7,500 vulnerable households by delivering cash assistance, complementing it with agricultural inputs, information materials, hygiene kits, agricultural training and aquaculture production support. To do so, the intervention established linkages with the social protection programme “Maternal Cash Assistance for Pregnant and Lactating Women” and provided information on the modalities and amounts of cash assistance transfers. The intervention was part of a broader EU-funded initiative, the Global Network Partnership Programme against Food Crises, which aimed to increase household resilience to socio-economic shocks and disasters by reducing vulnerability to conflict and malnutrition and strengthening agricultural productivity.
A country-level Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) plan has been developed to track changes in resilience and food security indicators due to national investments. This Social Protection and Resilience Good Practices Factsheet aims to present answers to identified learning questions regarding the actual contribution of project interventions to resilience and the added value of implementing these in line with national social protection systems.
