Not more than two weeks after tsunami stroke Nangroe Aceh Darussalam 2004, the tsunami victim introduced to Cash for Work (CfW). The program developed by humanitarian organization in their relief program is a short-term intervention that would provide temporary employment. When the CfW program commenced there were no other livelihoods, since all economic infrastructures were wiped out. The CfW intervention is an alternative of Food for Work. And it is common in disaster response and post conflict area. The CfW apparently is less cost compare to the Food for Work since this program will not include huge procurement, transportation and storage cost.
In CfW program, the people can be as an employee of the NGO and work on the relief work and receive cash as their payment. A wide range of public project works in this relief operation start from removing corpses, debris, boats to shoreline, cleaning of road and drainage ditches and repair other public facilities as road and bridges as well. Even the worker is not literate or not skilled in this job, they still receive wages as long as they work, and on the earlier operation the salary was paid on daily basis.
In Aceh more than 75,000 people employed by the NGOs who have this program with total more of 8 million USD disbursed. This program has been carried out for more than a year which creates pros and contras among NGOs who work in the relief and mostly reconstruction phase.
the good
It is obvious that ec
onomic activity is dying in the devastated area due to a disaster. Tsunami which brought massive destruction in all infrastructures, in a blink of an eye everyone became poor person. Agriculture land flooded with saline water, fishermen’s boats dragged miles away into the city, shops turn to debris as happened with houses as well.
CfW proven as good intervention in this condition since cash infused to the local economy so that business activities start to reside. People regain their hope in a way to try to forget their sorrow start to work. Together with the idle workers they removed corpses, cleaned up agricultural land, drainage ditches, roads and houses. The money which they earned then can be used for their daily needs or as a capital for their business. As long as this program implemented as a short term program before livelihood program or long term economic opportunities, this Cfw was confirmed in stimulating economic activities.
the bad
When it was intended as a temporary intervention, many NGO was not prepared with the works should be done by the participants. Limited expertise of the NGO field staffs in managing the project (including in project design and logistic), made CfW participants left undirected. Many of the CfW participants in idle condition as can be seen they very small work to be done. Or there was no discipline was taken if people just showed up in the time they have to sign the presence list. Some people taken advantage as a ghost worker, they can put in their signature in the list of more than one Cfw program. During the first semester of 2005, CfW is a popular program done by NGOs. And this ghost worker can be understandable happened, since in a neighboring area two NGOs have the same CfW program. All they had to do just jumping around to signed in the list.
The program which intended to be an immediate response to rebuild economic activities became deterioration to the attitude of many people. These people might think that they can earn money easily without hard work or even worse, by cheating as a ghost worker. This sort of problem getting bigger since the implementation of CfW is quite long and made many people get used to it. A new comfort zone was created.
the challenges for reconstruction work
How long CfW program should be done? The answer is always debatable. But for sure this CfW program should be stopped when the reconstruction work commenced.
There are three arguments why CfW may hamper reconstruction works. First, it was difficult to find workers for construction. This is common sense, working in construction works is a hard work. Why people have to choose a harder one if they can earn almost equal amount of money from CfW. From their experience, controls from the supervisors are stricter in the reconstruction work since the number of working people is less compare to CfW and the amount of works are easier to quantify.
The other argument is the competition created higher cost for construction works. One of the characteristic in construction works is continuity. It means the work can not be stop unless the project is completed. It is always costly if we have to stop the work and resume. Every restart takes mobilization cost and in the idle time, the equipments and field staffs still need to be paid regularly. In order to retain workers higher wages should be provided.
The third argument is the beneficiary’s participation was deteriorated. In humanitarian approach when doing intervention including the reconstruction work, beneficiary participation is one of the success key. For example in housing reconstruction, the beneficiary can work as a labor when his house is being reconstructed. He can receive wages for this work and at the same time he built his sense of ownership during the construction. The CfW can distract them to leave working on their housing reconstruction to work in CfW program. In reality, the last argument seems not practical in Aceh reconstruction, since many beneficiaries still working for their houses but working in other livelihood area such as fishermen or farmers.
the recommendation
It is proven that construction work and CfW can not be implemented simultaneously. The nature of the payment itself is different. The CfW pay the participants based on the presence construction worker paid based on the amount of work. The payment for construction work based on unit rate of per each type of work meanwhile the wages of CfW based on how many days he/she is working. If the construction work using the approach of CfW the cost will be very high since every worker don’t have to rush on to achieve the target. They get paid on how many days they are working. On the contrary in the construction work they can get paid less or more – depend on their skills – and there is risk component. In the construction work in the same period of time they can earn less if they are not succeed to complete the job.
Naturally people more attracted to the secured job like CfW compare to construction work. Therefore it is difficult to find worker if in the same area, CfW and construction implemented in the same time.
One of the solution is there should be clear that CfW only short intervention. How long the CW can be implemented it depends on the scale of the disaster, but more than 6 months potentially make the people depended. The CfW should be a preparation and transition to the reconstruction phase. Therefore strong coordination amongst organization should be done to ensure the transition.
The other suggestion is the CfW should located not to close to area which already in reconstruction phase. There is should be some distance, let say 3 hours travel by motorbike, from the CfW area to the construction sites. This separation will obstruct their willingness to go back and forth from their residence or working area to join the CfW.
I believe there will not be a contradiction between implementing CfW and construction works. Both can be done successfully if all parties have strong coordination and clear understanding and enough capacity on managing the program.
Arwin Soelaksono - Disaster Response & reConstruction
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