Evaluation of Cameroon WFP Country Strategic Plan 2018-2020

The national Zero Hunger Strategic Review conducted in 2016 facilitated the alignment of the CSP with national sustainable development goals and relevant national policies with some exceptions in prioritizing resilience of refugees. National stakeholders appreciated WFP’s partnership, in particular for its advocacy on development-oriented policies, but needed more resources to address national capacity limitations in food security and nutrition. WFP's analytical work helped identify the most pressing food and nutrition security needs and WFP provided a principled response in areas affected by conflicts and displacement. WFP harnessed its comparative advantages including its logistics capacity and network of offices well positioned geographically to address needs.

Overall, WFP performed well in output delivery. However, the CSP strategic outcomes were ambitious and WFP could not demonstrate actual food security improvements over the first 1.5 years of CSP implementation. General food assistance: In 2018 and 2019, WFP supported 1.6 million people to meet acute food needs, reaching 89% of beneficiaries through food and cash-based transfers. Households increasingly used negative coping strategies, and improvements on diversity scores were mixed. School Feeding: With increased ownership by the Ministry of Education as a result of the joint strategy with WFP, WFP performed well assisting 140 schools, and distributing meals to 99,936 pupils (125% of planned), the majority being girls. Activities ended because of funding constraints. Food assistance for assets (FFA): In 2017, FFA activities reached 5,763 participants including 52% of women in the North and East. In 2018, FFA reached up to 12,900 participants through 22 field level agreements contributing to recovery. National capacity strengthening: Trainings were held for government stakeholders but these were often insufficiently linked to implementation practices and their outcomes were poorly monitored. WFP played a key role in advancing coordinated national food security analysis systems, covering the regions in which WFP operates. Yet, up-scaling and sustainability prospects for those systems were limited.

Protection and accountability to affected populations: WFP made progress in setting up complaints and feedback mechanisms. However, to make WFP’s assistance safer and more dignified, concerns related to the selection of transfer modalities need more attention through continuous engagement with relevant stakeholders. Humanitarian principles and access: WFP's approach to access was cautious in NW/SW crisis areas and it was at times challenging to maintain operational independence from the government and to be perceived as neutral. The triple nexus: WFP developed operational strategies to address the humanitarian-development nexus, but did not mainstream conflict sensitivity and peace building in its work. It contributed to the triple nexus via the double nexus. Gender equality and women's empowerment: WFP improved gender sensitivity of its interventions focussing on the collection of gender-sensitive data and training to prevent WFP activities from a negative impact on women. Progress was slow towards WFP's gender transformative objectives. Sustainability of results remains uncertain in light of limited long term partnerships, reliable funding and national ownership and capacities.

Coverage and geographic targeting have adapted well to the evolving situation in Cameroon but application of targeting criteria for individual beneficiaries was inconsistent. Programme efficiency was marked by slow delivery, high transaction costs and recurrent pipeline breaks, mainly due to resource constraints and the severe contextual challenges. UNHAS has proven critical to the humanitarian community and, together with WFP's Global Commodity Management Facility, it contributed to mitigate lead-time management risks. Nevertheless, the increased flexibility of resource allocation expected from the shift to the CSP approach did not materialize. The slow roll-out of WFP’s beneficiary information and transfer management platform (SCOPE) and security and accessibility constraints led to delays in food assistance delivery. WFP regularly analysed efficiency and effectiveness of alternative transfer modalities, but did not consistently analyse costeffectiveness to inform decision making.

WFP was challenged to develop a multi-year funding approach while its main donors worked with a one-year funding cycle. High donor earmarking within the CSP funding structure did not allow swapping commodities. The CSP provided greater attention to partnerships. A key challenge was that human resource capacity fell short of needs given the scale of the CSP targets. WFP exerted efforts to deal with understaffing of the monitoring and evaluation unit, yet M&E capacity was insufficient.