Mauritania: CBT Officer, the virtual at the heart of humanitarian work
By Miho MITOBE
Fatimetou is a World Food Programme (WFP) Cash Based Transfers (CBT) Officer and activity manager for the lean season response in Mauritania. She talks to us about her contribution to the fight against hunger.
Some people think that working in an office can be boring and meaningless. That people type on their computer all day and then go home. Yet, office work can also be the start for the heart of the action. Fatimetou feels this way. Being a WFP staff member for almost a year, she tells us how she sees her work as a Cash Based Transfers Officer. A job that might seem abstract and yet brings in practice food on the table of thousands of people.
Prior to joining WFP Mauritania, Fatimetou worked in the world’s largest cash transfer programme (ESSN) implemented by the Turkish Red Crescent and WFP in response to the Syrian refugee crisis in Turkey, providing monthly cash assistance to more than 1,7 million refugees. In 2020, Fatimetou returned to her home country and joined WFP.
In her new role, she oversees all CBT processes of the country office, namely transferring cash assistance to the Malian refugees in the Mbera camp, to food insecure populations during the peak of the lean season and to beneficiaries participating in Food Assistance for Assets activities within the resilience programme. In addition, she is responsible for the coordination of WFP’s response during the lean season — the period between two harvests when families’ food stocks are low and the needs of immediate food assistance are high.
“Delivering cash to hands of beneficiaries is a lengthy process that involves many aspects,” says Fatimetou. “We do all from identifying the priority regions affected by food insecurity, targeting the most vulnerable households, coordinating with the food security cluster for a harmonized approach and cooperating with the financial service provider and the implementing partners on the field to enable a timely and effective distribution, ensuring that the right assistance is delivered to the right person at the right time.”
The processes are technical, but once Fatimetou is in the field she sees the real impact of her work. “For me being in direct contact with our beneficiaries is an extremely rewarding feeling,” says Fatimetou.
Fatimetou can see how her work truly impacts people in need who experience food insecurity every year during the lean season. The socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the food needs. “In 2020, we receive funds from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) during this period. Thanks to this contribution, we could quickly scale-up our response relying on the pre-existing social protection targeting and delivery tools, reaching more than 105,000 beneficiaries between August and October.”
WFP staff were working hard to provide cash transfers to families in remote villages to ensure they can access affordable and nutritious food of their choice, while stimulating the local economy.
“In 2020, WFP provided lean season assistance to more than 150,000 people in total. This year, and in the following 2021, WFP assistance we are targeting around 80,000 individuals. Two more cycles of distributions are still to be realized with the last one planned in early October. It is a priority for WFP to ensure that all the people in need are served before the end of the lean season, by using a harmonized approach among all the actors of food security cluster intervening during the lean season to strengthen coordinate and maximize efficiency.”
The adage that together we go further seems to apply in this context. It is also what motivates Fatimetou every day on her way to work.
“I witnessed needs and vulnerability during my field visits to the most remote villages in priority regions — it was no longer a statistical argument in a report but a reality that struck me during my mission,” says Fatimetou.
It is during these missions that Fatimetou takes the time to listen to families, to learn about their difficulties, their struggle and to see the reality of their lives — and to experience how her daily work in the office changes lives of others.
WFP’s lean season support in Mauretania includes next to cash-based transfers h blanket supplementary feeding to prevent malnutrition in pregnant and lactating women and children under the age of two. funded through contributions from the European Commission (ECHO) and BMZ (partly channelled through the German Development Bank KfW).