an introduction to beneficiary identification

Another day of assessment. We spent the entire afternoon going to a camp of about 5,000 people, up in the hills of Martissant, south-west of the centre of Port-au-Prince.

I hate these decisions. Based on two hours driving up and down this mountain, most of which was spent making wrong turnings, crawling along bouncing up and down roads so uneven that our large 4x4 was having difficulties, I have to decide whether these people get our support or not. 

The first site we visited had approximately 30 makeshift tents on a plateau. Whilst filling out the joint assessment tool - a way to quickly determine the needs of a group of people in terms of shelter, food, water and sanitation, security - we were surrounded by several dozen members of the camp, all keen to show how little they had. An aunt looking after her sister's seven children, because both parents had died in the earthquake. They ate whatever they had. 

We saw evidence for about 20 families living there, but they claimed the ground was full at night when everyone came back from work. We went on to the next section of this disparate camp, and heard similar stories. My concern was we saw no evidence for it, only their word that at night the camp population swells 10-fold and these people sleep on the floor each night, leaving no trace of their presence during the day. Was this a camp of 5,000, or 500? It's important to get it right - if you decide to help, you load the truck up with the right number of items. It's difficult to drive away with things left. 

That second section, of four, was the most disconcerting. We met with the community leaders for the area, and in a lapse of judgement I let a group of them gather between us and the car. It wasn't a problem, but we started being questioned ourselves. One particularly, and I'm sure he was just doing what he thought best for the community, started saying its been 20 days since the earthquake and they haven't received any help. The tone of his voice began to change as well, but the phrasing of the statement alone was enough to set me on edge. I can't speak Kreyol, but understand a lot through French. I called an end to the assessment, and we headed back to the car with thank yous all round. Later, when my colleague and I were alone, we agreed that we had both felt the same. Moreover, we are not here out of obligation. My colleague still runs a business, but comes to work for us during the day partly because he needs to earn money - business in the last few weeks has been understandably slow - but also because he believes in the work we are doing. The tone, the expectation, the lack of understanding of why we were there, was enough to alert us both.

Throughout the four sites making up this one camp, we saw perhaps a total of 100 families. Perhaps 200 if you include the surrounding area. But numbers will often increase significantly if you include the surrounding area. We have the capacity to do it. But its whether we choose to. 

And its not just whether we support them, but whether they receive any assistance at all. It's unlikely any other organisation will come, and there are strong arguments to be made for supporting that type of community - people who haven't been displaced very far at all, can continue making their livelihoods, but just don't have adequate shelter and sanitation provision for the moment. But our capacity is not large-scale. And we have a looming deadline. It's not raining yet, but some forecasts say thunder and lightening tomorrow. Given this, do we go back to that community of several hundred families, or do we find communities more easily accessible and use the same time to provide assistance to several thousand families, even if this assistance is perhaps not as long-term?

My choice, when writing the strategy, erred towards the latter. I have been second-guessing myself ever since. 

(I don't, actually, have as much leeway as that though to make the decision. First, there are available stocks and purchase orders made prior to my arrival. There's pressure from the donors to spend the money in the way they want it spent. And there's internal organisational politics which set an target number of beneficiaries. I sleep at night knowing that this decision wasn't mine. Well, I sleep at night because I'm exhausted at the end of each day.)

And so to bed.