NGOs, Representation and Group Cash Transfers (GCTs) – Sudan and Somalia: Who Speaks for Groups?

This webinar is organised through Aqoonwadaag, our new knowledge exchange platform, which brings together researchers, practitioners and policymakers to share evidence, experiences and perspectives on humanitarian issues.

In an era of widespread aid cuts and questions around humanitarian legitimacy, the topic of group cash transfers (GCTs) has been gaining greater attention in Sudan and Somalia. GCTs provide resources collectively to groups or communities, in principle enabling them to identify priorities and play a leading role in deciding, implementing and adapting agreed activities. Evidence on the effectiveness of GCTs is however mixed. The extent of community control can vary with programme objectives, intermediary arrangements and agency requirements. Understanding these differences is essential to assessing what group cash can achieve and under what conditions.

Key questions concern how groups are formed, whose priorities are represented, who controls decisions and how changes are negotiated. Learning should consider potential benefits for community agency, trust building and accountability alongside gatekeeping, exclusion, elite capture, disputes and the distribution of risk. These are complex issues to understand and engage with, involving trade-offs and the need for attention to benefits as well as potential harm.

This initiative will take place over two sessions.

Webinar 1 will bring researchers from Sudan and Somalia together to discuss issues related to GCT, taking the experience of mutual aid, diaspora-related support, aid capture and gatekeeping as starting points.

• Dr. Osama Abuzaid, Researcher and Consultant; Adjunct Researcher, University of Khartoum
• Dr. Azza Ahmed Abdel Aziz, Anthropologist specialising in Sudanese national identities, revolution and conflict
• Dr. Abdirahman Edle Ali, Senior Researcher, Evidence for Change (E4C); Visiting Scholar, University of Bath
• Dr. Nisar Majid, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

Margie Buchanan-Smith, Senior Research Associate, Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI Global

Please register through this form.