Food Voucher Choice And Refugees Livelihoods In Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of the contention in Somalia in 1990s, Kenya keeps on facilitating the biggest Somali displaced person populace in the area. Given the broadened length of their stay in Kenya, the financial circumstance of the displaced is progressively falling apart predominantly because of lack of resources, investment funds, and settlements, as uncovered by a joint appraisal mission led on displaced people in June 2009. The circumstance is additionally disturbed given that Somali displaced in Kenya are not allowed to work, possess property likewise, they are completely subject to external help, including humanitarian help. The overall objective of this study therefore was to evaluate food voucher choice and refugees livelihoods in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya. The specific objectives of the study was to establish the effect of access to market information, perception of beneficiaries and vendors, cost- effectiveness and coordination mechanism on food voucher choice and refugees livelihoods in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya.This study adopted a descriptive research design and the study intended to gather quantitative and qualitative data.The sample size was 234 respondents comprising of 30 refugee camp leaders and 204 traders and aid workers. The study established that access to market information, access to perceptions of beneficiaries and vendors, cost effectiveness and coordination mechanism strategy had a positive and significant effect on refugee’s livelihoods in Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya. The investigation suggested that working and incorporated markets are key requirements for utilizing a market-based approach for giving sustenance help. For money or voucher exchanges to work, people must have the capacity to purchase what they require in their neighborhood markets and markets must have the ability to react to expanded request through expanded supply as opposed to through expanded costs, accessibility of sustenance in Dadaab camp markets is controlled by the occasional production cycles, and on account of wares not privately delivered by the street conditions amid the rainy season and fundamental exchange boundaries in the two camps need to do with weather conditions and transport, and with the need or sporadic supply which builds transport cost. In Dadaab camp the most vital imperative to exchange announced by the camp pioneers was poor roads conditions which is obviously connected to the availability issues amid the rainy season and the huge number of accomplices and activities anticipated in multi-year designs requires committed staff time inside the camp to guarantee successful arranging and coordination, to bridle budgetary assets, and to manage camp's mediations through chose executing accomplices and their slow hand-over as proper. The study recommended that the adoption of Vouchers as the bet modality than cash in the highly volatile security context of the refugee camps, where even minor incidents quickly escalate to fighting,deaths, and displacement as it has been witnessed in refugee camps in 2012, that the Government of Kenya should be responsible for security in the refugee campsand should express a strong preference for vouchers over cash. Vouchers should be delivered, through Safaricom’s closed loop system which has been analyzed to be the most cost efficient, secure, commercially available system, in order to maximize benefits to the host communities; local producers need to be linked to the new market opportunity. The non-governmental organizations operating in Dadaab camp should apply their expertise in building market linkages through technical assistance to the relevant ministries in the government of Kenya and taking vouchers to every household in the refugee camps needs strong coordination within the relevant NGOs and the involvement of all core functional areas in the design and delivery of the programme. The study suggested that further studies should be carried out on strategic responses on Vouchers for food assistancein Kenya’s refugee camps.