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Ethiopia + 5 more

Eastern Africa Regional Cash Working Group Meeting notes Date: 10th May 2022, 2:00PM-4:00PM Via Zoom

Attachments

Meeting Purpose

The meeting covered the topic of markets – including the impact of ongoing crises, functionality and price fluctuations. Three questions guided the discussions.
\1) Do we have sufficient market information to inform the response? How can gaps be addressed? \2) How can we build a common understanding of the issues to facilitate a coordinated response? \3) What actions can be taken to mitigate any risks and who needs to do it?

Introduction of the Agenda

The meeting chair welcomed all in attendance and then commenced the session.
The meeting began with an announcement relating to the RCWG Lead and Co-Leads elections. The current office holders have had a two year term that expires in June hence a need to commence an election process. CALP Network is the Lead, with WFP and CARE as co-Leads. The RCWG TOR has a clause with the provision to stagger the end of the term limits so that there is a 6 months delay between election of the Lead and the Co- Leads. The opportunity to do this was missed, so the elections will be carried out for all the three posts in the coming month. The TOR doesn’t specify the election process and an online process will be initiated by an email to request for self-nominations which will be followed by an online voting process. Elected office holders will take office effective July 2022. No questions emerged regarding the announcement.
The Chair then transitioned into the day’s agenda, Markets.
There seems to be questions emerging as regards the impact of the ongoing crises on Markets (Drought, impact of Ukraine crisis etc.). At least one concerned raised was followed up and it turned out to be a localized phenomenon. The risk that in the absence of concrete market information and common messaging, localized cases of market dysfunction could be used to inform decision-making at a broader level especially when they start to be used to make generalized statements.
The objective of the meeting was to therefore jointly look at what information there is; possibly create a common understanding of what is being observed in terms of market trends; and how this could influence the effectiveness of CVA.

Meeting Agenda Presentation 1; FAO: Impact of ongoing crises on markets in the region Presentation 2; REACH: Market Monitoring in the region

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