Fighting Hunger in an Era of Global Economic Crisis: New Early Warning Techniques for New Problems

1. Fighting Hunger in an Era of Global Economic Crisis:New Early Warning Techniques for New Problems Gary Eilerts USAID FEWS NET Program Manager

2. Scope of this session Identify some challenges of “new” food security Describe new FEWS NET early warning approaches to them Along the way, identify other issues to address

3. Whois FEWS NET? DCHA/FFP/PTD 24 year-old “project” activity Partners FFP FEWS NET

4. Brave new world of food insecurity Causes: • Local intrusions of global markets and trade • Increasing energy costs • Urbanization • Climate change • Changes in food stock levels, and ?consumption? • Global transmission of information Impacts: Plausibly, possibly, more hungry, hungrier, in more countries

5. “Old” food insecurity: drought, strong geographic signature 2003 2008

6. Challenge: Identify and monitor “socio-economic” causes of food insecurity Can’t afford sufficient seed, fertilizer for planting Cost to transport almonds/fruits to market is too high Can only afford 70% of food normally purchased in market Remittances from family member in Dubai plummet Import/export ban, trader suffers less income

7. Challenge: Similar problem in “finding” the urban food insecure and hungry

8. Challenge: how to monitor the food market, trade? • Prices only tell us so much • Historic patterns of trade, prices, are they diagnostic? • Trader characteristics fundamentally important to know • Perceptions are often reality; what are they? • What’s the marketshed? Border conditions? Policy constraints? Need to understand the sub-national, regional and global structure, conduct and performance of markets and trade

9. Understand the structure and conduct of markets

10. From understanding to action We used to monitor Niger’s food prices only in Niger Then we thought we should monitor the huge Dawanu market in Kano Now we know we can monitor prices in 5 markets south of Niger to have a window on Niger market prices.

11. Regular monitoring of dense grid of food prices Change of +- 1-9.9% Change of < +-1% Change of > +-10%

12. Note: monitoring and assessing markets for food security is a different game • Perceptions, even wrong ones, are reality in the market • Can they be used to address food insecurity? • We’re not very good at this • Food “aid”, without procuring, transporting, or delivering food? “jawbone” interventions?

13. Questions: the “market-starved”? • The not-so-new needy/hungry population • The principal group of new food aid recipients? • Compared to the rural hungry, who’s hungriest? • The major threat to the state? Cause of terrorism?

14. Challenge: We really don’t know how much food is produced in… • How wrong are food production estimates? Most have no basis in evidence. • If there are large errors, there will be large impacts • If there is insufficient local detail, opportunities to improve the situation will be lost Need to improve agricultural area–planted estimates, at lowest level

15. High-res imagery now being used for more accurate estimates of area planted Ethiopia: MinAg and CSA differ tremendously in ests of area planted (1 million ha, could be equivalent to 2 million MT difference)

16. Challenge: how many are producing, eating, buying, needing food? • Poor, or no credible national population estimates • Excruciatingly bad local estimates • Accurate local denominator data is a fundamental need Need to know how many people live where, at the lowest level

17. 1 kilometer Landscan population data, on-line

18. Question: If we do have more accurate data on… • Agricultural production per kilometer • Population (consumption, per kilometer) • and • Local market and trade structures, conduct, performance • What better decisions on deficits, surpluses, export potentials, import and food aid needs can be taken by the vulnerable, by others?

19. Challenge: what framework to organize food insecurity monitoring and needs assessment? Almost all FEWS NET countries have zoning and profiling, a few have complete baselines Joint efforts with Governments, WFP, NGOs Basis for more effective sampling, monitoring, impact estimation

20. Livelihoods: winners or losers in the market? • What are a livelihood’s normal interactions with a market? • How will they interact this year? • Will they get what they need? • If not, what? • Any levers to push to make it better? Need to predict the success of livelihood interactions with the market

21. Challenge: Influence of climate change on seasonal food insecurity? • Global patterns seem certain and evidence-based • Surprising acceleration in expected impacts • Volatility in weather, changing patterns • Already seeing local impacts on seasonal level? For food security monitoring, need to identify climate change impacts in more local areas

22. Local patterns emerging El Nino-ization must be explained locally Warming of Indian Ocean fundamentally important for Africa Somber prospects for most of Africa

23. Recent changes in Ethiopian rainfall patterns

24. Challenge: communicate conditions and priorities in the same language? The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), a promising, but unfinished, initiative of great promise

25. Challenge: partnerships and institutionalization – the toughest issues to resolve? Partnerships: only way to monitor, assess and respond to dimension of problems A continuing failure to institutionalize many monitoring, assessment, response, planning functions for food insecurity

26. Conclusions Significant new challenges to food security exist They are already significantly affecting food security Early warning, food security and vulnerability assessment, needs assessment, developmental actions all need to adapt

27. www.FEWS.net www.fews.net www.fews.net