Food and Nutrition Surveillance and Response in Emergencies

1. Food and Nutrition Surveillance and Response in Emergencies Session 9 Food Security Assessment

2. Introduction to the Concept of Food Security Definition: • Everyone has at all times, access to and control over sufficient quantities of good quality food for an active, healthy life • All people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a productive and healthy life (Food Aid and Food Security: USAID Policy Paper. February 1995)

4. Concept of Food Security Continued • Is broad and complex concept determined by interaction of a range of agro-physical, Socio-economic and biological factors – no single direct measure of food security • Simplified by focusing on three distinct inter-related dimensions of the concept: • Food availability • Food access • Food utilization

5. Concept of Food Security Continued • Food availability – achieved when sufficient quantities of food are available to all individuals • Food access – ensured when households and all individuals within them have adequate resources to obtain appropriate foods for nutritious diet • Depends on income, food distribution and price • Food utilization – proper biological use of food

6. Food Security Conceptual Framework • Important issues which lead to food insecurity of households and individuals in the developing world include (among others): • Chronic poverty • Rapid population growth • Declining per capita food output • Poor infrastructure • Ecological constraints • Limited arable land • Inappropriate policies • Disease • Poor water and sanitation

7. Inadequate nutritional knowledge • Civil wars and Ethnic conflicts • Natural Disasters • Each factor impacts on household and individual food security in different ways • Relative importance of the pathways of these factors as determinants of food insecurity vary across households, locations and over time • Clarity of these pathways is critical for: • design of interventions • identification and interpretation of food security indicators

8. A well defined conceptual framework : • Provides broader context critical for successfully interpreting food security indicators • Supports the design of data collection systems and analytical plans • The USAID Food Security Conceptual Framework • FAO, ES Department Framework on Food Security, Livelihoods and Nutrition

9. Assessment of food insecurity (at hh level) needs to measure not only the lack of access, availability and utilization or use of food, but also perceptions on what constitutes: • Insufficiency determine the use • Unacceptable of available/ • Uncertainty or unsustainable accessible food

10. Methods of assessing food security: Famine Early warning systems and food security assessment • Early warning activities range – global focus on national and international food availability to localised focus on issues of access to food and food security. • Global information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) of the FAO • Monitors food supply and demand around the world • Aim – to warn the international aid community and participating national governments of food shortages for food aid palnning

11. Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) of the USIAD • Publishes both regular regional bulletins and ‘special alerts’. • Notices are based on vulnerability assessments that evaluate components of national and household food security in order to identify: • which people are food insecure • the nature of their problem • Factors influencing their food security, and • Possible interventions

12. Periodic emergency food assessment e.g.: • The regular joint FAO/WFP food and crop assessments undertaken to estimate national food aid needs – based on a food balance sheet – impart part of GIEWS • Periodic WFP/UNHCR joint food assessment missions (JFAMS) – make recommendations on: • number of beneficiaries • modalities of assistance • composition of the food basket • ration size • duration of assistance, and • logistical arrangements

13. Regular food security monitoring systems and/or emergency food security assessments • Are more localised • Indicators depend on the location but generally include: • market prices • variety of coping strategies • Migration, and • sometimes anthropometric status

14. Ad hoc food security assessments of emergencies - Common among NGOs • The food economy approach of SCF- UK • Developed in 1994 • Assesses food aid needs and allows for effective targeting of food aid in protracted emergencies • Approach has two main objectives: • Understand how people survive and how patterns of survival have changed as a result of ‘shocks’ • Estimate the size of the food gap and thereby estimating food aid needs • Highlighted the need for baseline data to interprete current events or food security indicators

15. Somalia Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) is an example of combining various types of food security information systems. • Uses food economy approach to establish a baseline and monitors food security indicators and nutritional status over time to assess changes in food security • Relies on ad hoc missions, assessments, and sometimes surveys where food security indicators cannot be monitored continously • Collaborates with USIAD FEWS to produce a joint newsletter, Rainwatch. • FEWS provides satellite data on rainfall estimates, cloud top temperatures, and the normalised difference vegetative index while FSAU field monitors and other NGOs provide information collected locally on the ground

16. Many NGOs are involved in assessing hh food security : SCF, ACF, Action Against Hunger (AAH), CARE, Oxfarm, and Concern Worldwide. • These agencies have similar concepts and definitions of food security – but have developed a range of approaches to assessing food security – reasons: • Food security assessment may have different objectives e.g.: • Estimation of food aid needs • Analysis of coping mechanisms • Design of potential interventions • In all cases information is intended to help decision makers form knowledgeable and timely decisions.

17. Indicators of Measuring Food Insecurity • Measures of food insecurity need to asses: • Availability • Access • Utilization or use of food • Measures must also assess: • Other important factors that determine use of available/accessible food e.g. perceptions on what constitutes insufficiency, inadequacy, unacceptable, uncertainty or unsustainable

18. Hence multiple indicators are used to reflect the various dimensions of the problem • Most commonly used are: • Food production • Income • Total expenditure • Food expenditure • Share of expenditure on food • Calorie consumption, and • nutritional status

19. Not all programmes can be evaluated using all or even some of the indicators. • Food security indicators are summary measures of one or more of the dimensions of food security used to assess food security status, demonstrate change or the result of a programme activity for a target population • Food security indicators are constructed from a set of observation, or measurements of food security-related conditions which are classified according to a set of criteria, aggregated, and placed in some proper perspective

20. Selecting/Choosing Among Indicators • When selecting indicators of food security one must define what they determine and level at which they operate i.e. community, household or individual. • The problem in choosing specific measures is how to maximise the quality of the information and its benefit to decision-making against the costs of collecting, processing, and analysing that information • Good measures should be relevant, credible, low-cost, comparable, time sensitive and appropriate for the decisions that need to be made

21. Criteria for deciding when and what to monitor and evaluate often includes: • Ease of collecting, interpreting & using the information • Time required • Source of information • Variability in x-tic/element being measured • Cost • Use of the information • Level at which information will be used • Relative importance of the information

22. Indicator Proxies • Some food security indicators are difficult or expensive to measure directly • Hence proxy-indicators have been developed e.g. for incomes: • Gender of hh head • Availability of working age individuals within hh • Ethnicity, social class, or caste • Size of family dwelling • Type of materials used to construct dwelling • Method of water collection & sanitation availability • Ownership of key assets • Geographic location of hh

23. Types of Indicators Household food security indicators can be grouped into two: • Process indicators • Outcome indicators Process Indicators • Reflect food supply and food access • Indicators reflecting food supply are those that play a role in limiting food availability and the options households have for food access

24. These indicators provide information on the likelihood of a shock or disaster event that will adversely affect household food security • Examples: • Inputs and measures of agricultural production (agro-meteorological data) • Access to natural resources • Institutional development • Market infrastructure • Exposure to conflicts or its consequences (influx of refugees)

25. Specific indicators: • Access to food aid programmes • Rainfall (total, distribution and timing) • Natural resources (wild foods, fuel etc) • Access to all weather roads • Access credit facilities • Access to pasture resources • Food supply indicators can be derived from records and data sheets e.g. r/fall records, food balance sheets etc. • Useful for monitoring and determining food security at regional level • Limitation – they are too aggregated to detect pockets of vulnerability

26. Indicators reflecting food access – provide information on the capacity of the population affected by shock or disaster to withstand its effects i.e. coping ability indicators. • Information can be derived e.g. by SE indicators that represent the degree of stress and ways in which the households are responding to the stress • Coping ability food access indicators measure the extent of food insecurity by making use of frequency and severity of food-consumption related strategies

27. Outcome indicators • Are proxies for adequate food consumption • Revolve around measures of food consumption • Are of two types: • Direct – attempt to measure actual food consumption. • Include: food diversity/variety scores, food frequency consumption data and consumption expenditures • Indirect – generally only used when direct indicators are inappropriate in terms of time and cost • Include – nutritional status of index children

28. Outcome indicators continued • Limitation – proxies that are appropriate for one area may not necessarily be appropriate for other areas.