Presented by George Mu’ammar (WFP) at the CGIAR-CSI Annual Meeting 2009: Mapping Our Future. March 31 - April 4, 2009, ILRI Campus, Nairobi, Kenya

1. The role of GIS in delivering
Effective Humanitarian Assistance
George Mu’ammar
VAM - Food Security Analysis Service
United Nations World Food Programme, Rome, ITALY
george.muammar@wfp.org

2. The World Food Programme
WFP is largest food aid agency of the UN
working in more than 80 countries
worldwide
The main priority of WFP is to:
Provide timely and appropriate
humanitarian assistance to save lives
and protect livelihoods of the poor and
vulnerable households against shocks
and food emergencies

3. WFP’s Mission
• “WFP is the food aid arm of the United Nations system.
Food aid is one of the many instruments that can help to
promote food security, which is defined as the access of
all people at all times to the food needed for an active
and healthy life.”
• “WFP will concentrate its efforts and resources on the
neediest people.”
• “WFP will focus on those aspects […] where food-
based interventions are most useful.

4. WFP Programming challenge
• Locating the hungry and neediest
– Who are the most hungry and at risk populations?
(population groups)
– Where do they live? (geographical location)
– How many they are? (beneficiary estimates)
– Why they are hungry / what are risk factors?
– When will intervention be necessary (Early Warning)
– For how long ? (response duration)
– How much assistance (resource mobilization)
– What are appropriate responses? (intervention modality,
logistics, procurement, programming)
– Can this re-occur ? (Monitoring and Emergency Prepardness)
• Ensuring their effective and timely integration
into WFP's programming.

5. Training and Capacity Development
• Training on assessments
• Deployment of PDAs for data collection
• Mapping, G.I.S. and Spatial Analysis

6. Assessment Activities
Comprehensive Food Security
and Vulnerability Analysis
CFSVA
ENA /
EFSA FSMS
Emergency Food Security
Needs Assessment / Monitoring Systems
E. Food Security (incl. Market price
Assessment monitoring)

7. GeoNetwork (VAM-SIE)

8. Ethiopia (Population) Uganda (LGP)
Laos (Access to safe water) Niger (Agri Constraints)

10. Food Security Information and Outcome
Measurement Strategy
time
Comprehensive
F. S. & V.
FSMMS – Assessment
F.S. &
Markets Adjustment
Emergency F.S.
Monitoring Assessment / Feed-
System back
CFSVA (2)
Adjust-
ment
Feed-
back
Contingency
Plan EMOP
PRRO
CP Outcome
Phase- out Measurement
Early
hand-over
Shock event
Warning
Emergency F.S. EMOP
Assessment

11. Comprehensive Food Security and
Vulnerability Assessment
• Food security
– “…all people…, all times, have Households Current Food Security
access to sufficient ….food.. to 3,600,000 poor
3,200,000
meet their needs….” (WFS - borderline
2,800,000
FAO 1996) adequate
2,400,000
– Proxy indicator: Food 2,000,000
Consumption 1,600,000
• Based on 7 day recall of diet 1,200,000
diversity of household 800,000
• Number of foods eaten in 7 400,000
days 0
North Sudan Darfur Southern
+ 3 Areas Sudan

12. Livelihood Analysis
agriculture production livestock rearing
Estimated annual income ($/household)
• Households have
4000
crop sale livestock sale
market gardening cash crop sale
different & brewing fishing
3500
unskilled labour skilled labour
handicrafts… natural resources
multiple, petty trade trading
3000
income salaries-wages
livelihoods porter begging
gov allowance other
2500
strategies to 2000
secure income
and food 1500
1000
500
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13. Coping Mechanisms
• Households have
100% ≥3 rooms
Proportion of households
90% Grass roof
reserves, wealth,
No toilet
80%
coping mechanisms,
Cooking wood
70%
networks…
Sleeping mats
60%
Bed
50%
– Proxy: the asset
Table
40% Bicycle wealth index
30% Motorcycle
Hand tractor
20%
Cattle
10%
Poultry
0%
Wealthy
Poor
0 1 2 3Wealth deciles8 9 10 11 12
4567 12%
1 2 3 4 5
Proportion of households
10%
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
95-100
0-4.9
5-9.9
10-14.9
15-19.9
20-24.9
25-29.9
30-34.9
35-39.9
40-44.9
45-49.9
50-54.9
55-59.9
60-64.9
65-69.9
70-74.9
75-79.9
80-84.9
85-89.9
90-94.9
Wealth Index

14. Assessment Observations

15. Yesterday: NDVI-based Drought Analysis
Drought risk –
Flood risk – anomalies is dekad
localised Flood Frequency
Inland Water
29 in historical NDVI
Main Rivers High : 17 %
anomalies in National Boundary
Drought risk –
Administrative Units Level 1 Low : 0 %
historical NDVI Administrative Units Level 2
Neighbouring Countries
anomalies is dekad
Sea
15 in historical NDVI
Probability of Drought
Inland Water
High : 5 %
0 30 60 Main Rivers
120 180 240
Kilometers
0 30 60 120 180 240
National Boundary Kilometers
Low : 0 %
Administrative Units Level 1
Administrative Units Level 2
0 30 60 120 180 240 Neighbouring Countries
Kilometers
Sea

16. WRSI for
Main Staples
• Water
Requirement
Satisfaction
Index for
sorghum in
2005.

17. %
%
%
%
%
Probability of %
“severe” (*)
drought
(*) Severe drought is defined
as a season where the
WRSI for sorghum
remains below 50%
Based on 11 years
observations

18. Number of households and
Vulnerability
Households
3,600,000 complex food
3,200,000 insecure
cyclic - chronic
• Combining exposure of 2,800,000
food insecure
livelihood groups to 2,400,000
vulnerable to
drought shock, current 2,000,000 any drought
food consumption and vulnerable to
1,600,000
the wealth index severe drought
1,200,000
households are not vulnerable
800,000
categorized according
400,000
to vulnerability to
0
drought.
North Darfur Southern
Sudan + 3 Sudan
Areas

19. Risk Analysis –
Vulnerability to
“severe” (*)
drought
(*) Proportion of households
expected to become food
insecure during a season
when the WRSI of sorghum
is less than 50%

20. Drought risk to Food Sec.
Conclusion:
• Vulnerable
households living in
areas where drought
occurs at least every
10 years are
considered at risk

21. Number of people affected by drought in 2008
(this morning)

22. Future: Modelling Assessment Data
Predicted values for Food Security
Indicators at unobserved locations

23. Emergency
Prepardness
and Response
Unit
Contact:
Amy Horton – Deputy Chief
amy.horton@wfp.org

27. Development Risk
Solutions
Unit
Contact:
Bronwyn Cousins - Business Analyst
bronwyn.cousins@wfp.org

28. Development Risk Solutions Platform
VAM Maps & Operational Cost
Total Response
Weather Population by
Cost by Region
Information Profiles = Country
# in Need

29. Climate Change - Estimating Cost Impact
Response Cost
Total Response
Weather Estimated Estimate by
Cost by Region
Information # in Need Country
• The impact of climate change can be estimated in two ways:
– Direct physical impact on weather events and crops of predicted
changes in temperature, rainfall
• Established discipline of agro-meteorology and hydro agro-
meteorology
• Input rainfall and PET fields into DRSP can be varied
– Ricardian Approach
• Assumes responses to climate in the observed past can be used to
estimate changes in future, without needing to model these changes
explicitly
• All approaches considered, but direct approach has some
advantages
– Potentially easier to engage country counterparts and transfer
modeling technologies

30. Logistics
Contact:
Eric Branckaert - Sr. Information Management Officer
eric.branckaert@wfp.org

31. Database Structure

32. www.logcluster.org