This document discusses food security assessment in emergencies. It defines food security and its three dimensions: availability, access, and utilization. Food security is determined by interactions between agro-physical, socioeconomic, and biological factors. Assessments measure these dimensions and perceptions of insufficiency, uncertainty, etc. A range of indicators are used to reflect the multiple dimensions, including production, income, expenditures, consumption, and nutrition status. Process indicators reflect food supply and access, while outcome indicators provide information on the likelihood of events affecting household security. A variety of methods are discussed, from early warning systems to specific assessment approaches used by organizations.

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

2. 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)

3. 3
Everyone has Equity; all people
At all times Stability of food availability, access and utilization;
Protection against risks affecting people’s food
security
Access to The right to food. People are entitled to enough food.
Affordability – depending on purchasing power and
food prices; Own prodn depending on land rights etc.
And control over Power to take decisions on food prodn, distn + consn
Sufficient quantities Enough food to meet daily requirements, sufficient
stock at hh and community levels to resist shocks
Of good quality food Variety of nutritious, safe and culturally appropriate
foods
For an active and
healthy life
Proper consumption and good biological utilization of
food, resulting in adequate nutritional status of people

4. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

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– 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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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. 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

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• 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. 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. 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

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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

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Types of Indicators
Household food security indicators can be grouped into
two:
1. Process indicators
2. 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

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• 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)

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• 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

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• 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

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

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