1. FOOD SECURITY
Concepts, Basic Facts,
and Measurement Issues
June 26 to July 7, 2006
Dhaka, Bangladesh

2. Rao 6d:
Monitoring
Global Food Security
Learning: The learning goal is to consider major recent
global initiatives against hunger and for FS as well as for
measuring and monitoring programs (of FIS and
vulnerability to FIS) at national and international levels.

3. Brief Contents
• WFS, 1996, and the Rome Declaration
• the WFS plan of action
• need for FS monitoring systems
• national early warning and nutrition monitoring systems
• monitoring the WFS target and MDG hunger reduction
objective
• the different frameworks and levels of analysis (FIVIMS,
SETSAN, VAM; global, national, local, household,
individual)
• identifying the vulnerable, vulnerable mapping and
livelihood profiling, vulnerability measurements

4. Major Results of the World Food
Summit
• FAO organized WFS in November, 1996 to promote
cause of FS for all people.
• WFS adopted Rome Declaration on World FS leading
to WFS Plan of Action.
• The Rome Declaration pledged to reduce the number
of undernourished people to half their present level
(about 800m) by 2015.
• A mid-term review to ascertain whether this target can
be achieved will take place by the year 2010.

5. Seven Strategic Steps of the WFS
Plan
1. "We will ensure an enabling political, social, and economic
environment designed to create the best conditions for the
eradication of poverty and for durable peace, based on full and
equal participation of women and men, which is most conducive
to achieving sustainable FS for all"
2. "We will implement policies aimed at eradicating poverty and
inequality and improving physical and economic access by all, at
all times, to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and safe food and
its effective utilization".
3. "Pursue participatory and sustainable food, AG, fisheries,
forestry and rural development policies and practices in high and
low potential areas, which are essential to adequate and reliable
food supplies at the HH, national, regional and global levels, and
combat pests, drought and desertification, considering the
multifunctional character of AG".

6. Seven Strategic Steps of the WFS
Plan (contd.)
4. "We will strive to ensure that food, AG trade and overall trade
policies are conducive to fostering FS for all through a fair and
market oriented world trade system".
5. "We will endeavor to prevent and be prepared for natural
disasters and man-made emergencies and to meet transitory and
emergency food requirements in ways that encourage recovery,
rehabilitation, development and a capacity to satisfy future
trends".
6. "Promoting optimal allocation and use of public and private
investments to foster human resources, sustainable food, AG,
fisheries and forestry systems, and rural development, in high
and low potential areas".
7. "We will implement, monitor, and follow-up this Plan of Action
at all levels in cooperation with the international community".

7. The Need For a FS Monitoring
System
• Generally to provide information about
developments in FS to form basis for
government policy interventions at national and
international levels.
• Food emergencies can be averted with such
information. Food imports can be ordered, or
pesticides can be delivered to the regions under
pest attack, etc.
• Food and financial aid can be requested through
donor appeals.

8. Desirable Attributes of Monitoring
Systems
• Monitoring system must be part of or report to
organisation which has a response mechanism.
• It should result in improvements in programme design
and delivery and more appropriate policy
implementation.
• Information may be specially collected or be based on
what is already collected as part of the country's
statistical programme.
• Cost effectiveness and timeliness should also be major
critera in monitoring systems.

9. Two Classes of Monitoring Systems
• National and Global monitoring systems have
strengths in reporting on food availability at
national and regional levels, but tend to be weak
in reporting on HH physical and economic
access to the food available.
• Local and HH based monitoring systems tend to
be much stronger on monitoring access, but are
often poorer at building up a picture of overall
food availability.

10. National Early Warning Systems
• The most common form of national FS monitoring system is the
early warning system.
• To assess likely food supply, AG production is estimated in
months leading up to the harvest period, and supplemented by
meteorological information. Rainfall monitoring has been
enhanced in many countries by satellite remote sensing.
• This is then combined with planed imports and estimates of
national consumption requirements to from a simple food
balance sheet and thus identify food gaps.
• More sophisticated and developed early warning systems may
also collect information on market prices to assess shortages in
local and regional markets.

11. National Nutrition Monitoring
• National nutrition monitoring is less common than early warning
systems but many countries do have operational systems.
• But information quality can be weak e.g., information on
nutritional status of children is collected in isolation from the
kind of socio-economic information which would allow relevant
causal analysis to be undertaken.
• Nutritional information can often be collected as a by-product of
national health programmes, such as information on low birth-
weight babies or child anthropometry.
• Training enumerators to collect accurate anthrop. information
can be costly.
• Recently, more has been done to try to incorporate nutritional
data into monitoring systems, and this should increase our
understanding of how effective child nutritional data are, both as
indicators of chronic FIS and of transitory food crises.

12. Local and HH FS Monitoring
• These concentrate on monitoring access to food rather than
national availability.
• There can be mutuality between national and local approaches.
• Local monitoring allows information on coping strategies, such
as distress sales of assets, consumption of famine foods and
outmigration. These indicators have to be location specific and
disaggregated.
• Respondents in HH surveys can also be asked about HH food
stocks and their own perceptions of their food needs and FS.
• Nutrition status information can also be collected, but this has to
be done in conjunction with information on health status,
sanitation and maternal care.

13. Vulnerability Mapping
• In recent years a number of countries have
experimented with vulnerability mapping.
• This is a process whereby existing information on
income, FIS, malnutrition, teenage pregnancy, low birth
weight babies etc. is disaggregated by geographical
location and sometimes socio-economic category, to
identify those groups of the population who have
multiple risk factors.
• This can then be used as a basis for more closely
targeted monitoring, as well providing the information
on which to base economic and social support
programmes.

14. Complexity of the Local-HH
Monitoring Problem
• The causes of FIS at the HH level tend to be complex and to
vary by location and socio-economic grouping.
• The analyst faces a major challenge to present information to
decision makers in a way which allows them to understand the
issues without misleading simplification.
• It is much easier to understand the message delivered by early
warning systems, which usually can be simplified into the need
for more imports.
• One of the problems of HH monitoring systems up until now
has been the difficulty in translating information into action.
• Without demonstration of their usefulness, financing of Local-
HH monitoring will remain problematic. Yet, without effective
methodology for HH level monitoring, FS information systems
will continue to emphasise availability of food at the expense of
access to existing food supplies.

15. The FIVIMS Framework
• FIVIMS: Food Insecurity & Vulnerability Info Mapping Systems
• Basic idea is that improved information can be actively used to
improve FS for all.
• The Inter-Agency Working Group on FIS and Vulnerability
Mapping Systems (IAWG-FIVIMS) oversees development of
FIVIMS. It has 28 organizational members with permanent
Secretariat at FAO.
• National Level FIVIMS is implemented through a network of
information systems for measuring and monitoring FIS and
vulnerability. This is a "national FIVIMS".
• International Level FIVIMS is implemented through many
activities aimed to support national FIVIMS and establish a
common database and information exchange, referred to as
"global FIVIMS".
• FIVIMS will make a major contribution to the common UN
country planning process.

16. Core Functions Of FIVIMS
1. Development of a consensus among donors and
technical agencies on best practices in FS information
system work at country level and across a variety of
socio-economic circumstances
2. Insistence on greater co-ordination among donor and
technical agency efforts in FS information system
work, especially in the poorest countries, to avoid
duplication
3. Linking information systems to remedial action
programs and evaluating impact of these combined
programs on real reductions over time in
undernourished (in the shorter run) and the number of
the poor and vulnerable (in the longer run).

17. Progress on FIVIMS
• Since inception of FIVIMS in 1997, FAO has devoted
substantial funds to support research on best practices
for development of information and mapping systems
to help guide improved actions for sustainable
development, poverty alleviation and hunger reduction.
• Examples:
 Use of Sustainable Livelihood Approaches: Work on
profiling vulnerable livelihoods of different population groups
(Nepal).
 FIVIMS Supporting Documents: The FIVIMS Tools and Tips
assist the start up of FIVIMS at national level. They are key
reference documents.
 In some countries, the national thematic groups of the UN
System Network on Rural Development and FS have chosen
the development of a national FIVIMS as their theme.

18. More On FIVIMS
• Four country level case studies have been funded; in
Ecuador , Nigeria, Malawi and Mexico.
• Two poverty mapping activities in Kenya and
Bangladesh supported by the FNPP project on
integrating FIVIMS into the CCA/UNDAF and PRSP
process. Two other proposals are under discussion.
• Nutrition Country Profiles: These provide concise
analytical summaries describing the food and nutrition
situation in the countries. Their regular updating by
institutions in the countries allows monitoring of the
food and nutrition situation and can be incorporated
into the process of MDG analysis.

19. Vulnerability Analysis And Mapping
(VAM)
• VAM is a decentralized WFP technical support unit contributing to FIVIMS
in the countries where it is currently working.
• VAM provided the necessary analysis to support the WFP emergency
operation in Afghanistan, Western Sahel, Guatemala and 17 other countries.
• It also played an important role in the coordination of the needs assessment
for the food crisis in Southern Africa.
• VAM contributed to the establishment of a national FIVIMS in Bangladesh
and a similar structure in Angola.
• In 2002 VAM units supported government capacity building in FS
assessments, through provision of training, equipment, conduction of joint-
assessments, development of Early Warning Systems (EWS), vulnerability
monitoring systems, contingency plans, and disaster management policies and
structures.
• In Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi and Bangladesh VAM has in 2002 assisted the
governments’ in the development of Early Warning systems.