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Focus Areas
• Assessments, Monitoring & Evaluation
• Emergency Nutrition
• Food Aid
• Food Security
• HIV
• Household Food Consumption
• Infant & Child Nutrition
• Women's & Adolescents' Nutrition

Focus Areas
• Ethiopia
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Honduras
• India
• Kenya
• Madagascar
• Malawi
• Nicaragua
• Rwanda
• Sudan
• Zambia
 

 

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Food Security

See Also: Assessments, Monitoring & Evaluation; Food Aid; HIV/AIDS; Household Food Consumption; Infant and Children Nutrition

USAID defines food security as:

"When all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs in order to lead a healthy and productive life."

Several of FANTA's other focus areas touch on food security themes as it is integral to much of what FANTA does. An understanding of food insecurity's determinants enables FANTA's technical leadership in policy and programs with a focus on food consumption and nutrition outcomes. The three components of food security, which inform FANTA's expertise in this field and provide basis for all FANTA technical assistance, are:

  • Availability -- Sufficient quantities of appropriate, necessary types of food from domestic production, commercial imports, or donors are consistently available to individuals or are in reasonable proximity to them.

  • Access -- Individuals have adequate incomes or other resources to purchase or barter to obtain levels of appropriate foods needed to maintain consumption of an adequate diet and nutritional level.

  • Utilization -- Food is properly used: existence of proper food processing and storage practices, adequate knowledge and application of nutrition and child care, and adequate health and sanitation services.

FANTA applies the current state of the art to define a conceptual framework and guide its technical assistance to Title II emergency programs and more than 80 development, nutrition, and food security programs in 27 countries. FANTA also implements in-country, on-going direct technical support in six priority countries: Ethiopia, Madagascar, India, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Honduras. Moreover, FANTA works with the USAID Bureau for Global Health Child Survival and Health Grant Program (CSHGP) PVOs to ensure comparable standards of program design, implementation, and reporting. FANTA's food security indicators and monitoring areas are especially important to donors, implementers, and affected communities.

 

Related Publications

   
  

A brief description of each publication is provided below. By choosing the publication title, you are able to read a detailed description and to download the publication.

  
   

 

 

 

  1. Dietary Diversity as a Measure of Women's Diet Quality in Resource-Poor Areas (2008): Results from Rural Bangladesh Site Simple population-level indicators are needed to assess the quality of women’s diets and to monitor progress in improving diets. FANTA is working with a number of researchers on a Women’s Dietary Diversity Project (WDDP), whose broad objective is to use existing data sets with dietary intake data from 24-hour recall to analyze the relationship between simple indicators of diet diversity–such as those that could be derived from the new Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)–and dietary quality for women. With funding from USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, the WDDP is analyzing data sets from five countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique and the Philippines. The final report for Bangladesh indicates that food group diversity indicators may be a simple and valid option for population-level assessment and for monitoring progress toward improved micronutrient intakes among women of reproductive age.

  2. Sudan Food Assistance Transition Study (2007): The report provides an analysis of the key issues related to food insecurity and the high rates of malnutrition in Southern Sudan and the Three Areas (Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile). It examines current Title II activities and recommends how to increase their impact on food security and nutrition. The study proposes possible steps for addressing food security through development of an integrated food security strategy and by leveraging Title II and Disaster Assistance funds in a complementary manner that emphasizes the multiple transitions taking place in the areas of livelihoods, education, health, nutrition, institutions and security.

  3. Trigger Indicators and Early Warning and Response Systems in Multi-Year Title II Assistance Programs (2007): USAID's Office of Food for Peace (FFP) and FANTA have published FFP Occasional Paper 5, Trigger Indicators and Early Warning and Response Systems in Multi-Year Title II Assistance Programs to allow Cooperating Sponsors (CSs) a greater degree of flexibility in responding to emerging crises and shocks in their areas of operation without the risk of potentially undermining advances being achieved by development interventions. Occasional Paper 5 is designed to briefly review CSs' experiences with operationalizing trigger indicators (TIs) and early warning and response (EWR) systems to-date, outline the key characteristics of EWR systems and TIs within the Title II-supported multi-year assistance program (MYAP) context, and provide suggestions on how to best operationalize FFP guidance on incorporating EWR mechanisms, including TIs, into MYAPs.

  4. Food Assistance Programming in the Context of HIV (2007): Food Assistance Programming in the Context of HIV, a joint publication by WFP and FANTA, is a guide developed to improve the design and implementation of food security programs that respond to HIV-related challenges as well as HIV programs that utilize food and food-related activities to achieve HIV-related outcomes. The guide provides a set of tools, promising practices and key considerations that enhance the flexibility and appropriateness of program design and implementation modalities, and has been developed for program directors, program advisors and senior program managers who are directly involved in the analysis and formulation of food assistance strategies and country program activities at HQ and in regional and field offices.

  5. Version 3 of Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for Measurement of Food Access: Indicator Guide (2007): FANTA, in collaboration with Cornell and Tufts Universities, has developed a Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) measure and a guide, "Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for Measurement of Food Access: Indicator Guide," with a standardized questionnaire and data collection and analysis instructions. The HFIAS is composed of a set of nine questions that have been used in several countries and appear to distinguish food insecure from food secure households across different cultural contexts. These questions represent universal domains of the experience of insecure access to food that can be used to assign households and populations along a continuum of severity. The information generated by the HFIAS can be used to assess the prevalence of household food insecurity (access component) (e.g., for geographic targeting) and to detect changes in the food insecurity situation of a population over time (e.g., for monitoring and evaluation). The questions can be added to a standard baseline and final evaluation survey. In August 2007, Version 3 of the guide was released. The new version offers an updated questionnaire section.

  6. Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) for Measurement of Household Food Access: Indicator Guide and Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHFP) for Measurement of Household Food Access: Indicator Guide (2007): In light of the need to build consensus on household food access impact indicators, two strategic objective level indicators of household food access (HDDS) and months of inadequate household food provisioning (MIHFP) were identified during the development of USAID Office of Food for Peace (FFP)'s FY05-08 strategy, through a process of consultation and discussion with CSs, researchers, and other technical groups. These two indicators focus on the desired outcome of improved food access - improved household food consumption. FFP will be requiring all new Title II Multi-Year Assistance Programs (MYAP) with improved household food access as an objective to include these indicators in their results frameworks. In addition, a Household Food Insecurity Scale (HFIS) to measure the experience of household food insecurity is being tested for future inclusion as an indicator. These two indicator guides provide background on the indicator as well as guidance on data collection (including questionnaire format) and analysis.

  7. Journal of Nutrition Supplement, May 2006: The Journal of Nutrition has been the principal forum for disseminating US-based research on food insecurity scales. It has also published most of the studies dealing with the application of food insecurity scales in developing countries. Publication of the process of developing the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) offers the opportunity to continue this "conversation" by presenting, in one place, one of the most significant advances in food insecurity measurement to emerge over the last decade. The Journal of Nutrition Supplement, published in May 2006, presents the results of the FANTA-led HFIAS initiatives, including: findings of the first studies to develop and validate food insecurity scales from the "ground-up" in a developing country context; findings of the first cross-country study to compare the performance of the same set of food insecurity items in four dramatically different cultures; results of a cross-country review of food insecurity scale applications and its implications for the development of a universal measurement tool; and, status of the process to develop a universal measurement tool.

  8. Evaluating Title II Development-oriented Multi-Year Assistance Projects (2006): Evaluating a Title II development-oriented multi-year assistance project (MYAP) involves assessing its outcomes and impacts, that is, verifying the extent to which project activities are associated with intended changes in the practices and well-being of the beneficiary population. Evaluation objectives may range from simply measuring the level of change in indicators of well-being, to attributing a change in the level of those indicators to the intervention being implemented. The focus of this Technical Note is to lay out the various evaluation design options open to Title II project managers.

  9. Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Title II Development-oriented Projects (2006): All Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) submitting a Title II development oriented Multi-Year Assistance program (MYAP) proposal to USAID’s Food for Peace (FFP) must include a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plan as part of their submission. According to USAID guidelines, the aim of the M&E plan is to measure the extent to which the activity will result in changes in behavior and well-being at the population level, as well as progress in activity implementation. This Technical Note explains how to frame a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system that fulfills those functions, while maximizing its usefulness to project managers.

  10. Measuring Household Food Insecurity Workshop Report (2004): During the past four years FANTA has supported activities to validate the US Household Food Security Scale (HFSS) for use in developing countries and test its usefulness as an impact indicator for the access component of food security in program evaluations. Cornell and Tufts Universities, Africare, World Vision and Freedom from Hunger have collaborated with FANTA in implementing these activities. In addition, a range of researchers and food security program managers have used and adapted the USDA approach in a number of countries in order to answer a range of different objectives. As a next step in the effort to develop simple, standardized, questionnaire-based approach to measure household food insecurity, FANTA held a two-day workshop of researchers, practitioners, USAID staff and FANTA staff. Participants at the workshop presented the results of the field validation work and took the initial steps in developing the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for use by Title II and Child Survival and Health programs. This report provides a description of the workshop and its findings.

  11. Development and Validation of an Experience-based Tool to Directly Measure Household Food Insecurity Within and Across Seasons in Northern Burkina Faso (2004): FANTA funded two multi-year field validation studies that used the HFSS approach to develop experiential food insecurity scales and validate them primarily as impact indicators for the access component of household food security (see Measuring Food Insecurity: Going Beyond Indicators of Income and Anthropometry below). The objectives of the studies were to develop a household food access measure (Household Food Insecurity Scale: HFIS) based on locally recognized behaviors that distinguish food insecurity in developing countries, test the HFIS's relationship to conventional indicators of food insecurity (such as income or food consumption), and test the HFIS's performance and sensitivity to change related to program impact.

  12. Local Capacity Building in Title II Food Security Projects: A Framework (2004): This paper establishes a conceptual framework for local capacity building within food security projects. It is designed to provide Title II policy-makers and cooperating sponsors with a basic reference tool for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects’ capacity building activities at the local level. This framework builds on the USAID food security framework, in which food availability, access and utilization constitute the three pillars of food security.

  13. Measuring Household Food Consumption: A Technical Guide (2004): The guide describes the process and procedures for collecting information to assess the food intake requirements of a household and a step-by-step analysis of the food consumed. Appendices present detailed information about analyzing the data.

  14. Measuring Food Insecurity: Going Beyond Indicators of Income and Anthropometry (2003): FANTA funded two multi-year field validation studies that used the HFSS approach to develop experiential food insecurity scales and validate them primarily as impact indicators for the access component of household food security (see Development and Validation of an Experience-based Tool to Directly Measure Household Food Insecurity Within and Across Seasons in Northern Burkina Faso above). The objectives of the studies were to develop a household food access measure (Household Food Insecurity Scale: HFIS) based on locally recognized behaviors that distinguish food insecurity in developing countries, test the HFIS's relationship to conventional indicators of food insecurity (such as income or food consumption), and test the HFIS's performance and sensitivity to change related to program impact.

  15. Food Access Indicator Review (2003): The measurement of food access is critical to food security programming. However, for most Title II Cooperating Sponsors, determining changes in food access has not been easy, particularly because appropriate indicators are not standardized and are hard to measure and interpret. Guidance and tools to assist in measuring access indicators are limited or not readily available to the field. The objective of this study was to review how Title II Development Assistance Programs designs address food access, assess how Title II PVOs currently monitors and evaluates food access and identify good measurement practices. The results of the review will provide the basis for a follow-on food access monitoring and evaluation guide to be used by CS field staff.

  16. Integrating Relief and Development to Accelerate Reductions in Food Insecurity in Shock-Prone Areas (2003): This paper concludes that the food assistance community can and should develop a new conceptual framework to integrate relief and development interventions to accelerate reductions in food insecurity. Vulnerability concepts should be at the core of this framework. Vulnerability to food insecurity can be reduced by decreasing exposure to risks and shocks and/or increasing the ability to manage risk and its consequences. In addition, the framework should be flexible enough to allow adaptation to different contexts such as urban areas and areas heavily affected by HIV/AIDS.

  17. Addressing the "In" in Food Insecurity (2003): This paper, commissioned to support the development of the Office of Food for Peace’s new Strategic Plan in 2003, analyzes the implications of these trends in poverty and malnutrition for USAID food security programming. The paper argues for a conceptual shift that explicitly acknowledges the risks that constrain progress towards enhanced food security, and addresses directly the vulnerability of food insecure households and communities. Enhancing peoples’ resiliency to overcome shocks, building people’s capacity to transcend food insecurity with a more durable and diverse livelihood base, and increasing human capital will result in long-term sustainable improvements in food security.

  18. HIV/AIDS Mitigation: Using What We Already Know (2002): This technical note provides a summary of the literature on the impacts of HIV/AIDS on household and community food security and livelihood strategies in rural areas. It also presents a range of promising practices derived from the broader food-security and development experience that can be applied to HIV/AIDS mitigation efforts. The information presented orients program staff about the critical socioeconomic impacts and constraints most likely experienced in HIV/AIDS-affected environments, and suggests appropriate program designs and modifications to mitigate the socioeconomic impacts of HIV/AIDS. This technical note is also intended for the wider development community to encourage multisectoral approaches to development programs in a HIV/AIDS context.

  19. Dietary Diversity as a Household Food Security Indicator (2002): Both the report and the technical note describe a user-friendly, cost-effective approach to measuring changes in dietary quantity and quality and feeding behaviors at both the household and individual levels. Dietary diversity, defined as the number of unique foods consumed over a given period of time, appears to show promise as a means of measuring food security and monitoring changes, particularly when resources for such measurement are scarce. As described in the report, FANTA's subcontractor, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), analyzed ten household data sets (collected in India, Mozambique, Mexico, Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Malawi, Ghana, Kenya and the Philippines) to assess whether dietary diversity can be used as a tool in evaluating the efficacy of food security interventions. The study validated the dietary diversity indicator as a measure of access to food (per capita expenditures) and a measure of consumption (caloric availability at the household level).

  20. Building Household Food Security Measurement Tools from the Ground Up (2001): Wolfe and Frongillo's paper explores the potential to develop improved measures of the access component of household food security. The report discusses relevant conceptual and measurement issues and reviews the U.S. approach and examples of efforts in developing countries. It includes an outline of the elements needed to apply this approach, along with operations research needed for developing such experiential-based measures.

  21. Improving the Nutrition Impacts of Agriculture Interventions: Strategy and Policy Brief (2001): This brief presents recommendations for improving consumption and nutrition impacts of agricultural interventions in four areas: improving cross-sectoral integration, enhancing impacts on food access, increasing impacts on nutrition, and monitoring performance.

  22. Food Security Indicators and Framework for Use in the Monitoring and Evaluation of Food Aid Programs (1999): Integrating food security indicators into the monitoring and evaluation systems of food aid programs will ensure better and more efficient management of these resources and improve their impact. This guide outlines a process for identifying indicators and provides a conceptual framework for understanding food security issues.

  23. Increasing the Nutritional Impacts of Agricultural Interventions (1999): This study provides information on program and policy options for improving the impact of agriculture on nutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings and recommendations are based on an extensive review of the literature as well as interviews with researchers, USAID managers and other development and donor organizations. The review focuses on four countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. The study was supported by USAID's Africa Bureau.

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Related Links
*Please note that links to these sites do not imply that FANTA supports either the organization listed or the views and content presented.

Link bulletThe Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) [http://www.cgiar.org/]
CGIAR is an informal association of fifty-eight public and private sector members that supports a network of 16 international agricultural research centers. The CGIAR contributes to food security and poverty eradication in developing countries through research, partnership, capacity building, and policy support, and is co-sponsored by the World Bank, FAO, UNDP and UNEP.

Link bulletDevelopment Gateway's Food Security Focus Page [http://topics.developmentgateway.org/foodsecurity?goo=3670]
The Development Gateway's Food Security subsite provides the latest news articles, links and publications submitted by members. Additional resources include helpful subcategories of key issues, as well as bulletin boards, calendar of events and listing of programs and projects.

Link bulletFamine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) [http://www.fews.net]
The Goal of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) is to strengthen the abilities of African countries and regional organizations to manage risk of food insecurity through the provision of timely and analytical early warning and vulnerability information. FEWS NET is a USAID-funded activity that collaborates with international, national, and regional partners to provide timely and rigorous early warning and vulnerability information on emerging or evolving food security issues.

Link bulletFood Security Network [http://www.foodsecuritynetwork.org]
The Food Security Network website is managed by Food for the Hungry with support from USAID's Office of Food for Peace. The website builds on the previous work of Food Aid Management and intends to broaden its scope by shifting from the food aid resource lens which characterized the focus of the Food Aid Management site. It serves the broader food security community by posting the latest technical documents, best practices and case studies from food security programs. It also serves as a place for organizations and institutions to post relevant meeting, training or other event notices along with associated links to similar sites and resources.

Link bulletFood Security and Food Policy Information Portal for Africa [http://www.aec.msu.edu/agecon/fs2/test/index.cfm?Lang=en]
This portal is still in development and aims to assist African food security and food policy networks in reaching out to country-level researchers and policy makers. It is made possible through a partnership between the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)'s Development Information Services Division (DISD) & Sustainable Development Division (SDD), African Food Security/Policy Networks & Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural Economics.

Link bulletGlobal Monitoring For Food Security [http://www.gmfs.info]
GMFS provides early warning, agricultural mapping and crop yield assessment services in support of food security monitoring activities in Africa. GMFS partners with key actors in the sector at the international (EC and UN), regional (Regional Economic Communities or key institutes) and national level (Ministries of Agriculture or national Food Security Monitoring groupings). At national level GMFS Activities focus on .Ethiopia, Sudan, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

Link bulletInternational Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) [http://www.ifpri.org]
A well-organized site from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which operates as part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The site contains the full text of current and past issues of the Institute's quarterly newsletter Research Perspectives, and full text versions of over 100 research reports and abstracts, all of which can be downloaded. The comprehensive Research Themes section gives project information on subthemes organized under four principal sections: Environment and Production Technology, Food Consumption and Nutrition, Markets and Structural Studies, and Trade and Macroeconomics.

Link bulletInternational Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) [http://www.iied.org]
The International Institute for Environment and Development is an independent, non-profit organization that works with governments and international agencies, the academic community, foundations and NGOs, and local communities to effect better living standards in the South through improved management of natural resources.

Link bulletUK Food Group (UKFG) [http://www.ukfg.org.uk/]
UK Food Group is a network of NGOs which pools the expertise and efforts of its 29 UK-based members to help improve food security in the South. Its work includes research, monitoring of global traders, communication and diffusion, advocacy, and networking:

Link bulletUnited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) [http://www.fivims.net/index.jspx?lang=en]
FIVIMS is an Inter-agency initiative to promote information and mapping systems on food insecurity and vulnerability.

Link bulletUnited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) International Network of Food Data Systems (INFOODS) [http://www.fao.org/infoods/index_en.stm]
The INFOODS website aims to mobilize resources for improving the quality, quantity and accessibility of food composition data in the developing world. Regional data bases have been prepared and developing countries are able to interchange data with each other.

Link bulletUnited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Special Programme for Food Security [http://www.fao.org/spfs/]
The Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) aims to help those living in developing countries, in particular the low-income food deficit countries (LIFDCs) to improve their food security through rapid increases in food production and productivity, by reducing year-to-year variability in food production on an economically and environmentally sustainable basis and by improving people's access to food, in line with the 1996 World Food Summit Plan of Action.

Link bulletU.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Food Aid and Food Security Policy Paper, 1995 [http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/ffp/pnabu219.pdf]

Link bulletU.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) Policy Determination of 1992 for definition of food security [http://www.usaid.gov/policy/ads/200/pd19.pdf]

Link bulletU.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service [http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsec/]
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), formerly known as the Food and Consumer Service, administers the nutrition assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The mission of FNS is to provide children and needy families better access to food and a more healthful diet through its food assistance programs and comprehensive nutrition education efforts.

 

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