WHO NEEDS FOOD SECURITY MEASURES & WHY?

FRAMING / NARRATIVE

FRAMING / NARRATIVE Despite limitations one/two headline indicators are seductive headline grabbing, and influential What are they useful for? Measuring progress ...but also... Framing issues, challenges, agendas: telling compelling stories

UNDERSTANDING LIVED EXPERIENCES www.oxfam.org.uk/foodprices

UNDERSTANDING LIVED EXPERIENCES Context: Individual situations, behavioural responses >> building up to an understanding of system-wide effects What’s useful? Situating / triangulating in-depth qualitative findings Self-reported experiences of food security outcomes Understanding transitory/acute food insecurity as well as chronic FI Capturing impacts of shocks on malnourishment as well as undernourishment (Preferences / adaptations)

PROGRAMME / RESPONSE DESIGN Copyright: Sophie McGrath/ Oxfam In the remote community of Gobablay, Shinile zone – and in the rest of eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Region – the rain normally starts at the end of March. This year, in the last days of April, it has yet to arrive.  This year, the situation has been made even worse by a moderate episode of the La Nina climate phenomenon, which has caused drought across East Africa and depleted the remaining pasture.  In the last few months thousands of Ethiopians have at least been able to rely on one source of income – Oxfam’s cash-for-work projects. By helping construct fences, trenches, dams, and other structures that protect and improve pasture and farmland, they earn a steady income for weeks at a time.  The income’s not just keeping people going – it’s stopping them from going, too, to seek better conditions elsewhere.  ‘Now, even if I went to market and sold my animals, the money wouldn’t cover my living costs’. Says Muuse, he currently depends on labouring for an income. ‘I have no other means of surviving.’

PROGRAMME / RESPONSE DESIGN Household Economy Analysis Rapid appraisals IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) What’s useful? Determinants as well as outcomes Early warning Understanding chronic as well as acute stressors

MORE USEFUL LESS USEFUL Scalable Internationally comparable Individual disaggregation esp. by gender Timely able to capture transitory, seasonal FI as well as chronic FI Conceptual clarity maps to / transcends availability, access, utilisation, stability domains SOFI suite VOH (?) Proliferation / duplication Indices with arbitrary / opaque weightings Easily misused, misinterpreted Displacing rich qualitative analysis