PART ONE
PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS

1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter gives a brief account of the historic evolution and current context of food security information systems, technical aspects of the FSIEWS methodology contained in this handbook, including its specific advantages, structure, mechanisms and didactic approach. Finally it gives a definition of food security that is widely accepted today throughout the world.

The handbook is divided into three main parts. The first part defines the main aspects of the FSIEWS method (definitions, description of national and international contexts, aims of the system, etc.). The second part, by far the longest, describes the different stages in setting up a FSIEWS, the constraints encountered and the possible solutions. The third part attempts to place the system in a wider more flexible and lasting context, and to identify how its role may evolve over time in a global food security context.

This handbook is aimed at middle managers in developing countries since they are the ones who actually implement the FSIEWS and keep them running smoothly, whether as part of a statistics monitoring system in one of the food security sectors, as one of the many other actors in food security (in the public, voluntary or private sector), or as providers or recipients of information. Their commitment is key to the long-term success of a FSIEWS. An enabling national policy, supported when necessary by external technical assistance, are the two other important aspects, also closely linked to the work of the professionals to whom this book is addressed.

The text of the handbook is a distillation of a number of technical papers produced by national and international experts and technicians. It was given its final form at FAO after thorough technical revision by the appropriate services and all the participants.

1.1 Historic Background to Food Security Information Systems

• Until the 19th century, population fluctuations were linked to three main factors (war, famine, epidemics) often correlated with fluctuations in food production. Commercial and industrial development gradually modified this tendency in industrialized countries, as people became less dependent on subsistence farming. Until then, population monitoring gave an idea (ex-post) of food insecurity.



• Until the beginning of the 20th century, subsistence farming remained the principal source of food in countries that were not very industrialized. The successive waves of colonization and decolonization of the poorest countries were based on policies of food self-sufficiency in order to preserve political independence. The food monitoring systems of the time were based mainly on knowledge of basic agricultural production.



• The major food crises in the seventies showed the importance of world public opinion and the need to inform the public at large of food crises. Nutritional monitoring of young children was developed at this time as the basis for gathering information on, and providing assistance to, the most needy.



• In 1974, at the World Food Conference in Rome, about one hundred countries adopted the "Universal declaration to eliminate hunger and malnutrition". At this time, analyses of the causes of hunger abounded and the modern idea of "food security" was developed with the creation in 1975 of the World Food Security Committee (FSC). Although governments were urged to introduce "national food policies" the results were poor. Emphasis was placed on trying to balance the supply and demand of staple foods. Food-supply monitoring systems were gradually developed in this period.



• Public marketing offices (for cereals in particular) were given powers to supervise these supplies in many countries and efforts were made to create national or regional food security stocks (particularly in dry areas) to be used in the event of food crises. In this setting, information regarding production, national supplies, stocks and imports could, in theory, be controlled by the same national body.



• Statistics systems and national accounts have recorded ever-increasing demands for information especially in planning and economic monitoring. The statistics systems have tended to be highly compartmentalized (whether a ministry or separate national body), and geared to their own internal requirements. The information they supply has not therefore been very useful for monitoring food security (unreliable statistics that take a long time to be published, and areas covered often incompatible, making it difficult to compare data gathered from different systems). Some development partners have therefore preferred to establish, in particular in sub-Saharan Africa, parallel information systems that they finance and supervise, and that provide them in good time with the information they need to target their food security aid and assistance.



• Structural adjustment and privatization subsequently radically changed the economies of developing countries and their trajectories, which had major repercussions on food security. Donors decided to combine their economic aid with targeted interventionist policies in order to avoid major food or social crises. It became apparent that the problems of access to staple foods (poverty) would have to be examined more closely and that specific information was needed in order to organize social aid.



• The diminishing world grain surplus and a few negative experiences of large-scale distribution led the international community to reduce aid and question the use of food aid, which when unsuitable or mismanaged can have a negative effect on food security. The existing information systems were then mainly redirected at better targeting and monitoring the distribution of aid.



• The development and use of satellite images offered a way to estimate the vegetation in each country, especially for rainfed crops. This made information on global production available to the major donors.



• The globalization of trade is now linked to the fast pace of modern communication (Internet, fax, satellite telephone, etc.) and management (computers) systems. It is now much easier to manage databases, forecast and disseminate results. Food security monitoring and forecasting systems have become, at least in theory, easy to manage in national contexts, and donors are in favour of training managers to use these modern tools and media.



• The speed at which developing countries undergo urbanization also has an effect on food security data in that it becomes essential to monitor food security and vulnerable groups at urban as well as rural levels.



• Parallel to the development of faster information channels, it has become necessary to introduce decentralized decision-making and widen the area of concerted action to include the various actors in food security (public, private, civil society). Food security information systems have gradually become centres for the exchange of information at all levels throughout the country.



• The need to reduce the number of undernourished people has pointed up the need for decentralization and concerted action among all the different actors in food security. This requirement was clearly noted by all the participants at the World Food Summit in November 1996 when government representatives decided to do everything in their power to reduce by half the number of undernourished people (estimated at 800 million at the time) by the year 2015. Since then, efforts have been made to complete information system databases by developing concrete indicators for monitoring the undernourished.



• Policy makers need accurate up-to-date information on the incidence, nature and causes of chronic food insecurity and vulnerability in order to be able to formulate and implement policies and programmes to achieve the objectives of the World Food Summit. It was therefore decided to launch a "FIVIMS initiative¹", the secretariat of which is based at FAO. The aim of the FIVIMS is to improve information on food-insecure and vulnerable people at national and international levels. The approach described in this handbook contributes to this aim.

1.2 Advantages of the FSIEWS Approach

The advantages of this methodology are as follows:

• it is in keeping with the globalization of information;



• it is integrated into the monitoring framework of the World Food Summit;



• it capitalizes on twenty years of worldwide experience by international specialists, national managers and development partners in the development of a simple instrument, suited to changing contexts, able to give an objective view of the evolving food security situation in a country and provide a simple means of analysing this evolution;



• it can supply the major global information networks (GIEWS, RESAL, FEWS, VAM, etc.) with the information they need; in particular, it enables international organizations to monitor the changing numbers and characteristics of undernourished groups more closely, and to target aid and international assistance regarding food security more accurately;



• it is involved in the major humanitarian initiatives coordinated by the United Nations: the fight against poverty and inequality, better governance, disaster limitation, etc.;



• it has a fundamental role to play in the gradual move away from direct funding for the national information systems set up by donors in the 1980s to meet their information needs regarding humanitarian intervention;



• above all, it enables both national and regional officers to take direct action regarding their food security and to meet the demand expressed by government representatives, as well as CSOs and the private sector.

1.3 Technical Aspects of the Methodology

Although the FSIEWS methodology was not developed by specialists it is the fruit of many years' work in the field by national and international teams. This handbook is a distillation of their experience and sets out the essential stages in defining and setting up a national system (specific to each country) for monitoring food security and early warning, the characteristics of which are as follows:

• it relies on existing structures (does not create additional institutions) that meet the individual requirements of their partners, ensuring its seamless integration with national institutions;



• information from the different food security areas can be cross-analysed thus ensuring "value added" information, useful in both the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the current status of food insecurity, but also essential in forecasting, and therefore, preventing crises;



• it involves all the actors in food security (governments, civil society organizations, private sector, associations etc.) in the implementation process, and therefore works through national consensus;



• it ensures that cross analysis of the information systems is carried out at various levels by groups of different actors (national, provincial scale etc.), using qualitative data to adjust quantitative data and combining a statistical approach with a social one;



• it distinguishes between the information and the decision, creating a clear distinction between the strictly information-management organs (FSIEWS, which should remain a technical information gathering and processing system) and the decision-making organs (that are answerable to higher authorities for their choices and their implementation);



• it is financially attractive, being low cost, which ensures its long-term future since each country and even each province can have a management style adapted to its needs;



• it generally requires outside technical support during the planning phase and the set-up phase (during which time it should, however, be functioning properly), which is generally eliminated in the medium term;



• a key feature of the system is that it is wholly created, set up and managed by national teams.

1.4 Definition of Food Security

In order to define and set up a monitoring system, a detailed analysis of food security in the country, including any specific problems, must be carried out.

• The following definition of food security was adopted unanimously at the World Food Summit (October 1996): "Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life." (Plan of Action, paragraph 1)

This definition is in keeping with the three classic aspects of food security: availability of staple foods, stability of supplies and access for all to these supplies; but it also contains the idea of adapted food, what is known as the "biological utilization" of food.

2. THE CONCEPT OF FORECASTING AND STEERING

Forecasting is the foundation of all warning systems. It must be applied to the four areas of food security (availability, stability, access, biological utilization), giving decision-makers enough time to react to the warning, but with a high enough degree of reliability (as a general rule the more long-term the forecasts the less reliable they are) to avoid false alarms. All forecasts have a probability rating (calculable or not), which gives a good idea of their reliability.

In the four food security areas, forecasting techniques are generally based on information gained from monitoring the situation and on diagnostics using:

• trend analyses (are prices going to continue rising in the coming months?);



• indirect indicators (the sale of heifers in a market used by nomadic herders is generally an indirect indicator that the food security status of their families is going to get worse; meteorological data helps to estimate future cereals production from rainfed crops);



• multiple indicators (the combination of falling commercial stocks and transport difficulties, poor road conditions at the beginning of the wet season in the Sahelian climate, is a weak indicator of rising short-term consumer prices);



• warning signals (all early warning systems should have "warning signals", i.e. indicators, usually combined, that set off the alarm. These signals serve, much as warning lights in planes and cars, to warn off impending danger).

Forecasts are sometimes carried out by the organizations in charge of monitoring information (those responsible for monitoring markets often analyse price trends), but are just as often carried out by other bodies (meteorological services, often under the ministry of transport, can be responsible to carry out agrometeorological forecasting), or by a specific body gathering information on food security and early warning. The relevant body should enter the results of the forecasts (indicators, warning signals, etc.) in a food security control panel that is constantly updated and to which decision-makers have constant access. The aim of the control panel, including warning signals, is to steer food security efforts and supply the various media aimed at decision-makers at all levels (bulletins, radio programmes, updates, fax, etc.).

The purpose of the control panel is similar to a dashboard in a vehicle in that it presents different kinds of information that can be analysed in order to anticipate events in each of the monitoring and forecasting areas. For example, the pilot of an airplane can assess the risk of crashing by taking in at a glance the petrol gauge close to zero, the warning signal showing the engine temperature is too high, and the spirit level showing the plane is at too steep an angle. Similarly, national authorities will be concerned about a sudden rise in grain prices in the markets, the closure of certain roads because of flooding, an increase in the death rate, and a warning signal set off by large population movements. Even though the data may be fairly imprecise, the combination of these elements is much more important than knowledge (even precise knowledge) of one or other of these elements. Forecasts and decisions are often made on the basis of an accumulation of (sometimes biased) indices. The use of indices (even imperfect ones) helps to draw attention to situations that need to be examined more closely. In a car when one of the red lights on the dashboard goes on, you stop, open the bonnet and, if necessary, carry out the repairs.

Availability of staple foods. The foods that should be monitored are the staple foods required by the poorest populations (see Part Two, Chapter I). For rainfed crops, the harvest forecasts are based on agrometeorological data, on estimates of the areas sown and by using agronomic parameters for the region and crops in question. Different methods of varying sophistication are used to calculate them. Forecasts for root or tuber crops in humid zones are calculated by estimating, often approximately, areas and yields; while animal production forecasts use other parameters (changes in the condition of grazing land, number of animals recorded at certain water holes, etc.). Import and export forecasts are reliable when importers (public or private) agree to submit their import-export schedules in countries where the customs system is strictly controlled (some island countries for example). Nevertheless, in the majority of developing countries forecasts are based on estimates regularly supplied by specialists and are fairly approximate. In countries where imports and exports have to be authorized by administrations in advance, the most reliable estimates regarding the movements of staple foodstuffs can therefore be obtained from the relevant services.

Stability of supplies. Forecasts in this area are usually based on the analysis of market trends, taking into account the socio-economic and political situation (price trends as well as changes in quantities available in markets, stocks, inter-regional transfers, etc.). In the commercial area, as was mentioned above, forecasting is often very difficult and can be fairly unreliable.

Access for all to supplies. Access is linked to the constraints of relative poverty (financial means/price of staple foods) and to physical access to these products (see below for a more detailed analysis). Monitoring indicators for poverty and retail prices are useful for medium- to long-term trend analyses but are generally not suitable for short-term forecasts and "best-guess estimates". As for nutritional forecasting (see below), sets of indirect indicators suitable for short-term forecasts of the evolution of poverty and physical access to food are generally used. Sociologists identify and monitor the strategies used by vulnerable individuals or groups in situations of short-term foreseeable crises (stockpiling of produce, selling essential equipment, seeking work away from the household, etc.). The sets of indicators that have a bearing on the short-term forecasts of poverty often overlap with nutritional ones (access and biological utilization) since sudden increased poverty almost automatically leads to a deterioration in the nutritional status of the affected group or family. The younger members of poor families tend to migrate to the towns as soon as they anticipate loss of earnings. Indeed, apparently inexplicable migratory phenomena are probably an indication of short-term problems. Moreover, a good market for used essential equipment, sold by vulnerable families, is an indication that families are in serious financial difficulty and are converting their last resources into much needed cash. Certain religious practices are also symptomatic. In order to establish a type of indicator or set of indicators, a socio-economic study of individual behaviour patterns must first be carried out in homogeneous areas and the vulnerable groups and individuals be studied (see Part 2, Chapter 1).

Biological utilization of foods. Health or anthropometric indicators are status indicators; they do not indicate changes in the nutritional status of populations and, most importantly, the most vulnerable groups. They provide information on the past nutritional levels of a population, sometimes current nutritional levels, but never future ones. Therefore indirect socio-economic indicators (or sets of indicators) are generally used to measure individuals' own perceptions of future nutritional problems. The analysis of coping strategies used by vulnerable individuals or groups in food crisis situations generally gives good indirect indicators for forecasting nutritional problems. Adults know only too well what their wasting or stunting of their children means and can foresee the consequences.

3. EXISTING FOOD SECURITY MONITORING SYSTEMS

3.1 Description of Existing Systems

Most of the existing food-security monitoring systems are organized around the following four main pillars:

• agricultural production monitoring (APM), normally combined with monitoring the products of livestock farming;



• the market information system (MIS) that usually monitors domestic trade and sometimes international trade (import/export);



• the social monitoring of the most vulnerable populations or monitoring of vulnerable groups (MVG) that focuses on monitoring poverty;



• food and nutritional surveillance systems (also called food and nutrition monitoring) (FNSS), which generally, depending on the situation, monitors the health and nutritional status of populations.

These four pillars have specific aims and set up their own means and organization. They are generally country-wide and linked to the statistics services of each of the ministries concerned.

The creation of a Food Security Information and Early Warning System (FSIEWS) by the national bodies responsible for supplying food security information should not overlook any of these aspects but take them all into account in setting up a global system. Thus the monitoring of food availability (production + imports - exports - losses) should be supported by monitoring information on both production (MAP) and foreign trade supplied by the Market Information System; the monitoring of the stability of supplies uses data mainly from the Market Information System (MIS), as well as data on the status of infrastructure and stocks; the monitoring of access to these supplies should take into account mainly social indicators (poverty, unemployment, migrations etc.); and the monitoring of biological utilization should use data acquired from health and nutritional monitoring.

3.1.1 Agricultural Production Monitoring (APM)

The monitoring of agricultural production often focuses on cereal crops, and sometimes includes a section on animal production and/or grazing. It is usually established by the statistics services of the ministry of agriculture, which relies on regular studies in the field, in theory, carried out by the provincial administrative staff. The data is usually published annually in standard statistics publications.

Most of the crop monitoring and forecasting methods are developed around the water balance calculated during the growing season and take into account the phenological development of the plant. The agrometeorological approach has produced good results in semi-arid countries where the water deficit is the main factor limiting crop productivity. This approach gives less satisfying results² in regions (even semi-arid ones) where:

• agricultural production (food crops) is very heterogeneous;



• there are other major limiting factors (excess water, low sunlight, and incidence of crop pests and diseases).

The monitoring of animal production can use data from the veterinary services (vaccinations, abattoir figures), fiscal services (taxes), zootechnical surveys (where they exist) or monitor grazing land (mainly in nomadic areas).

Tools

The monitoring of rainfed crops is based on the following principal techniques:

• climatic and meteorological analyses;



• the use of crop simulation models or crop specific water balance models;



• satellite image processing (supplied mainly by NOAA³ and Meteosat⁴);



• agricultural field studies (for harvest forecasting).

Generally speaking, these tools can be used for qualitative evaluations of crop status (development, stage in the cycle, etc.), which can become quantitative depending on the availability of additional information (agronomic data, statistics on yields, historical series, etc.) and providing the information is validated. In addition, some institutions carry out essential field work to calibrate the analytical models used (see the methods used below). This work is indispensable for the proper functioning of simulation models and for testing in different conditions. NOAA satellite images can also prove useful at regional or even national level but, given the average size of farms and their patchy distribution over the territory, the calibration of NDVI⁵ values is a long process that takes several years to verify. The processing of Meteosat images is easier, but even in this case careful testing is necessary.

Institutions

From an institutional point of view, the agricultural-production and harvest-forecast monitoring systems are usually established in two stages:

• establishment of an operational monitoring structure;



• gradual fine-tuning of the system as it becomes a forecasting system.

The systems are usually situated within the ministry of agriculture and the national meteorological services. In the first case, production is estimated on the basis of data recorded by district agents (phenological monitoring) and agricultural sampling surveys. In the second case, meteorological data is used and agrometeorological analyses of varying sophistication are developed. In addition, plant protection services often play a major role in monitoring the phytosanitary status of crops, and insect and locust attacks. In principle, all the services (agricultural, meteorological, dissemination, plant protection, livestock farming, water, etc.) provide, in their particular areas, information that is also included in their own analyses during the season. What is often lacking is a systematic analysis and synthesis of the information (past, present and future), procedures and methodologies used so that all the users may have access to a transparent and objective reference base.

This multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary system ensures that a progressively more sharply focused methodology is used to gather information. Using this approach it is possible to predict what areas risk poor food crops and introduce more finely-tuned surveillance techniques, that may also include sample surveys of the affected populations.

3.1.2 Market Information System (MIS)

A Market Information System (MIS⁶) is a service, usually operated by the public sector, which involves the collection on a regular basis of information on prices and, in some cases, quantities of widely traded agricultural products from rural assembly markets, wholesale and retail markets, as appropriate, and dissemination of this information on a timely and regular basis through various media to farmers, traders, government officials, policy-makers and others, including consumers.

The system gathers, processes and disseminates information on commodity trading. The information should include monitoring data on market prices and available quantities of certain commodities (not solely agricultural and food), variations in stocks (public and private) and how goods are transported. In general, MIS also monitor imports and exports. It should be noted that the MIS play a crucial role in the dissemination of information to public and private operatives. This role has often reduced the MIS to only monitoring market prices, since the demand from traders has been very high in this area. The monitoring of available volumes, which is more difficult to implement, has often been neglected.

Tools

A Marketing Information System must carry out the following steps:

• data collection. The data-collectors supply information on the variety of commodities examined, their weight, and their price. The price varies according to the time of day, what day it is, the level of bargaining and other factors. The surveys should contain information on the quantity sold, and whether the price is retail or wholesale. The identity of the data-collector can also have an influence on the prices given by the trader (in particular if the seller thinks the collector is from the tax office);



• transmission and processing of data. Formerly, information was transmitted exclusively by the national radio station. More modern communications are used today (telephone, fax, modem and electronic mail);



• dissemination of prices and sometimes available quantities and qualities. The daily dissemination of information should be the rule. Unfortunately most countries do not have the means to do this even at regional level. Among the major means of dissemination are local-language radio, notice boards (around the markets, regularly updated and easy to read) and newspapers.

Institutions

Market Information Systems are usually attached to the statistics services of government ministries (trade, agriculture etc., according to the country). In some countries, a National Institute of Statistics, usually attached to the planning ministry, is in charge of the MIS. In others, the individual ministries (for example, the ministry of agriculture for food and agricultural products, including agricultural inputs) may be directly responsible for gathering and processing data in their respective domains.

Those in charge of collecting data at food markets (quantities, prices, how the market works, origin of products, etc.) may be agents attached to different ministries (trade, agriculture or internal affairs), or to the private sector (chambers of commerce) or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They usually work at provincial level where the data is collected, processed and passed to a central unit. Training of field staff is also (theoretically) carried out at this level. The "data-collectors" or "researchers", as they are often called, are sometimes assigned exclusively to the MIS. If they belong to a general statistics unit, they may have other surveys or administrative tasks to carry out; if they belong to the ministry of agriculture they may be involved in the dissemination of information or other activities.

3.1.3 Monitoring Vulnerable Groups (MVG)

In June 1999, the World Committee on Food Security (CFS) endorsed the three classes of vulnerability (or at risk of food insecurity) established by the FIVIMS⁷ working group. The three types of food insecurity⁸ are:

• chronic food insecurity. Affects individuals or groups of people who consume or have regularly been consuming somewhat less than the minimum needed over a long period;



• cyclic food insecurity. Affects small farmers who have enough to eat in the immediate post-harvest period but not enough to carry them through to the next harvest;



• transitory food insecurity. Affects urban dwellers dependent on highly unstable markets and agricultural producers exposed to high incidence of natural disasters.

The poverty except when defined as the minimum needed to ensure biological survival, is generally regarded as a relative situation in monitoring systems and should only be considered as such.

Tools

An understanding of the changing vulnerability situation and what action should be taken to improve the well-being of the most deprived populations can be gained from the relevant and precise information provided by the regular collection of certain socio-economic or other indicators. This can be carried out in parallel with measurements proper of the health and nutritional status of the population. By monitoring the factors that influence situations of deprivation, a given level of poverty can be revealed. So the same income in two different families or two different countries, taking into consideration their customs, may or may not indicate poverty.

Food intake (quantity and quality), income, employment, access to resources (land, credit, etc.) and to basic services (health, education, etc.) are the most commonly used indirect indicators of poverty after a tentative evaluation in quantitative or monetary terms.

Currently, apart from certain partial or combined indicators that have been used in large data collections (income, human development index-HDI, schooling rate, health cover, etc.) there are more case studies than usable series in the databases.

Institutions

The majority of developing countries do not have regular and appropriate monitoring of poverty for either marginal or vulnerable groups.

NGOs and national social services (sometimes the ministry of social affairs) may have data, collected and processed with varying regularity, regarding some areas of countries. The main purpose of this data is to monitor communities and enable populations, but it can also be very useful in monitoring vulnerable groups and in estimating local changes in food security at the level of provincial committees⁹.

International organizations (such as FAO) involved in developing the FIVIMS¹⁰ initiative, created in the monitoring framework of the World Food Summit¹¹, are now endeavouring to analyse local methods of monitoring vulnerable groups in an attempt to develop a classification system that can be used to observe changes in these groups at global level.

3.1.4 Food and Nutrition Surveillance System (FNSS)

The nutritional status of an individual and/or a population depends on all the factors that have an effect on the food/health relationship. Food and nutrition surveillance systems keep track of the nutritional status of populations and their consumption of food in order to facilitate decision making in this area. FNSS was first adopted in developing countries in 1976. The methods and aims have evolved considerably since then, and in particular since the nineties. Several countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, have set up FNSS to monitor and measure the impact of structural adjustment policies on vulnerable strata of the population.

Instruments

Nutritionists have traditionally targeted children, but interest is increasingly being focused on the nutritional status of other age groups (adolescents, adults, the elderly) using indicators based on the body-mass index¹². Budget consumption surveys give a good overview of the food and nutritional situation, but they are carried out every ten years at the most. In addition to these fairly centralized approaches, local monitoring of vulnerable groups is being developed as a routine part of the activities of governmental institutions or NGOs working at community level.

In general, the data for monitoring health and nutrition comes from five major sources¹³:

• administrative services. In most cases they collect quantitative data, but sometimes they also collect qualitative information, and it is becoming more common for the data to be presented in a computerized format;



• random sample surveys. Such surveys can add supplementary information to existing surveys set up for a different purpose, by adding a section on food and nutrition monitoring. The multiple indicator surveys carried out by UNICEF in several developing countries often have a food element. "Household consumption" surveys also contain a "nutrition" element so that socio-economic and agricultural data can be compared with anthropometric data on children and adults. These surveys should be repeated at regular intervals;



• specific studies and research on health and well-being. They are valuable sources of information in many countries but they are often under-used;



• community monitoring systems. These are sometimes part of larger programmes or development projects. The data is usually collected and processed several times a year by health officials;



• international data-bases. FAO's assessments of the food situation and WHO's Global Database on Child Growth are also used. They are based on the statistics resources of countries, the information usually being recalculated and processed as composite indicators. International databases have the advantage of being regularly updated. Also countries that do not have a more specific system can keep track of general food trends in a global context.

Institutions

Food and nutrition surveillance systems are usually centralized and based in the country's capital. Monitoring is carried out by those in charge of health and nutrition (often the ministry of health) who may have decentralized offices (health centres at provincial, departmental, local or community level). The collection of basic data is the responsibility of public health officials who rely on anthropometric indicators (weight/age, height/age, height/weight ratios). Primary-school teachers are also sometimes involved in monitoring the health and nutritional state of children.

3.1.5 Other existing monitoring systems that may be used in food security

Information from other sources is sometimes used in monitoring food security:

• monitoring the food aid and assistance available from national cereal services (if needed), WFP or food-aid donors;



• demographic monitoring (including population shifts) and income monitoring (i.e. monitoring poverty) often carried out by national institutes of statistics;



• monitoring specific food security activities (set up by associations, NGOs, or the ministry of social affairs, for example);



• monitoring other elements such as environmental factors are of crucial importance in some countries.

Food security may or may not be among the overt aims pursued by those in charge of each of these systems. They often limit their aims to finding a balance between the supply and demand for some food products seen as being of prime importance. The cereal balance is an example of this approach. Others, who see economic development as a priority, focus on a "social" approach to food security, trying to correct food security problems that arise as a result of economic growth, without however integrating this dimension into their global planning. The latter therefore usually limit their food security monitoring to monitoring nutrition and vulnerable groups, preferring isolated actions targeting particular sections of the population.

Others again, particularly in areas of dryland cultivation, prefer a productive approach. They consider the monitoring of basic food crops and the corresponding harvest forecasts the principal source of information on food security in the population; for them, this information is a sufficient basis for decision making. It is also clear that chambers of commerce will be more concerned about information regarding the markets (price, quantities, stocks) than gaining knowledge of vulnerable groups, which is by definition difficult to deal with. This more profit-oriented approach is, however, quite close and complementary to the search for a balanced supply and demand.

3.2 Constraints of the Systems

The principal constraints encountered by current food security information systems in developing countries fall into two categories:

• constraints associated with poor organization of the system; and



• those related to a lack of clear objectives.

There are also functional constraints (found in many systems in developing countries), which must be taken into account in the organization of a FSIEWS:

3.2.1 Poor organization

The main criticisms are as follows:

• poor definition of the staple food products to be monitored. Some systems monitor imported products, or the most widely-traded products in markets, without carrying out a preliminary analysis of the staple products actually consumed by the different population groups and, in particular, by the most vulnerable groups (dietary minimum);



• a system focused on cereals. Cereals are the easiest foodstuffs to monitor (annual crops have a regulated market, and they can be easily stored for a long time). Moreover, they are often the main source of official supplies in times of crisis;



• poor data analysis. Some systems simply accumulate all the available data on agricultural production, marketing and food consumption, neither selecting nor analysing it, and without defining exactly what food security is or should be;



• little or no account taken of unofficial exports, and often even imports. In many countries where customs regulations are not properly enforced it is tempting to overlook or under-estimate this data when calculating availability;



• the four areas of food security (availability, stability, access and biological utilization) are considered as completely separate monitoring areas (crops, markets, poverty and nutrition) with their individual aims managed separately. This approach has two major disadvantages: it is difficult to monitor data in categories that do not clearly fall into one of these areas (imports, exports, stocks, social monitoring, etc.); and where the indicators are composite and complex it creates monitoring problems;



• systems organized completely independently of national structures and that attempt to solve on their own most of the problems associated with the gathering and processing of data. In spite of the high cost of these systems and their short-lived nature, this approach is still at times adopted by donors who want to have full control of food security information and impose their own criteria without becoming involved in the particular problems of national institutions.

3.2.2 Lack of clearly defined aims

The following defects may also occur:

• too centralized and focussing solely on the needs of decision makers, governments and/or donors (who often fund the activity) paying little attention to the needs of civil society (with the exception of the MIS for traders);



• some regions are so involved with drought problems they practically ignore the risks of food crises arising from other natural disasters (flooding), other causes (social instability, economic crisis, epidemics, etc.), or the more usual "complex" disasters due to a mixture of natural, social and economic factors;



• concentrating mainly on statistics monitoring, the importance of forecasts is overlooked. Indeed, many systems have very limited "control panels", often nothing more than cereal harvest forecasts, which are technically well supervised and easy to use in this form.

3.2.3 Functional constraints

The main functional constraints can be summarized as follows:

• lack of training and skills at national services level, making it difficult to use any instruments apart from surveys and field measurements;



• not enough resources to expand survey activities, carry out harvest assessments in the field, apply and validate methods for estimating harvests;



• poor transfer of methodologies and the more sophisticated data-analysis instruments from support institutions;



• poor quality of available data;



• problems in sending monitoring data from local administrative offices to the central offices of services;



• discontinuity in the application of methodologies, collection procedures and data analysis;



• high degree of mobility among staff in national services, which reduces the efficiency of training activities.

3.3 Recent Changes in the Socio-Economic Context

Rapid urbanization and the steady integration of developing countries into the world economy are the two main factors in the evolution of food security and early warning information systems.

This situation is responsible for the following changes:

• decrease in direct state intervention, but growing need to monitor and control the evolution of the situation;



• increased trade in all kinds of products;



• increased rural migration;



• tendency for agricultural systems to favour cash crops to the detriment of food crops;



• changes in demographic, food, social (individualism), and economic (monetarization) customs and habits combined with increased social exclusion (vulnerability often has a tendency to become structural).

4. CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The Food Security Information and Early Warning System can also be an instrument of choice in managing food crises although its main aim is to assist in the prevention of crises and avoid disastrous repercussions on food security in the short, medium and long-term.

When it works well, such a monitoring system can make a valuable contribution to managing food crises. This contribution can be broken down as follows:

• raise the alarm when there is a risk of a local or general food crisis, giving information on the nature of the crisis (type of disaster), possible impact (extent and type), the areas and people that will be affected;



• define the action which, if undertaken in good time, will reduce the negative impact of a disaster;



• steer relief and emergency aid towards the groups that need it, identifying correctly the vulnerable groups and the change in their situation;



• manage food security stocks more efficiently. Some countries, particularly in arid zones, keep food security stocks (often cereals) for rapid distribution in the event of disasters or food emergencies. They are managed by the State or donors (or jointly managed). They cannot be used to stabilize stocks¹⁴ and in crisis situations their utilization is governed by precise rules regarding the rotation of stocks and the use of the food products themselves. A food security information system can include the necessary data for better management of these functions;



• identify efficient supply methods. Good knowledge of markets (international, national and local) is helpful in deciding how to organize food supplies for distribution (imported food aid, local purchase, triangular transactions);



• define efficient ways of distributing food aid and assistance (free distribution, subsidized sale, food-for-work etc.) and of helping to manage and monitor distribution. Decentralized monitoring services¹⁵ should be responsible for monitoring the distribution of food aid and ensuring aid is not diverted for political or private ends.

5. THE FRAMEWORK OF A FSIEWS

The approach advocated in this handbook is designed to help national authorities to define and implement a Food Security Information and Early Warning System (FSIEWS), perfectly adapted to the constraints of each country. In practice, a FSIEWS relies on existing monitoring systems for information on the availability of staple products, the stability of supplies, access for all to these supplies and the biological utilization of food (defined as the relation between health and nutrition). In the following pages the outline of a theoretical FSIEWS is presented. The stages in setting up such a system are described in the second part of this handbook.

Experience has shown that, in order to function properly and be used correctly, a FSIEWS has to have the following attributes:

• be coordinated and supervised at national level, in close association with all the actors involved in the system, and closely linked to policy-makers in this area. The decision-makers are generally grouped together in a multi-disciplinary national committee that has been called National Food Security Committee (NFSC) here;



• decentralized levels that have information, analysis and decision-making functions, called Provincial Food Security Committees (PFSC) in this handbook;



• a central secretariat attached to the NFSC that runs the FSIEWS at central level. 

As can be seen from the following outlines, a FSIEWS should ideally be situated within the secretariat of the National Food Security Committee, be relayed by the Provincial Committees and possess two computerized monitoring instruments: a database containing information from existing databases in the area of food security, and a control panel resulting from the cross analysis of data, and forecasts of short- or long-term changes in food security, according to complex indirect indicators or estimates. (For further details on the institutional organization of a FSIEWS, see Part Two, Chapter IV, Section 4, Institutional Organization.)

The aim of such a system is two-fold: in the short-term it serves as a steering instrument for food security and is therefore an instrument of choice in preventing food crises. In the medium and long-term it should be an indispensable step in any programming and planning activity, providing planners with the data and analyses necessary for an understanding of food security.

It is, above all, an organ that enables cooperation to be established and food security activities to be proposed for entire populations, but in particular for the most vulnerable groups.

The Theoretical Organization of a FSIEWS

¹ Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System.

² Gommes R., 1997: Prévisions agro-météorologiques des rendements: quelques moyens et méthodes utilisées par la FAO dans un contexte de sécurité alimentaire.

³ The NOAA satellite produces digital images from which a Normalised Difference Vegetation Index is obtained. This satellite index is largely correlated with the volume of living vegetation. In arid and semi-arid conditions the state of crops and the surrounding vegetation are closely linked.

⁴ The Meteosat satellite produces digital images which reveal the Cold Cloud Duration -  T< -40°C (see details in Part Two, Section Three, Chapter I).

⁵ Normalised Difference Vegetation Index. See note on the NOAA satellite below.

⁶ FAO definition (see "Market Information Services - Theory and Practice").

⁷ Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System. (Part Three, Chapter V).

⁸ FAO document CFS:99/2.

⁹ See Part Two, Chapter IV, Section 4 on the institutional organization of FSIEWS.

¹⁰ Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (See Part Three for more detailed information).

¹¹ The World Food Summit (October 1996) declared it a priority aim for all countries to reduce by half the number of undernourished people by 2015.

¹² Ratio of weight (kg)/height (m) squared (W/H²).

¹³ National surveys are a major source of information. However, they are not strictly speaking monitoring systems given the irregularity with which they are carried out (often once every ten years). They nevertheless provide essential information about vulnerable groups at a given time and allow comparison of estimated monitoring data with statistical data obtained from these surveys, etc.

¹⁴ The quantities are in any case too small to have an impact on prices.

¹⁵ Often called regional observatories or regional monitoring stations.