Food Security In Complex Emergencies: Building Policy Frameworks To Address Longer-term Programming Challenges”

Author: Dan Maxwell, Ben Watkins, Robin Wheeler and Greg Collins

Year: 2003

Category: Journals

Abstract

Measuring food insecurity is a costly and complicated exercise. In highly food insecure countries operational agencies need regular measurements for monitoring changes and for assessing the impact of food aid interventions. Often these interventions take place in emergency conditions. Time is limited, and field conditions do not permit lengthy and intensive data collection or analysis processes. Tools are needed that are quick and easy to administer, straightforward to analyze, and rapid enough to provide real-time information to programme managers. The Coping Strategies Index (CSI) is one such tool. It was developed in Uganda and Ghana but has been for early warning and food security assessment in several other African countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Burundi. The Coping Strategies Index (CSI) is an indicator of household food security that is relatively simple and quick to use, straightforward to understand, and correlates well with more complex measures of food security. A series of questions about how households manage to cope with a shortfall in food for consumption results in a simple numeric score. In its simplest form, monitoring changes in the CSI score indicates whether household food security status in declining or improving. It is much quicker, simpler, and cheaper to collect information on coping strategies than on actual household food consumption levels. Hence, the CSI is an appropriate tool for emergency situations when other methods are simply not practical or timely.

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