Menu ENN Search

Household Food Economy Analysis

Over the past five years SCF have been working on a research programme to develop a famine early warning tool called 'Risk Mapping'. Part of this work has involved the development of a field based method to look at how people in rural areas survive in good and bad years. This method has recently been used as a basis for investigating how refugee families survive once conditions have stabilised.

Sources of food in Akot, South Sudan

The method, which is called 'Household Food Economy Analysis' assesses the needs of households or communities facing acute food insecurity. The approach is based on an understanding of the variety of options people employ to secure access to food. The results are then presented in simple graphic format using pie charts to represent 100% of normal food requirements. The segments of the pie represent mechanisms of food access. Results based on the collation of information on the way people access food
in times of crisis are used to suggest appropriate interventions. In some cases this may mean supplying food aid; in other cases it will point towards support rather than replacement of local initiatives. Where food aid has a role to play, the approach allows a better estimation of needs than provided by an assessment based on food production.

This method was used in the war affected Akot area of southern Sudan and produced the following kind of information: if families could not afford to slaughter any additional animals then they would face a deficit of 5%of their annual food needs; if they could not increase fishing catches they would require an additional 10% etc (Figure 1). By doing the same kind of analysis for poor and rich households as well as typical ones, a quantitative estimate of total food needs can be built up.

The method can also help to state explicitly the specific problem that the provision of food aid is attempting to address: e.g. for Akot it could be to preserve assets and safeguard future livelihoods by preventing the slaughter of animals. At evaluation stage the effect of the food aid programme would be a lot easier to assess.

The approach draws as far as possible on existing documentation but also taps into knowledge of local people. This is done in a highly structured and systematic way using key informant enquiries. Key informants can be found amongst government workers, NGO staff, teachers, representatives of village organisations, traditional leaders and traders. They are people who by virtue of their position or experience
know the answer to most of the questions. SCF believe that with appropriate selection and proper cross- checking, within and between interviews, the judgement of key informants on quantitative questions such as the typical livestock holding of an area, deserves the same confidence given intuitively to their judgement on qualitative questions. Rigour comes from the focus on food and the fact that if people are surviving and not becoming malnourished then they must be consuming close to 100% of their needs. The task is to piece together the relative importance of the various food sources for different families. The estimate of food needs can then be based on an understanding of how much of each food source a family may have access to and a knowledge of that foods potential calorific contribution.

WFP and UNHCR see this as a useful approach and have used SCF assessment teams to perform household food economy assessments before WFP/UNI{CR joint donor needs assessments. These pre-assessments appear to provide a better contextual understanding for UN/donor assessment missions. The findings of one recent assessment in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya are presented in this newsletter.

For further information on this approach contact Lola Nathanail, Plicy Unit, SCF(UK), 17 Grove Lane, London SES 8RD, UK.

More like this

FEX: Household Economy Approach in Burundi

By Sonya LeJeune and Julius Holt Sonya Le Jeune is currently a programme manager with SC UK in Liberia, working on a food security and livelihoods programme. Previously she...

FEX: Support for primary production (Special Supplement 3)

7.1 Introduction This section focuses on supporting agricultural production, in particular farming and livestock production, as livelihood strategies. Production support can...

FEX: Partnership and Disaster Response (and Post Script)

Teenage girl distributing seeds at a village meeting in Kurigram By Tracy McGhee, Press officer SCF(UK). In August last year, as news reports began to show that Bangladesh...

FEX: Household Food Economy Assessment in Kakuma Refugee Camp

Based on SCF (UK) field team experience in Turkana District, north west Kenya. Report by Mark Lawerence, Tanya Boudreau and Alexandra King summarised below. Over the past...

FEX: Malawi food shortage: how did it happen and could it have been prevented?

By Sarah King Sarah King is currently working as an Emergency Capacity Building Officer with Christian Aid. Having completed a MSc in Public Health Nutrition at LSHTM, she...

FEX: Issue 18 Editorial

By Fiona Watson Fiona Watson has been involved in assessment and evaluations of emergency nutrition and food security programmes for the last 10 years. She is currently a...

FEX: Reflections on food and nutrition interventions in Huambo

By Lola Goselow This article is based on a field trip made by Lola Gostelow (SCF HQ emergency advisor) to the SCF programme in Huambo province, Angola in November 1999. The...

FEX: Destocking to improve food security in drought - prone Ethiopia

By Dereje Adugna Tieke Dereje is an Emergency Response & Transition Program Officer for CARE Ethiopia, with sixteen years of field experience in development work and emergency...

FEX: Setting objectives (Special Supplement 1)

Indian flood victims eat at open air kitchen in Nagari. The objectives of a targeting system arise from the definition of need (Section 1). Given a definition of need, the...

FEX: Letter on dangers of infant formula in Mongolia emergency, Emma Roberts

Dear Field Exchange, Where have we gone wrong? Why is it that when food supplies get stretched, NGO and international staff still think of infant formula rather than...

FEX: Community Managed Targeting of Emergency Food Aid: Does it Ever Work?

Alternative Distribution Systems: Tanzania - Food distribution in the Lumasi camp. Malcolm Rideot is the SCF Country Programme Director for Tanzania. He has been instrumental...

FEX: Huambo: an impending disaster?

By Anna Taylor SCF-UK Update on the current situation The last edition of Field Exchange included an account of discussions on how food aid should be targeted in the siege...

FEX: Save the Children Fund (UK)

Name Save the Children Fund (UK) No of Headquarters staff 349 Headquarters London, England No Of Overseas staff 197 Telephone (44) 171 7035400 No of Local...

FEX: The dangers of rapid assessment

By Steve Collins The food economy of Northern Darfur is complex, with people depending on a wide variety of food sources. Morney Camp, Darfur. Dr. Steve Collins is a...

FEX: Determining eligibility (Special Supplement 1)

Children are often a group targeted in emergencies Eligibility criteria, i.e. the characteristics of those individuals or households to be targeted with food, arise from the...

FEX: Impact of food aid on two communities in Niger

By Sarah McKune and Nicole Hood Dr Sarah McKune is the Director of Public Health Programmes at the University of Florida. She has worked in the West African Sahel since 2004,...

FEX: The dangers of rapid assessment

Note This article was already published in Field Exchange 13, unfortunately due to a printing problem, the end of the article flowed off the page. Therefore we reproduce the...

FEX: References for Special Supplement 1

Women selling food in South Sudan AbuSaleh A, 1993. Cost effectiveness of feeding programs in Hartisheik A camp, for Somali refugees, Ethiopia 1988-1989. Unpublished report...

FEX: Impact of goat feeding and animal healthcare on child milk access in Ethiopia

By Gezu Bekele, Esmael Tessema Ali, Genene Regassa and Nicoletta Buono Gezu Bekele is an experienced veterinary doctor and senior participatory research specialist with...

FEX: Taking the politics out of resource allocation: the Kenya experience

By Jeremy Shoham Jeremy Shoham is co-director of the ENN and editor of Field Exchange. Over the past two years he has been working periodically as a consultant for the...

Close

Reference this page

Household Food Economy Analysis. Field Exchange 1, May 1997. p10. www.ennonline.net/fex/1/analysis

(ENN_3227)

Close

Download to a citation manager

The below files can be imported into your preferred reference management tool, most tools will allow you to manually import the RIS file. Endnote may required a specific filter file to be used.