United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

Report of the Sub-Committee on Nutrition at its Twenty-Fifth Session

II.  Work in Progress:  Summary of Discussion and Conclusions

C. Reports of decisions taken in Working Groups

C.3  Household Food Security -- Summary Report of the Working Group

42. The Working Group heard presentations on several agencies' approaches to household food security, as an integrated part of a larger livelihood security approach.  The Group identified these follow-up actions:
    

• an intercountry workshop focused on promotion of household food security in Africa will be sponsored by FAO in August 1998;
• a summary of agency highlights in the area of household food security will be prepared; in addition case studies from 2-3 countries focusing on interagency collaboration will also be developed.  FAO and the AGN will carry this forward;
• operational methods for targeting household food security interventions need to be addressed by the Working Group over the coming year.

Full Report of the Meeting of the Working Group on Household Food Security

Saturday 28 March 1998 (11.30 a.m.–1.30 p.m.)Oslo, Norway

Chair: Bill Clay, FAO
Rapporteur: Lawrence Haddad, IFPRI

Bill Clay of FAO introduced the session.

Tim Frankenberger, Senior Food Security Advisor at CARE International made a presentation on CARE’s Household Livelihood Security (HLS) approach to assessment, action, and monitoring. Dr. Frankenberger described the approach and the principles underlying it. It was stressed that HLS is a multi-sectoral approach to assessment, not necessarily to action or implementation. It was stressed by the presenter that HLS is a way of prioritizing interventions across sectors and that it avoided problems of sectoral approaches to assessment which usually result in an action plan for that same sector.

Bill Clay then presented a document prepared by FAO on "Household Food Security and Nutrition: Approaches and Experiences of FAO". The presentation focused on FAO’s participatory nutrition approach to food security and nutrition intervention design and implementation and on their approaches to diversification of food production to improve nutrition. Most of the presentation was focused on their approach to improving household food security in the Luapula Valley in Zambia. The presentation described a participatory approach, community action planning, and the establishment of inter-sectoral community food and nutrition teams to permit multi-sectoral assessment.

Comments from other participants:

• UNDP and others noted the need for assessments not to forget consideration of factors exogenous to community and national control (e.g. copper/cocoa prices) that affect hfs.
• The Norwegian delegate suggested that the hfs working group present a document on the extent of inter-agency collaboration in the area of hfs in 2 or 3 countries at the 1999 working group meeting.
• The World Bank representative reminded the group that hfs has many faces: urban families facing violence in Venezuela, households facing crisis in Indonesia, and households and individuals facing household food insecurity via poor food quality.
• On indicators:
  • Tim Frankenberger stressed the need to collect intermediate indicators as well as anthropometric indicators to understand the constraints to the promotion of nutrition.
  • The UNHCR representative noted that effective coping nevertheless has costs, and so intermediate indicators must be collected to document those.
  • The WFP representative stressed the need to develop targeting indicators and suggested this as a theme for next year’s hfs working group meeting.
  • The CONCERN representative discussed the difficulty of monitoring hfs interventions.
  • The ADB representative asked how the HLS approach assessed whether governments have the capacity to sustain the monitoring that is necessary for effective HLS.
• The representative from the Netherlands raised the issue of how to incorporate hfs concerns into sector investment plans. The DFID representative raised a similar issue. The group acknowledged that this has been and continues to be a major concern in hfs strategy development.
• WHO noted its hfs activities: (a) developing training modules to assist countries in developing and implementing national food and nutrition plans of action, (b) the multi-country study on improving food and nutrition security for the vulnerable, (c) the review of the nutrition implications of intra household bias, (d) implementation of the WFS commitments through the ACC Network on Rural Development and Food Security, and (e) a consultation with UNHCR on caring practices for vulnerable groups during emergencies.
• WFP mentioned new MOU’s with UNHCR and UNICEF in the hfs area.

Action items/recommendation to SCN:

• FAO will sponsor an intercountry meeting on promoting household food security in Africa in Kenya in August 1998. The focus of the meeting will be on ways to accelerate and sustain progress in household food and livelihood security with an emphasis on strengthening participatory, community-based action.
• During the coming year the HFS Working Group will address problems of and operational methods for the targeting of hfs interventions (as suggested by WFP and UNHCR).
• Relevant agencies ( FAO, WHO, UNHCR, WFP, IFAD, UNICEF, the WORLD BANK), including non-UN agencies such as IFPRI, are requested to other produce a brief summary of current agency highlights in the area of hfs, putting the spotlight on the gains to programming from inter-agency cooperation for discussion at next year’s working group meeting. Case-studies from 2-3 countries focusing on interagency collaboration in the area of household food security will also be developed.
• The UNDP Board’s endorsement of the alleviation of poverty and the promotion of sustainable livelihood as key policy objectives, coupled with efforts to streamline the Resident Coordinator system, provides an opportunity to strengthen the household food security and nutrition focus of country programmes. The SCN should explore ways to accomplish this.