United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

Working Group on Household Food Security

held during the ACC/SCN's 30th Session in Chennai, India, March 2003

Co-Chaired by Kraisid Tontisirin (FAO), Shakuntala Thilsted (Denmark) and Lawrence Haddad (IFPRI)

Background

The past year has been one of transition for the working group on household food security (HFSWG). In the summer of 2002, the chairing of the group evolved to a three-person team of Kraisid Tontisirin (FAO), Shakunthala Thilstead (DANIDA) and Lawrence Haddad (IFPRI). The new team sought to build on structures previously established by FAO, primarily the Virtual Task Force email network.

The three co-chairs consulted with the virtual task force (VTF) and reached consensus on the overall objective of the HFSWG: “To identify ways of enhancing the nutrition impact of household food security interventions.”

We reminded ourselves, and the VTF, of the SCN Strategic Document’s vision for Working Groups:

• sharing information on latest scientific advances, programmes and innovations in the specific substantive nutritional area of the WG
• through information sharing and networking, assisting in harmonization and alignment of agency actions, and reinforcing key agency actions in areas of mutual concern
• identifying critical issues for further attention by SCN participating bodies.
• this includes (a) identifying gaps in current policies, strategies, guidelines, norms and standards, and programmes, and (b) identifying relevant actors and suitable ways to address the gaps and to take the substantive agenda forward. Work may be carried out through dedicated task forces (see below) or other suitable mechanisms
• provide advice to the Secretariat and the SCN Chair, and perform tasks as necessary on technical issues

Process

We proceeded to go though a lengthy email process of identifying one topic that supports this overall objective, but which results in concrete outputs that are useful for SCN members and dovetails with their work plans.

A number of candidate topics were tabled by the co-chairs for the VTF to consider:

• Is there evidence that community-driven household food security programming is more effective in improving nutrition outcomes? What types of communities, what types of activities, what types of outcomes and for who?
• Is there evidence that food-based household food security interventions are more effective in improving nutrition outcomes? Which types? (home gardens etc.)
• What are the constraints to scaling-up of successful community-driven interventions? (capacity? resources? local governance?)
• What are the constraints to the effective implementation of food-based interventions? (e.g. are there institutional constraints that hinder the agriculture and nutrition communities from working together?)
• What are the new ways in which food aid needs to be programmed? Food for Education, Food aid in HIV /AIDS areas, food aid programming as a way of ensuring a transition from relief to development?
• Food Security indicators: e.g. given the diet transition to fats and added sugars and the persistence of high micronutrient malnutrition is there enough of a focus on diet quality in food security measurement?
• What is the capacity of governments to address food insecurity? This ties in to human rights (ability to meet obligations) and to indicators (not of outcomes, but of the decisions governments take that relate to their commitment to addressing food security)
• GMOs and food aid? What are the issues and tradeoffs? Are there other choices than rejection or milling?
• Food safety: what are the issues, what are the agencies doing about it?
• Sustainable Livelihoods and Food Security
• How food security fits or can actually help operationalise highly visible agendas, such as poverty alleviation, sustainable livelihoods, governance/decentralisation, human rights or emergencies - global coordination (e.g. the CCPOQ paper done by FAO, WFP and IFAD) - country coordination—coordinating food, care and health actions
• Building capacity within countries to strategise on household food security to respond to, say, FIVIMS information

The key criteria for evaluating the candidate topics included:

• The ability of the work to complement and catalyse the work programmes of the members, particularly FAO, WFP and IFAD
• The relevance of the work for programming
• The ability to influence a wider global audience
• The feasibility of the undertaking given resource constraints
• Links with other WGs

Outcome

We moved towards a consensus that WG focus on improving the nutrition impact of food security programming with a strong emphasis on "what works in practice". This seemed to respond to what FAO, SCF, Red Cross, FANTA and others would find useful.

There was also a consensus on (a) the need to share experiences with each other via a workshop in 2003, and (b) the need to share experiences with the wider community via an accessible non-technical document based on that workshop.

On the issue of focus we considered two options: (a) surveying a diversity of interventions and carefully selecting different types of interventions to explore, and (b) or zeroing in on one or two sub-categories, getting a better sense of success factors within a more contained sphere. It was recognized that both approaches are valid and useful, so we asked the operational agencies in particular to make their preferences clear.

The first approach provides the bonus of identifying how food security "fits" under other development labels (the issue raised by several VTF members), but runs the risk of resting on too few programming experiences per modality. The second approach will allow better generalizations within one modality area, but may be less widely used.

The consensus was to go with the first (broad) option, and to outline (a) food security programming options and (b) the inclusiveness of the processes that lead to option selection, within a range of contexts:

In terms of the format of the workshop, there could be a brief overview paper for each contextual setting, with two specific and operational case studies. All papers would attempt to address the same key set of questions relating to context, option selection processes and the key factors contributing to successful outcomes and implementation. The workshop should pull together what we know about food security programming in different contexts, identifying information and capacity gaps that need to be filled.

Next Steps

• Identify a workshop coordination team
• Refine workshop goals
• Identify location and date
• Develop agenda
• Identify key actors who can write short papers on “what works in practice”
• Develop a communication strategy
• Raise funds for travel, especially for those coming from the field.

Outputs for 2003-4

• Workshop (location undecided; 4th quarter of 2003)
• Non-technical document + Powerpoints summarizing workshop sharing and conclusions
• CD with papers and Powerpoint presentations from workshop
• Presentation of finding at key agencies
• Presentation at SCN 2004