United Nations System
Standing Committee on Nutrition

About the reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations (formerly RNIS)

The Reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations are compiled by the NICS Coordinator, SCN Secretariat. If you have any information to contribute to forthcoming reports, or would like to subscribe or request back issues of RNIS/NICS, please contact the SCN Secretariat.

The UN Standing Committee on Nutrition, which is the focal point for harmonizing nutrition policies in the UN system, issues these Reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations with the intention of raising awareness and facilitating action. The Reports are designed to provide information over time on key outcome indicators from emergency- affected populations, play an advocacy role in bringing the plight of emergency affected populations to the attention of donors and humanitarian agencies, and to identify recurrent problems in international response capacity.

The Reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations are aimed to cover populations affected by a crisis, such as refugees, internally displaced populations and resident populations.

This system was started on the recommendation of the SCN's working group on Nutrition of Refugees and Displaced People, by the SCN in February 1993. Based on suggestions made by the working group and the results of a survey of the readers, the Reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations are published every three months.

Information is obtained from a wide range of collaborating agencies, both UN and NGOs. The Reports on Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations are put together primarily from agency technical reports on nutrition, mortality rates, health and food security.

The Reports provide a brief summary on the background of a given situation, including who is involved, and what the general situation is. This is followed by details of the humanitarian situation, with a focus on public nutrition and mortality rates. The key point of the Reports is to interpret anthropometric data and to judge the various risks and threats to nutrition in both the long and short term.

Situations are classed into five categories relating to risk and/or prevalence of malnutrition.

The prevalence/risk is indirectly affected by both the underlying causes of malnutrition, relating to food, health and care, and the constraints limiting humanitarian response. These categories are summations of the causes of malnutrition and the humanitarian response:

• Populations in category I – the population is currently in a critical situation; they either have a very high risk of malnutrition or surveys have reported a very high prevalence of malnutrition and/or elevated mortality rates.
• Populations in category II are currently at high risk of becoming malnourished or have a high prevalence of malnutrition.
• Populations in category III are at moderate risk of malnutrition or have a moderately high prevalence of malnutrition; there maybe pockets of high malnutrition in a given area.
• Populations in category IV are not at elevated nutritional risk.
• The risk of malnutrition among populations in category V is not known.