Understanding and measuring food insecurity

1The four pillars of food security

Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to lead an active and healthy life (World Food Summit, 1996). It is made up of four pillars:

• Availability: food exists in the area (production, stocks, imports, aid).
• Access: households can obtain it (income, prices, markets, road security).
• Utilisation: food is properly prepared and absorbed (water, health, practices).
• Stability: the other three pillars hold over time, despite shocks.

In emergencies, the problem is often access rather than availability: markets are full but households have lost their income.

2Livelihoods

Livelihoods are the capabilities, assets and activities that make a living possible: land, livestock, tools, skills, employment, social networks, savings. A shock (drought, conflict, flood, price spike) destroys them or makes them inaccessible.

To cope, households adopt coping strategies: cutting meals, borrowing, selling assets. Some are reversible; others, such as selling the last breeding females or seeds, or taking children out of school, compromise the future. One aim of a response is also to prevent these crisis strategies.

3Household indicators

Several standard indicators, used notably by WFP, measure the situation:

• Food Consumption Score (FCS): frequency and diversity of foods consumed over 7 days, classified as poor, borderline or acceptable.
• Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI): frequency of five food-related strategies (fewer meals, smaller portions, borrowing food…).
• Livelihood coping strategies: stress, crisis or emergency.
• Household Hunger Scale (HHS) and food expenditure share: the higher it is, the more vulnerable the household.

WFP combines them in the CARI approach to classify households into four food security groups.

4The IPC, the common language of food crises

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) classifies areas and populations into five phases: 1 minimal, 2 stressed, 3 crisis, 4 emergency, 5 catastrophe or famine. An area is classified as famine when at least 20% of households face extreme food gaps, global acute malnutrition reaches at least 30% and mortality exceeds 2 deaths per 10,000 people per day.

The IPC analysis is carried out by a national technical working group, using all available data, and includes projections. Populations in Phase 3 or above need urgent action. In West Africa, the Cadre Harmonisé plays the same role.