Food Security Terms
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43 terms
Access
Access by households/individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.
Accessibility
One of the four pillars of food security and describes a household's ability to physically, economically, and socially obtain a necessary amount of food on a regular basis by purchasing, bartering, borrowing, or receiving food aid or gifts.
See Availability.
Acute food insecurity
Food insecurity at a specific moment in time, regardless of causes, context, or duration. Severity is defined by assessing the degree to which households can meet basic survival needs and maintain their normal livelihoods.
Analogue year
A year in history that shares key characteristics with the current year and can therefore help to support assumptions about how the current year may progress. In food security analysis, analogue years are most commonly used in relation to climate and seasonal forecasts. Information about current atmospheric and oceanic conditions/patterns is used to identify similar years that may suggest likely precipitation and temperature behavior. Analogue years can also be used to look at other issues, such as market behavior and food prices.
Assumptions
For the purpose of scenario development, assumptions are judgments about the anticipated type, magnitude, and timing of future events or conditions. Assumptions are the product of an analysis of current conditions (e.g., rainfall pattern to date), past experiences (a reference period, or how a similar series of events unfolded, such as a previous drought), official or unofficial estimates or projections, qualitative or quantitative data, and/or expert judgment. Assumptions can be made at any level of analysis (i.e., household, village, market, district, national, regional, or international). Assumptions form the basis of a scenario and support and reasonably limit its scope.
Availability
One of the four pillars of food security. The total amount of food that is present in a country or given area by means of domestic production, imports, food stocks, and food aid.
Availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid).
Chronic food insecurity
Persistent or seasonal inability to consume adequate diets for a healthy and active life, mainly due to structural causes. Chronic food insecurity occurs even in normal, non-crisis years when shocks do not occur.
Coping
Contending with difficulties and acting to overcome them. In food security, we typically speak of coping capacity and coping strategies. For the purpose of scenario development, we distinguish between coping strategies that, if successful, help to mitigate acute food and income deficits (e.g., the sale of assets) and coping strategies that indicate reduced dietary quantity or quality (e.g., skipping meals).
Coping capacity
The ability of households to diversify and expand access to various sources of food, income, and other basic needs, and thus to cope with a specific stress.
Crisis
IPC phase 3. Households either:
Have food consumption gaps that are reflected by high or above-usual acute malnutrition.
OR
Are marginally able to meet minimum food needs but only by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis-coping strategies.
See International Phase Classification (IPC).
Emergency
IPC phase 4. Households either:
Have large food consumption gaps which are reflected in very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality.
OR
Are able to mitigate large food consumption gaps but only by employing emergency livelihood strategies and asset liquidation.
See International Phase Classification (IPC).
Equity
A situation in which resources are relatively distributed to all members of society.
Famine
IPC phase 5. Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs even after full employment of coping strategies. Starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. For Famine Classification, an area needs to have extreme critical levels of acute malnutrition and mortality.
See International Phase Classification (IPC).
Food security (FS)
Food and nutrition security is achieved when adequate, safe, and nutritious food is available, accessible to, and well utilized by all individuals at all times to support a healthy and productive life.
Food security conditions
The context with regard to external circumstances and influences related to food security; includes the variables, causal factors, and drivers of food security. Food security conditions are different from food security outcomes. Outcomes refer to the final situation faced by households or areas once all conditions and responses have been analyzed. For example, food security conditions may describe seasonal progress, food prices, and labor demand, while food security outcomes describe whether households are able to access and utilize the food needed for a healthy life.
Food security outcomes
The net result of changes in household incomes and food access plus the effect of response by households, governments, or other actors in terms of food consumption, livelihoods maintenance, nutritional status, and mortality risk. Outcomes can be positive or negative. A description of food security outcomes should explain who is food insecure (e.g., what population or wealth group; the size of the food insecure population), and the expected duration and severity of food insecurity.
Global Support Unit (GSU)
At the global level, the IPC is governed by the IPC Global Steering Committee and is composed of senior officers representing the 15 partner organizations. The Steering Committee is responsible for strategically guiding and positioning the IPC globally. The GSU is the operational arm of the IPC Global Steering Committee. Hosted at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, the IPC GSU promotes the IPC within global decision-making structures and develops and updates IPC protocols and technical guidance based on inputs from the Technical Advisory Group (TAG). It also provides capacity development, technical and communication support to countries, as well as quality assurance oversight, among other things.
See Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Humanitarian assistance
Assistance that is intended to save lives, protect livelihoods, alleviate suffering, and provide basic necessities. Humanitarian assistance is usually initiated in response to a shock, such as civil war or a natural disaster. This can also include threshold-based programs that are triggered by a shock even if they are within the context of an inter-annual program. Programs focusing on immediate livelihood strengthening and prevention of further loss are also considered humanitarian. This type of assistance is typically short term (less than a year). However, some programs exceed the typical timeframe for humanitarian assistance (i.e., longer than a year) depending on the nature of the shock.
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)
Also, IPC Scale
An approach to consolidate wide-ranging evidence to classify the severity and magnitude and to identify the key drivers of food insecurity and malnutrition. The IPC process builds evidence-based technical consensus among key stakeholders and uses a standardized five point scale to communicate the nature and severity of a crisis.
Inter-annual assistance
Assistance that has a relatively long timeframe (generally two to five years) and is provided to beneficiaries on a regular basis. Safety net programs are a common form of inter-annual assistance. These programs focus on aspects of chronic food insecurity, reliance, or poverty reduction and the development of livelihoods over a longer timeframe.
Internally displaced person (IDP)
A person or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.
Lean season
The time of year when a household’s access to food and/or cash income is typically most constrained. This usually occurs during the months between harvests when food is scarce because household stocks have been exhausted and the harvest has not yet begun. During this period, households tend to be at greater risk of food insecurity. Use lean season and not hunger season or other terms.
Minimal
IPC phase 1. Households are able to meet essential food and non-food needs without engaging in atypical and unsustainable strategies to access food and income.
See International Phase Classification (IPC).
Most likely (ML)
A near term projection for the next three months.
Most Likely 1 (ML1)
The first projection period (the first four months) within an eight-month scenario.
Most Likely 2 (ML2)
The second projection period (the second four months) within an eight-month scenario.
Network development
A dedicated effort to strengthen cooperation and linkages among food security partners.
Normal conditions
The typical or average range of attributes, characteristics, or relationships (e.g., weather, market behavior, livelihoods, etc.). They provide a framework, baseline, or reference period that can be compared to current and/or projected conditions.
Prediction
An act of foretelling based on observation, experience, or scientific reason.
Presence countries
Countries where locally-based analysts work fulltime from a national office.
Problem specification
The translation of a hazard such as drought into economic consequences at household level.
Projected outcome
A quantified estimate of access to food and cash, taking into account the shock and household responses to it, in relation to a survival and livelihoods protection threshold.
Projection
An estimate of future possibilities based on a current trend.
Projection period
Months selected for scenario period (e.g., typically eight months for a FEWS NET Food Security Outlook scenario).
See Most Likely, Most Likely 1, and Most Likely 2.
Response
Any action taken before, during, or after a potential change in food security to mitigate food insecurity or vulnerability to food insecurity and/or to avoid loss of life or livelihoods. A response can take the form of policies or programs (e.g., manipulation of strategic grain reserves to manage prices or supplies, food distribution).
Risk
The combination of the probability of an event (hazard) and households’ vulnerability to the hazard along with their capacity to cope. Risk = f (hazard × vulnerability/coping).
Scenario
In the context of food security analysis, an informed “if/then” analysis that communicates shocks, their impacts on household food and income sources, response by both households and other actors, and the net food security outcomes for different households in specific geographic areas. Scenarios are rooted in a series of reasonable assumptions based on existing conditions, historical information, and expert judgment. Scenarios are used to project future food security outcomes and inform decision-making processes.
Scenario development
A methodology for forecasting future events. It relies on analysis of the current situation, the creation of informed assumptions about the future, a comparison of their possible effects, and the likely responses of various actors.
Scenario outcome
A quantified estimate of access to food and cash arising from an outcome analysis, taking into account the effects of the hazard and household responses to it, for each of the wealth groups.
Shock
An atypical event or series of events (either rapid or slow-onset) that have a significant impact. Shocks can be positive (e.g. a significantly better-than-average harvest) or negative (e.g., a failed harvest or rising food prices). A shock differs from a hazard in that it is an event that has already occurred or is occurring, while a hazard indicates a potential threat.
Slow onset emergency
An emergency that builds over time and thus provides some early indication of the emergency that could be mounting. Droughts and continuous economic decline are all slow onset emergencies.
Stressed
IPC phase 2. Households have minimally adequate food consumption but are unable to afford some essential non-food expenditures without engaging in stress-coping strategies.
See International Phase Classification (IPC).
Survival threshold
Also, Survival needs
The total food and cash income required to cover the food and non-food items necessary for survival in the short term. It includes:
100% of minimum food energy needs;
The costs associated with food preparation and consumption; and
Where applicable, the cost of water for human consumption.