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Research
Box 2: WFP index for triggering contingency
planning
The WFP has been working on an index for triggering
contingency planning when an emergency is
detected. This is the Livelihood Protection Cost Index
(LPCI), a weather-based index aimed at providing an
objective, independently verifiable and replicable
indicator of livelihood loss. The index is developed by
evaluating historical weather data and determining
its correlation to crop yields and revenues. One possible
application of the LPCI to pastoral areas is being
discussed, whereby weather data could be correlated
to grass cover and forage conditions using the
Livestock Early Warning System methodology. Similar
approaches might usefully be explored in the context
of rising food prices.
reinforce coordination mechanisms by keeping
them alive and allows organisations to put in
place measures that enhance preparedness. Good
contingency planning will include appropriate
programming options and triggers for action, as
well as predetermined roles and responsibilities
amongst different actors. There are two broad
approaches in humanitarian contingency planning:
• Needs-based planning, where planners must
analyse existing operational capacity to
determine how much strengthening will be
needed to meet anticipated needs.
• Capacity-based planning, which uses available
capacity as a basis for planning, regardless
of anticipated needs. This approach can
be used to plan for the initial phase of a crisis
where external resources are not readily
available.
Coordination and partnerships between humanitarian
organisations, development organisations,
national and local governments and
private firms are vital to an effective response.
Coordinated advocacy is especially important in
the face of rising food prices, to ensure that the
conditions faced by the most vulnerable are
addressed in timely and effective manners.
To counteract dramatic increases in costs and
demand and bring food prices back to levels that
the poor can afford, agriculture needs to make
big leaps in productivity. Investments are therefore
needed by the private sector. Equally important
are good seeds, improved crop varieties and
support systems. Water harvesting and water
storage systems are needed to reduce stress
caused by dry spells and pastoralists need
support. It is also important to ensure that financial
services, such as insurance and credit, are
available to poor farmers.
Careful decisions also have to be made over
whether cash or food or a combination of both is
needed to support the worst affected. The decision
should not be resource driven. Recent experiences
with cash programmes have shown that:
• Where markets can provide enough food,
and food insecurity is a result of lack of
purchasing power, cash can work.
• The combination of food plus cash can
provide all the benefits of both while
avoiding the limitations of each.
• Cash may be more appropriate for certain
groups, such as pastoralists.
Key points to consider when deliberating over a
cash-based response are:
• Accurate market analysis and monitoring
is crucial.
• There must be realistic assessment of the
capacity to distribute cash and sufficient
funds for capacity building.
• Monitoring the impact of cash distributions
requires gender sensitivity.
Social protection is an umbrella term used to
describe a broad range of initiatives and transfers
intended to reduce the economic and social
vulnerability of the poor and food insecure.
Instruments that provide a seasonal safety net,
coupled with other options, can offer a livelihood
package that can meet immediate needs, while
building a buffer for the future. Instruments to
offer a safety net include employment-guarantee
schemes or conditional cash transfers, microcredit,
food for work or cash for work, asset transfer
or production support.
Governments, rather than the humanitarian
community, should manage and implement
social protection. NGO involvement should be
geared towards facilitation rather than direct
implementation and look to increasing their role
in lobbying, advocacy, and capacity building.
There is also a role for NGOs to participate in
social mobilisation by engaging with civil society
to hold states accountable to their social contracts
and monitor the extent to which social transfers
are carried out and who these are serving.
Different social protection instruments are
appropriate for different sources of vulnerability.
A mix of different approaches will be needed in
different settings (see Table 2).
There is growing concern about the implications
of rising food prices for cash-based social
protection, given the eroding value of cash transfers
in the face of food price inflation. Some
argue that this makes the case for index-linking
transfers. However, this requires governments or
donors to take on the price risk that poor people
face all the time and demands a degree of flexibility
in planning and budgeting that governments
and donors may find daunting.
Table 2: Source of vulnerability and suitability of social transfer instruments
Source of vulnerability Benefit Modality Examples of types of instrument
Chronic poverty • cash Direct support
• Conditional/unconditional cash/food transfers
• food Public works
• Micro-finance
Personal shock • cash Direct support • Social welfare grants
• Pensions
Lack of access to key
livelihood inputs
Market failures
Inadequate uptake of
basic services
• cash
• inputs
• assets
• cash
• subsidies
• food
• food
• cash
• waivers
Conditional transfers (e.g.
must have land to utilise
inputs
Direct support
Public works
Subsidies
Conditional transfers, e.g.
conditional on attendance
• Conditional cash transfers
• ‘Starter Packs’ (farmers)
• Land reform (women)
• Restocking (pastoralists)
• Cash transfers
• Food stamps/vouchers
• Food price subsidies
• Employment guarantees
• School feeding
• Conditional transfers (health)
• Fee waivers (education and health)
Anthony Jacopucci/MSF, Niger
Retrospective
determination of
whether famine
existed in Niger
Summary of published research 1
A recent study set out to apply the famine
scale developed by Howe and Devereux to
the situation in Niger, west Africa, in 2005,
to determine retrospectively whether
famine existed.
The authors assert that the absence of
universal benchmarks or criteria to identify
famine conditions creates uncertainty about
the magnitude of the crisis, resulting in
delays and inappropriate responses. In the
context of the current global food crisis,
with dramatic price increases and reduced
accessibility to food in already food insecure
populations, it may become even more critical
to develop an internationally accepted
definition of famine to guide humanitarian
response and funding and to enforce
accountability.
The famine scale proposed by Howe and
Devereux is based on scales of intensity and
magnitude. The intensity level in a given
population is based on a combination of
anthropometric and mortality indicators
and on descriptors of food security. These
descriptors include coping strategies and
stability of the market and food prices. The
intensity scale is used to assign population
areas within a country to a level, from 0
(food secure conditions) to 5 (extreme
famine conditions). Intensity levels of 3
(famine conditions) or above register as a
famine on the magnitude scale, which
ranges from minor famine to catastrophic
famine. The magnitude scale is determined
retrospectively by measuring excess mortality
caused by the crisis.
International agencies raised concerns
about the increasing admission rates of
malnourished children in therapeutic feeding
centres in the Maradi region between
February and April 2005. Local surveys in
the Maradi and Taboua regions between
April and May 2005 showed that the prevalence
of global acute malnutrition among
children aged 6-59 months exceeded the
15% critical threshold established by the
World Health Organisation (WHO). It was
unclear whether these reports represented a
localised event or if the crisis extended to
regional and even national levels; the question
of a current or imminent famine was
also uncertain. Thus the scale and severity
of the food crisis in Niger remained in
dispute.
The researchers applied the famine scale
to the situation in Niger in 2005 by assessing
mortality and household coping strategies
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