Mitigating the Nutritional Impacts of the Global Food Price Crisis Workshop Summary (2010) / Chapter Skim
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5 A Role for Nutrition Surveillance in Addressing the Global Food Crisis
5 A Role for Nutrition Surveillance in Addressing the Global Food Crisis
Pages 75-98
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From page 75... ...
A number of presenters spoke of the need to aggregate data, compile it quickly using new technologies, and deliver it to the food security and nutrition community for decision making at the program and policy level. As described by moderator Keith West of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the following presentations helped to encourage a broad discussion of nutrition surveillance, including existing nutrition surveillance sys tems, their capacity to monitor food price fluctuations, and the gaps and needs for improved surveillance.
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From page 76... ...
. Nutrition information -- when appropriately linked to interventions, policies, and programs -- can help mitigate malnutrition, particularly in developing countries (Figure 5-1)
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From page 77... ...
The international nutrition community should consider Mason F-1 whether this hunger indicator is appropriate as the primary means for assessing global food deprivation and undernutrition. A newle of indicators or measure vector editab set ments could be adopted to keep track of the global situation regarding undernutrition, hunger, and malnutrition.
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From page 78... ...
, range from safety nets to a series of essential nutrition interventions, usually best implemented through community-based programs and primary health care. A number of wellestablished and evolving safety net interventions can mitigate the negative effects of the current food situation, particularly: • Conditional cash transfers, • Unconditional cash transfers, • Food and nutrition programs (school feeding, micronutrient and food supplement distribution)
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From page 79... ...
What are the problems that improved nutrition surveillance could solve? Interventions are inadequate and untimely in preventing worsening malnutrition caused by rising food prices, increasing unemployment, and reduced public or private services.
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From page 80... ...
. Timely warning of crises is the most relevant in this TABLE 5-2 Population Data Sources and Their Use Program Monitoring Timely Warning to Source Long-Term Planning and Evaluation Prevent Crises Repeated national Main use Possible use, but No use, as too surveys rare as process data infrequent and too much limited and design lag time not ideal Area-level surveys Not usually, but Possible use, but Main use, together with some potential with rare as process data other data (e.g., prices)
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From page 81... ...
Next Steps Intervention policies of a large scale are required if such policies are to reverse the increased hunger and malnutrition that undoubtedly resulted from the food price and economic crises starting in mid-2008, even if the extent of these problems are not yet measured in any detail. The international nutrition community needs to help develop systems to provide timely and disaggregated information to support these large-scale intervention policies.
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From page 82... ...
, which collected data from 1995 to 2005, stand out as relatively unique examples of surveillance systems that have generated analytical insights related to understanding the effects of economic crises on such nutritional outcomes as child underweight, stunting, maternal underweight, and micronutrient deficiencies (Torlesse et al., 2003; Block et al., 2004; Campbell et al., 2009a,b)
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From page 83... ...
In contrast, the system in Bangladesh was more oriented to col lecting data to track development programs and to track the impact of develop ment on a national level, although it was also used to measure the impact of crises such as hurricanes, pests, and flooding that affect different parts of the country over time. Malnutrition is a seasonal phenomenon in many countries, and one of the benefits of an ongoing surveillance system that collects data at multiple points throughout the year is the ability to understand the normal seasonal patterns of malnutrition, whereas a stand-alone survey taken at one point in time could eas ily reach the wrong conclusions about trends in malnutrition or might wrongly attribute a rise or fall in malnutrition to a particular event (which might just be a regular seasonal phenomenon)
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From page 84... ...
Breadth of Information Collected Because of the breadth of information collected, the NSP and the NSS were able to not only show trends in malnutrition and stunting over time, but also to explain the factors associated with these changes. Although information about the prevalence of malnutrition is often collected every several years in many countries through other surveys, one of the virtues of the NSP and the NSS was the inclusion of information not typically available through health-focused surveys, such as food prices, household expenditures, agricultural and cropping patterns, land ownership, and female decision making within the household.
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From page 85... ...
is to provide an early warning of an impending food crisis. While FEWS NET is not a direct implementer of nutrition surveillance systems, it has a role to play in collecting nutrition information that could provide an early warning of food insecurity and other crises that are detrimental to the nutritional status of surveilled populations.
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From page 86... ...
In each of these countries, FEWS NET attempts to provide an integrated food security analy sis including agro-climatic information, crop forecasts, food prices, and, when possible, nutritional information. This information is provided by a variety of different sources and is evaluated in a "livelihoods framework" that allows a baseline understanding of how people earn their livelihood in a normal year.
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From page 87... ...
In Somalia, the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit performs nutrition surveys in different parts of the country during the year. In terms of data quality, depth, and reliability, they are probably the strongest source of nutrition information that FEWS NET has.
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From page 88... ...
LISTENING POSTS PROJECT: A CONCEPT FOR A REAL-TIME SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM NESTED WITHIN A PROGRAM Anna Taylor, Head of Hunger Reduction Save the Children UK Introduction to Listening Posts Save the Children and Action Against Hunger are collaborating in an effort to integrate surveillance into routine program work. During the food price increases of 2008, Save the Children realized it was ill-prepared to determine the effects of the crisis in the communities where it had programs.
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From page 89... ...
Ide- Ide ally, the data would be useful for FEWS NET and used in the food secu rity classification processes that are happening increasingly in various countries.
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From page 90... ...
It builds on the discussion about data quality and the international nutrition community's inability to talk about the affordability of a quality diet. Food security is often inappropriately equated with energy security; the CoD assessment is an attempt to take the discussion a step further toward understanding affordability of a quality diet.
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From page 91... ...
FOOD SECURITY, NUTRITION MONITORING, AND THE GLOBAL FOOD PRICE CRISIS: USAID/FFP TITLE II PROGRAMS Ellen Mathys, M.P.H., Senior Food Security Early Warning and Response Specialist Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project II (FANTA-2) Academy for Educational Development FANTA-2 and Food Security Programs The U.S.
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From page 92... ...
These awardees collect and report on program monitoring and evaluation data to the FFP, and the opportunity exists to use these MYAP data to monitor the food security and nutrition effects of the global economic and food price crises. These data that are already being collected for annual program monitoring and impact evaluation may be used to understand how chronically food-insecure communities are affected by these price shocks.
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From page 93... ...
. Availability of Population-Level Outcome Data in MYAP Areas Although the FFP implements food security programs in many of the world's most chronically food-insecure communities, the opportunity to use data col lected on these populations -- especially nutritional data -- is not being used to full
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From page 94... ...
In terms of positive trends, there has been an increasing availability and quality of food security and nutrition data collected by MYAPs and their key national and international partners. Addition ally, there has been strong support by USAID for monitoring and evaluation (including trigger indicators)
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From page 95... ...
The Time to Intervene One participant urged the international nutrition community to use the food basket (that corresponds to the culture and the price of that food basket relative to income) as the indicator that determines whether people have sufficient food quantity or quality.
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From page 96... ...
These set indicators and fixed cut-points can easily be misinterpreted. A workshop participant urged that, instead, surveillance systems should collect situation-specific data and undertake a more sophisticated interpretation than merely stating that 15 percent wasting signifies a crisis.
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From page 97... ...
Zimbabwe Nutrition Sentinel Site Sureillance System: Summary of Main Findings.
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