Special Events: January 16 2012
Strengthening Household Consumption and Expenditures Surveys to Enable More Evidence-Based Nutrition Policies
Where and When:
Monday, January 16th, 2012
Session 1: 8.30 - 11.00 Austria Room
Session 2: 11.30 - 13.00 German Room
FAO Headquarters
Moderator:
Jack Fiedler (HarvestPlus)
The longstanding effort to promote the use of 24-hour recall (24HR) survey data as the evidence base for food and nutrition policy-making has not been fruitful: 24HR surveys remain few in number, are rarely nationally representative and are of dubious external validity. While household consumption and expenditures surveys (HCES) have shortcomings, they are increasingly being used to address the food consumption information gap.
The objective of this session is to promote dialog to begin crafting an agenda and a strategy to improve the relevance and reliability of HCES for analyzing food and nutrition issues.
The first part of the session will document the growing and evolving use of HCES and their common shortcomings. Case studies from Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Tanzania and Uganda will be presented to empirically investigate differences in HCES and other food consumption methodologies.
The second part of the session will be devoted to identifying and prioritizing common HCES shortcomings, identifying their causes, proposing some potential solutions, and distilling elements of a strategy for improving HCES.
Finally, elements of a workplan for systematically reviewing existing HCES and developing a process for improving their precision for addressing food and nutrition issues will be discussed.
The Somalia Famine Declaration and Response—What went well, what did not, and the imperative to improve
Where and When:
Monday January 16th, 2012, 13:30-17:00
Iran Room, FAO Headquarters
Conveners and Moderators:
Dan Maxwell, Tufts University and Nicholas Haan, FAO /WFP
Confirmed Panelists:
Grainne Moloney (FAO/FSNAU), Chris Hillbruner (FEWSNET), tbd (WFP), Steve Mcdowell (IFRC), Luca Alinovi (FAO), Luca Russo (FAO), Sue Lautze, Degan Ali (Horn Relief), Hannan Suleiman (UNICEF) and Peter Hailey (UNICEF)
After almost a year of early warning, famine was declared in parts of Somalia on July 20th, 2011. Plans to assist millions of Somali people were launched and appeals made for hundreds of millions of dollars. With tens of thousands of lives already lost, there was immediate risk to hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of peoples’ livelihoods.
Critical questions were asked:
- What were the early warning signs?
- Why did the early warnings not lead to large-scale responses until the declaration of famine?
- What was the evidence and standards used for declaring famine? What were the causes?
- Was/is the response effective in terms of size and strategy?
- How best to save livelihoods, not only lives? How is the situation unfolding now?
- What can we learn to improve linkages between analysis and response in the future?
This special event seeks answers to these questions. It brings together food and nutrition security analysts, senior decision makers, and academics who are directly involved in the crisis. With panelists from FAO, WFP, UNICEF, FEWSNET, IFRC, Horn Relief and others (tbc), the moderators will engage in candid, critical, and constructive discussions, including participation from audience members.
This real-time case study on Somalia is sure to offer key insights to the overall Symposium theme on better linking valid measurement to effective decision making.