Improving the analysis of food insecurity. Food insecurity measurement, livelihoods approaches and policy

This paper was prepared for the Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) Secretariat, as a contribution to the ongoing development of food insecurity monitoring systems at the national and sub-national levels, and was funded by DFID as part of a wider programme of technical support to FIVIMS. Since the mid-1990s, livelihoods-based approaches have increasingly come to dominate the analysis of vulnerability, poverty and food insecurity. This paper analyses the strenghts and limitations of these approaches and propose to combine different types of food security information. This applies not only to data collection and analysis, but also to the establishment and improvement of integrated food security and information systems. With this in mind, this paper proposes a "FIVIMS Integrated Livelihoods Security Information System" (FILSIS),

 S. Devereux et al - September 2004