World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

This bulletin provides information on price changes for the most commonly consumed staples and their potential impacts on the cost of the basic food basket.

The objective of this survey is to better understand how markets function on in the Arid Lands and what capacity they may have to respond to increased demand. It explores the feasibility of alternative transfer delivery mechanisms in the Arid Lands based on cash or vouchers. This will inform decision makers when programming food assistance and livelihood interventions including how these options impact on gender dynamics. The analysis focuses on the market systems with different supply side actors and their behaviour, the enabling environment and how markets perform with regards to food supplies, e.g. how are markets integrated and whether prices exhibit seasonal and volatile patterns.

The Kenya Food Security Outlook for July - December gives an overview of the food security situation in the country for the second half of the year.

The rapid growth and urbanization of Kenya’s population has resulted in a changing poverty and food security environment in high-density urban areas. Urban dwellers represent an increasingly important share of the food insecure and malnourished yet little is known about the characteristics of urban food insecurity and malnutrition necessitating the need to undertake a baseline survey that would comprehensively analyse the urban food security and vulnerability in Kenya.

A detailed market and household baseline survey was conducted from November 9 to 26 2011 in order to get a clearer understanding of markets and food security conditions. The household section provides baseline information on food security, including income generating activities among other indicators. The market section provides information to determine the adequacy of markets to support cash transfer interventions and baseline data on prices to allow the monitoring of the impact of the intervention.

The Market Analysis Sub-group of the Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG) monitors cross-border trade of 88 food commodities and livestock in 26
cross-border markets in eastern Africa in order to quantify the contribution of formal and informal cross-border trade to food security in the region.

This report, based on detailed literature review and discussions with selected key informants, presents a summary of current evidence and understanding of the impact of HFP (High Food Prices) in the Southern Africa region.

This assessment provides information on price changes for the most commonly consumed staples and their potential
impacts on the cost of the basic food basket.

The sustained rise in food and non-food prices is expected to accentuate food insecurity among the most vulnerable livelihood groups especially the urban, pastoral and marginal agricultural households.