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Food Security Analysis
Before intervening in a country, the first priority for WFP is to understand the food security situation of the population. WFP's food security analysis work is commonly known as VAM (Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping) and is carried out by 250 analysts around the world.
What is food security?
People are considered food secure when they have all-time access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life (Definition adopted by the 1996 World Food Summit). Food security analysts look at the combination of the following three main elements:
Food availability: Food must be available in sufficient quantities and on a consistent basis.It considers stock and production in a given area and the capacity to bring in food from elsewhere, through trade or aid.
Food access: People must be able to regularly acquire adequate quantities of food, through purchase, home production, barter, gifts, borrowing or food aid,
Food utilization: Consumed food must have a positive nutritional impact on people. It entails cooking, storage and hygiene practices, individuals health, water and sanitations, feeding and sharing practices within the household.
This is the task of WFP's unique network of about 250 specialists all around the world, working in close partnership with national governments, UN partners and NGOs. Based on their analyses, WFP can decide the scale and type of intervention and the most appropriate responses required to save people's lives and livelihoods.
Their work relies on advanced technologies such as satellite imagery, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA).
This results in a whole range of studies: emergency assessments, baseline studies, market analyses, and food security monitoring.
All WFP's food security assessment reports are public and can be downloaded from the Food Security Analysis Assessment Bank.
WFP is constantly developing new methodologies to capture the impact of economic, social and ecological trends on poor and vulnerable families.
VAM's guidelines and references, provide the humanitarian community with up-to-date guidance, tools and tips to assess needs in different contexts.
More information?
Download the Food Security Analysis Factsheet.
A Scale of Food Security
WFP is working with partners on developing a standardised scale to classify food security situations by severity. The IPC scale starts from a generally food secure situation and extends to a humanitarian catastrophe. Learn more about the IPC.
