RURAL BANGLADESH - PreventionWeb

Socio-Economic Profiles of WFP Operational Areas and Beneficiaries
4. Coping Strategies Index
The CSI is a monitoring tool designed to measure the frequency and severity of food security
related consumption or adaptation coping behaviours. The CSI monitors the frequency of a
particular coping strategy – how often does the household engage in that coping behaviour –
as well as the severity of the behaviour. Multiplying severity scores by frequency scores
leads to a CSI index value. The measure includes only those strategies that are most
important in a particular local context. WFP VAM and its partners should consider
employing the CSI as a surveillance system in sentinel sites to monitor food security.
5. Food Security and Vulnerability Indicators
The following variables emerged from this study as important indicators of household food
insecurity and vulnerability:
• Number of months of household access to adequate food for all household members
from all sources;
• Meal frequency – number of meals eaten per day;
• Dietary diversity – number of unique food groups consumed over seven days;
• Asset ownership, particularly agricultural land, cattle, poultry, bicycle, and the
number of rooms occupied;
• Number of income sources;
• Household dependency ratio; and
• Type of household – female-headed households are usually vulnerable and food
insecure.
WFP has already incorporated criteria related to food security, asset ownership, women
headed households in its beneficiary selection for VGD programme. WFP should also
consider other criteria like dependency ratio and income sources, which are equally
important in identification of the ultra poor.
6. Diversifying Incomes
Enhancing livelihood resilience and reducing the vulnerability of households will require
greater diversification of household income sources. The Invisible Poor cited income
diversity as the most crucial variable of potential income increase. WFP’s development
package already contains trainings on small-scale income generating activities, health and
nutrition. In the new country programme WFP has diversified the package by appending
trainings on homestead gardening, civil and legal rights, literacy and numeracy, HIV-AIDS
awareness and prevention measures, budget management and disaster risk reduction. WFP
should consider supporting targeted vocational training in communities identified through a
participatory appraisal process. The support should also include entrepreneurial and microbusiness
financial management training. WFP has already commenced the process of
complementing training activities by facilitating linkages with appropriate financial partners
to enable vulnerable groups and individuals to access small-scale micro-finance and business
loans.
95