Feeding hunger and insecurity

6. what more is needed?Collect malnutrition and food security datatogether. Traditionally, analysis and surveillanceof food security and malnutrition havebeen conducted separately. There is a closelink between food security and malnutritionand this must be reflected in the situationanalysis.Conduct political and social analyses as wellas economic and anthropological ones. Politicsand social status can be hugely importantto food security and malnutrition, especiallyfor identifying vulnerable groups, whomay suffer from political or social exclusionor conflict.Combine micro and macro analysis. Combiningmacro satellite data on rainfall andbiomass with micro low-level monitoringof nutrition and food security provides themost complete spatial view of hunger necessaryfor targeting relevant groups and hotspots.Action Against Hunger and the Centred’Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère are currentlydeveloping this approach to surveillancein Mali.Continue year-round. Many national surveillancesystems are conducted only once peryear. Annual surveillance fails to monitor seasonalchanges in welfare and so provides anincomplete picture of food security. Constantmonitoring is necessary to trigger quick, appropriateresponses to food crises.A stronger link between assessment and decision-makingis also needed. Delayed responsereflects, primarily, a break between assessmentand implementation, and is not always a result ofpoor information, though cases vary. For example,Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) bulletins from Ethiopia have documentedthe steady rise in food prices since early 2004,noting that prices in the post-harvest season werenot dropping as much as expected. Darcy, Andersonand Majid of ODI (2007) suggest a number ofspaces for improvement in the information-gatheringto decision-making relationship:Simplify assessments. Analysis must becomeless complicated and technical to allow nonexperts,particularly project leaders, to engagewith the assessment process.Improve internal informational feed-backloops. As with most bureaucratic systems,more intra-organisational feed-back is neededfrom the operational level to ensure policy anddecision-making are properly informed of therealities of implementation and impact.Increase assessment, budget and decisionmakingtransparency. Transparency is key tobuilding good relationships with donors who wantto ensure that finances are well-spent. Regularpublic evaluations may facilitate this process.Present clear operational priorities. Clear prioritisation,without becoming arbitrarily absolutein definitional terms, can help donors releasefunds more quickly.Harmonize donor decision-making. Donor tendencyto release funds at the height of mediafrenzy is a major obstacle to emergency responses,creating poorly managed surges of spending,delayed implementation or lack of financialbacking relative to media interest and coverage.Pooled funding mechanisms could help.Action Against Hunger will add a further recommendation:increase budget flexibility.Having budgets earmarked for one set of prioritiesover another can ‘trap’ funds and delayresponse efforts. Similarly, donors should provideaid in the most flexible form. The USA’shabit of donating large amounts of aid in kindis inflexible and a constraint on the potentialsuccess of an intervention.Providing accurate, up-to-date and appropriate informationin a manner that directly influences decision-makingamong donors and governments is vitalto ensuring initiate timely responses to future crises.A famine in country A should not gain priority over asimilar catastrophe in country B simply because themedia, or other pressure groups, provide a greaterthreat to an institution’s legitimacy. It should not bepossible to ignore hunger.ACF International Network Feeding Hunger and Insecurity 57