Food & Nutrition Security in East Africa

This special issue looks at drought risk reduction through the lens of the Hyogo Framework of Action (HFA), the global framework for disaster risk reduction. It features the excellent work being done throughout the African region and underscores the necessary holistic approach to achieve better resilience to drought in the future.

Mark Tran: An assessment of emergency responses to crises over the past two years reveals a lack of co-ordination and the failure of anyone to take ultimate responsibility when things go wrong...

This paper undertakes a critical review of existing evidence on livelihoods and the delivery of basic services and social protection interventions in Democratic Republic of the Congo, paying extra attention to the eastern provinces.

Results From Rio +20...This is a day-by-day overview of what the WFP delegation did and accomplished.

This is one of WFP's first urban-focused CFSVAs. It reports on data collected in 200 urban centers in Kenya during 2010.

A new book, Pastoralism and Development In Africa: Dynamic Change at the Margins, highlights innovation and entrepreneurialism, cooperation and networking and diverse approaches which are rarely in line with standard development prescriptions. Editors: Jeremy Lind and Ian Scoones.

The Global Food Security Index considers the core issues of affordability, availability, and quality across a set of 105 countries. Learn more.

"No one can say they did not see last year’s food crisis in East Africa coming; there was almost a year of increasingly strong warnings, but it was not until Somalia was formally declared to be in a state of famine that substantial funding finally started coming in."

Researchers at London’s Chatam House embarked on a project to try to understand why delay is the typical outcome of the decision-making process, and why politicians, nationally and internationally, might be unwilling to acknowledge a crisis and respond early on. Some pointers have already emerged..."a lot comes back to politics".

Do you feel overwhelmed by a proliferation of food security initiatives? Can't tell your CAADP from your Cluster? Get some relief from an interactive map that shows global and regional food security intiatives. Thanks to Farming First for this helpful resource.

http://www.farmingfirst.org/foodsecurity/

This study, commissioned by the CaLP, reviews the six coordination mechanisms currently in place in Kenya and Somalia and offers recommendations.

Factors contributing to the success of cash coordination include:
- Strong leadership of technical working groups created trust between members, enabling sharing of good practice.
- Significant resources committed to coordination.
- Independence of the Cash Based Response Working Group (CBRWG) enabled it to conduct strong advocacy for CTP in south central Somalia.
- Quality of the CaLP facilitation and commitment of coordinator.
- During the emergency, huge needs for many organisations to share information acted as a catalyst to launch the cash coordination groups.

“The New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition aims to move 50 million people out of poverty over the next decade  through agricultural growth and development. The centerpiece of the New Alliance is leveraging the private sector to increase investments and expand  agricultural growth.

For many years NGOs have taken a leading role in pioneering the engagement of the private sector in food security. Partnerships between the public and private sectors and NGOs working in the developing world are a key element to the recent success of international food security and nutrition initiatives.

OXFAM GB...“Oxfam and the United Nations World Food Programme are in a unique position to build on the excellent relationships around the IASC Horn of Africa Plan of Action. The plan enhances support to regional and country-led processes that aim to
address chronic hunger and malnutrition, build the resilience of vulnerable livelihoods, and ensure the early, appropriate, and effective scale up of assistance in times of acute crisis.”

 . . . "The ‘R4’ program in Ethiopia, launched as a partnership between Oxfam and the WFP, gives farmers the option of paying for their insurance premiums through labor on projects designed to build community resilience. Projects often include things like soil and water conservation and tree planting."

The monthly Regional Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG) Update for June 2012 focusing on:

Special focus on the Kenya and South Sudan.

Response analysis focusing on urban food security

This paper summarises the existing literature on livelihoods, basic services and social protection in South Sudan; presents a brief analysis of this literature, and lays out potential research questions for the Secure Livelihoods Research...