FS_Introduction

Livelihood security is the assessment, of a household’s sustainable and adequate access to income and resources, to meet basic needs. The goal in analyzing livelihood security is to answer questions about availability, access, quality, and utilization of income and resources to meet basic household needs. Livelihood security strategy views the household as a system influenced by various interrelated factors. Thus, improving livelihood status is difficult, given that many factors affect and influence it.

There are six categories of needs, which are considered essential to a person’s well-being, that comprise livelihood security: food, education, water & sanitation, health services, shelter, and community participation. Each of the six categories has a variety of indicators that are used for assessment. Each impacts an individual’s health and well-being in different ways, with some having more immediate effects than others. Yet, it is important that all six categories are available, accessible, of particular quality, and utilized at a sufficient level to promote growth and social well-being in the lives of all people. Livelihood security takes into account all relationships between factors, identifying the most pertinent problems, and searching for the projects that are likely to produce the greatest synergistic result(s) (Collins, 1999). Following are more detailed descriptions of each category and indicators to measure them.

Household food security refers to a household’s ability to acquire food. A working definition is, "A household is food secure when it has access to the food needed for a healthy life for all of its members (adequate in terms of quality, quantity, safety and culturally acceptable), and when it is not at undue risk of losing such access" (Gillespie & Mason, 1991). Food insecurity may result from chronic, acute and/or seasonal deficits in food available to the household. These may in turn result from inadequate wages, poor production, high food prices, or inadequate access to markets.

The ability of a household to command adequate food resources is primarily dependent upon assets and/or income. In agrarian societies land ownership has been shown to be a sensitive indicator of wealth, and studies have indicated that undernutrition is associated with the lack of such productive assets and/or low effective income.

What processes or factors predispose populations to such problems? In seeking to answer this question we need to distinguish between 1) chronic and acute food insecurity, and 2) long-term trends and sudden ‘shocks’ or disasters. The means to prevent or alleviate deprivation will differ according to whether the situation has arisen through a long-term deterioration or through a sudden, external shock, such as drought or war.

Acute food insecurity may be triggered by seasonal fluctuations in food availability, food prices and/or incomes, which themselves may result in seasonal fluctuations in individual nutritional status. Depending on the level of vulnerability of a household, transitory periods of food insecurity may precipitate the chronic condition. A household that cannot cope with seasonality in this way may be thought of as ‘fragile’, while a household that weathers such periodic crises is more ‘resilient’ (Oshaug 1988).

Household food security has dimensions both of time (e.g. current, near future, distant future) and of a wide range of social, economic and environmental conditions. The table below categorizes determinants into their corresponding time-relevant level of food security. For example, the loss of income is going to affect the immediate quantity and quality of one’s current consumption, whereas employment security (possibility of losing one’s job) impacts the prospects of near future food acquisition. Thus, the type and timeliness of interventions would vary according to what is causing the food insecurity.

Levels of Household Food Security
Level of security	Determinants	Outcome
Current	Income Prices Production Stores Other entitlements including social security	Daily mean kcal and nutrient consumption
Near Future	Drought Employment security Ill-health	Future food acquisition
Distant Future	Environmental degradation Land pressure Migration	Sustainability of livelihoods

Source: Gillespie & Mason, 1991: Nutrition Relevant Actions, Some Experiences from the Eighties and Lessons for the Nineties

Another consideration: What does it cost to become food secure, in terms of the amount of human and economic resources required? This concept has been illustrated using the matrix below (Jonsson & Toole 1991). The priority group lies in the top right-hand box; these are households that despite using a large proportion of their available resources, remain food-insecure.

Another matter: What constitutes ‘low’, or ‘adequacy?’ The figure below illustrates how in principle we should be able to use proxies to measure the levels of food security. On the edges of the spectrum people either gain or lose weight, and in the middle are different levels of activity, based on an individual’s ability to access food and avoid constantly being hungry. As a person (or household) gains more income or resources their dietary energy intake increases, the percentage of income spent of food decreases, behavior is less food-directed, and life generally becomes more pleasant.

Another concept that is important to understand, in regards to acquiring food for a household, is food consumption pattern as it relates to household income (Engel's Law). As household income increases, the percentage of income of food decreases. At some point food consumption reaches a maximum (biological limit), but income does not have a maximum. The far left-hand side of the graph, where income is low, the percent of expenditure on food is high but not 100% due to certain commodities that are required in society (committed expenditure), such as clothing and shelter. The graph below illustrates this concept:

In some developing countries where the very poor's household income is extremely low (practically zero), the Engel's Law curve is slightly different.

There are many indicators used to measure levels of food security, varying widely depending on country, occupation, and geography. A number of subcategories within food security exist that make it easier to grasp its scope and its indicators: food, agriculture, and income/assets. It is important to keep in mind that although there are three different categories, all are tied very closely together. For example, an outcome of agriculture could be a determinant of food, such as production determining the number of meals per day or the number of months of self-provisioning. Also, one may see similar indicators under other headings depending on the classification of indicators and what the particular question may be. The following is a description of potentially useful indicators that are possible guides for analysis.

In general, probably the most telling measures in acute food insecurity situations are 1) the frequency and severity of consumption-related coping strategies, and 2) the number of months of self-provisioning.

Access to and utilization of education provides the means to improve the household status socially and economically, as well as preparing people to exercise better decision-making that will directly affect the security of the household. Common outcome indicators for measuring education levels are percentage of school-age children in school, percentage of people (women) who have completed primary or secondary school, and percent literate. At the programming level, we need to consider determinants of education level, such as:

Health services are key to the health and livelihood of a household, for without proper health care many aspects of people’s lives can be compromised if illness is not prevented or treated: attendance at work, attendance at school, appetite (young children esp.), participation in community, and ability to care for family members. One must keep in mind that health service access is tied to other parts of an individual’s/household’s situation, such as SES and education level. In order to assess health services, outcome variables such as % children immunized or % children delivered in health centers (or by trained health professionals) can be measured. Once those have been measured, questions regarding the availability, access, quality, and utilization may be posed to discover why or why not the outcome is good or ideal. For example:

Questions such as these tease out what programmatically is responsible for or associated strongly with the outcome.

Assessing the shelter or housing conditions of a given household is fairly simple since the information is almost always included in surveys as general demographic information (usually as a economic proxy). Housing material quality varies from location to location, but generally speaking household income, or lack thereof, dictates the housing structure and quality. Housing that is more permanent, solid (cement vs. metal, metal vs. grass), and sizeable indicates better security. Some common measures of housing quality:

Poor water & sanitation have proven to be probably the greatest factors associated with poor health within the household setting. There are a number of factors that influence, or interact with, water and sanitation to effect better or worse outcomes in health. But even if water & sanitation are the only areas of program intervention focus, they can significantly improve household health. Yet, it is important to always test for factors that may have a synergistic effect with water or sanitation. The reason being is that the positive effects of a particular program intervention may be lost if there is a factor (such as health care access) that is not accounted for but is also needed as a program intervention, in order for health status to improve.

Many times the outcome indicator for assessing the quality of water source is the percentage of households with a 'good' or 'safe' source. However, when assessing water source quality one must keep in mind that it is very difficult to define what is 'good' water and what is not. This problem exists because there are a number of factors that determine whether the water a household is using is good; for example, the hh’s usage of hygiene practices. If people are contaminating the water after or during extraction of it, then it makes no difference how clean the source is. Another factor might be that the source itself is contaminated (even if it is a well). Without proper testing or knowledge of the region/district, one could make incorrect assumptions about what is a good source of water. One of the best ways to assess if households are consuming clean water is to find out how many are boiling or bleaching water before usage, but unfortunately this information is not always collected, or it is unrealistic in practice. Generally speaking though, water that is piped directly into the household (or a sealed well with a pump) is the best source, whereas surface water (river, pond, lake) is the worst.

As for sanitation, assessing the quality is much easier: having a flush toilet is the best, although a sealed pit latrine is also quite good, and using the 'bush' or the like is worst. Some output indicators:

In many localities community organizations provide a number of services and/or activities to increase the cohesion amongst those households living in the area. Monetary assistance for funerals, family planning education, counseling related to violence, extension services for export crops, and savings or credit activities are only a few examples. These community organizations also serve as receiving mechanisms for outside assistance, providing more capacity to cope in situations of hardship, and as bodies that can facilitate demand.

It naturally seems difficult to measure the level of community participation quantitatively, but there are a few indicators that can be useful in assessing the current participation. Along with these following indicators, qualitative forms of data would be necessary to collect in order to fully understand community participation.

Methods of assessing and monitoring food security can focus on the trend or cross-country comparisions, national level data, and tracking vulnerable groups. Data relevant to national food security generally combines food availability (derived from food balance sheets) or income (GDP) with estimates of distributions of these. Ideally, measuring household food security status would involve measuring household food availability and average household food consumption levels over a period of time. There are considerable constraints in these measurements and in the interpretations of the assessment. Daily energy consumption probably varies greatly from day to day -- a measurement over a 24 hour period would highlight some well-off household who happened to eat little that day and vice versa. Daily intake is too fine of a measurement; however, low-intake over a week or month is meaningful. For more global assessment, averaging over a period of one years time is appropriate:

**Methods for Measuring Different Aspects of Household Food Security (within countries)**
*Data Type/Source*	Timely Warning	Longer Term Planning
*Data Type/Source*		(a) Levels of HFS: for design of major long-term interventions	(b) Changes in HFS: for triggering intervetions
Crop Forecasting: rainfall, crop and livestock reports, satellite data	Initial "yellow light" warnings	---	Applicable if interventions predesigned (if so, like timely warning)
Household Surveys
a.g. production	---	may be important	may be useful if system in place
expenditure	---	may be worth setting up specially e.g. every 5 years	useful annually only if system in place
consumption module		may be worth adding to household survey system e.g. every 5 years	probably too costly and slow to analyze
small assessment	may be useful if system in place	probably too imprecise	important for e.g. annual update cf. larger survey
rapid assessment	useful e.g. for dietary pattern shift, migration, distress sales	for understanding causality rather than quant est. of HFS levels	may be useful
nutrition (anthropometric) module	wasting in children is key indicator	useful, should be added to household survey system	useful annually if system in place
Market Surveys	Important for food price changes	---	important data source, relate to wages
Clinics, Schools
general reports	e.g. migration, use of famine foods	---	may be useful if changes are large
anthropometry	as food crisis indicators and mgt. relief	---	data from weighing programs may be useful to monitor change
Community Rapid Assessment	useful for migration, responses to impending shortages, local opinions	understanding causality rather than quant.est. of HFS	may be useful
Press Reports	very important when free press	---	may be useful
Sentinel Sites	worth testing to report market prices and anthropometry	could be useful if system in place for change monitoring	worth testing if response mechanism in place, as for timely warning
Source: Mason J., 1992.

FS Home	Section 1: Introduction
Section 1: Introduction
Section 2: Coping Strategies
Section 3: Computing
Section 4: Analysis Ex. (HLS Bangladesh)
Section 5: Analysis Ex. (HLS Kenya)

Costs of Achieving Household Food Security
	Household food-secure	Household food-insure
Uses a large proportion of available resources	Food-secure, bur at great risk (vulnerable)	Worst off
Uses a small proportion of available resources	Best off	Not too difficult to improve