Famine Early Warning Systems Network

Last updated February 15, 2022

Map of countries in FEWS NET Fews-net-around-the-world-en.png — Map of countries in FEWS NET

FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, is a website of information and analysis on food insecurity created in 1985 by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the US Department of State, after famines in East and West Africa. In 2008, Molly E. Brown argued that during its twenty years of activity, FEWS NET had been extremely successful. She said that it was widely viewed as "the most effective program in existence for providing information to governments about impending food crises".^[1]

Aims

FEWS NET aims at providing information to governments, international relief agencies, NGOs, journalists, and researchers planning for, responding to, and reporting on humanitarian crises. With support from a technical team in Washington, D.C., FEWS NET staff based in more than 20 country offices collaborate with US government agencies, national government ministries and international partners to collect data and produce objective, forward-looking analysis on the world's most food-insecure countries. Using an integrated approach that considers climate, agriculture production, prices, trade, nutrition, and other factors, together with an understanding of local livelihoods, FEWS NET forecasts most likely outcomes and anticipates change six to twelve months in advance. To help decision-makers and relief agencies plan for food emergencies, FEWS NET publishes monthly reports (available on its web site) on current and projected food insecurity, up-to-the-minute alerts on emerging or likely crises, and specialized reports on weather hazards, crops, market prices, and food assistance.

In 2010, to mark its 25th anniversary, FEWS NET produced a video to document its work.^[2]

Methodology

FEWS NET reporting focuses on acute food insecurity—sudden and/or short-term household food deficits caused by shocks—rather than chronic food insecurity, ongoing or cyclical food deficits related to persistent poverty and a lack of assets. In general, food insecurity is rarely the result of one causal factor. The strength and reliability of FEWS NET forecasting lies in its integrated consideration of the diversity of factors that lead to risk. Along with agricultural production, climate and weather, FEWS NET places analytical importance on markets and trade, livelihoods and sociopolitical issues such as conflict and humanitarian response. Key elements of FEWS NET's methodology include:

Classifying food insecurity: FEWS NET describes the severity of food insecurity using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification version 2.0 (IPC 2.0), an international five-level scale. FEWS NET representatives were among the international food security leaders who designed the scale.
Scenario development is at the heart of FEWS NET's analytical process. In the simplest terms, scenario development can be described as a sophisticated “if-then” statement. In practice, this nine-step methodology relies on the creation of specific, informed assumptions about future events, their effects, and the likely responses of various actors. Considered in the context of current conditions and local livelihoods, these assumptions allow for the estimation of future food security outcomes and easy updating of the scenario as new information becomes available.
Remote monitoring: Since the 2008 global food price crisis, the risk of food insecurity has continued to rise in unexpected places. In 2010, FEWS NET responded to the demand for information on these new areas of concern by developing a lighter, scalable version of its traditional methodology. This approach, known as remote monitoring, centers on the identification and monitoring of anomalies that might lead to food insecurity. In remote monitoring, a FEWS NET coordinator covers a portfolio of countries, typically from a nearby regional office. Relying on a network of partners to collect and share data, the coordinator analyzes available information and produces monthly, two-page reports describing the current and projected food security situation.

Partners

Along with USAID, other US agencies make integral analytical contributions to FEWS NET reports. They include:

the US Geological Survey, which provides regular agroclimatology reports and technical advice on vegetation, water availability and other environmental and climate issues. Along with US-based staff, three USGS scientists in East, West and Southern Africa, offer analysis specific to those regions.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, through the Climate Prediction Center, provides rainfall estimates (RFEs) and atmospheric monitoring of weather patterns such as El Nino and La Nina events.
NASA satellites provide imagery and raw data for USGS and NOAA analysis.
the US Department of Agriculture, through the Foreign Agricultural Service, partners with FEWS NET on crop assessments and other agriculture-related activities.

Chemonics, an international development company, supports FEWS NET's home office in Washington DC, as well as some 80 field-based staff, most of whom are nationals of the countries in which they work.

FEWS NET works closely with partners in the food security community, including international organizations such as the World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization and national ministries of agriculture and trade and national weather services. In certain countries, partnerships may involve joint reporting, joint field assessments and/or collaborative analysis. Examples of these partners include Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel in West Africa and the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit in Somalia.

History

FEWS NET was created in response to the 1984 - 1985 famines in Sudan and Ethiopia, which resulted in the deaths of as many as 1 million people. From the beginning, the aim of the early warning system, then called "FEWS", was to anticipate impending famines and advise policy makers on how to prevent or mitigate such famines. In July 2000, the initiative's name was changed to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, to signal the importance of collaborating with and strengthening national local food security information systems.

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A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. In the 19th and 20th century, generally characterized Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe, in terms of having suffered most number of deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent in the world.

In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the field of hunger relief, the term hunger is used in a sense that goes beyond the common desire for food that all humans experience. The most extreme form of hunger, when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to sufficient, nutritious food, leads to a declaration of famine.

Food security is the measure of the availability of food and individuals' ability to access it. According to the United Nations' Committee on World Food Security, food security is defined as meaning that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life. The availability of food irrespective of class, gender or region is another one. There is evidence of food security being a concern many thousands of years ago, with central authorities in ancient China and ancient Egypt being known to release food from storage in times of famine. At the 1974 World Food Conference, the term "food security" was defined with an emphasis on supply; food security is defined as the "availability at all times of adequate, nourishing, diverse, balanced and moderate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices". Later definitions added demand and access issues to the definition. The first World Food Summit, held in 1996, stated that food security "exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."

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Famine scales are the ways in which degrees of food security are measured, from situations in which an entire population has adequate food to full-scale famine. The word "famine" has highly emotive and political connotations and there has been extensive discussion among international relief agencies offering food aid as to its exact definition. For example, in 1998, although a full-scale famine had developed in southern Sudan, a disproportionate amount of donor food resources went to the Kosovo War. This ambiguity about whether or not a famine is occurring, and the lack of commonly agreed upon criteria by which to differentiate food insecurity has prompted renewed interest in offering precise definitions. As different levels of food insecurity demand different types of response, there have been various methods of famine measurement proposed to help agencies determine the appropriate response.

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Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation programme coordinated and managed by the European Commission in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the EU Member States and EU agencies.

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The Feinstein International Center (FIC) is a research and teaching center based at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. The Center promotes the use of evidence and learning in operational and policy responses to protect and strengthen the lives, livelihoods, and dignity of people affected by humanitarian crises.

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Food prices refer to the average price level for food across countries, regions and on a global scale. Food prices have an impact on producers and consumers of food.

2017 South Sudan famine Famine in South Sudan caused by instability and war

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Food insecurity in Niger is a growing concern, with more than 1.5 million people affected in the year 2017.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity has intensified in many places – in the second quarter of 2020 there were multiple warnings of famine later in the year. According to early predictions, hundreds of thousands of people would likely die and millions more experience hunger without concerted efforts to address issues of food security. As of October 2020, these efforts were reducing the risk of widespread starvation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sustainable Development Goal 2 aims to achieve "zero hunger". It is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015. The official wording is: "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture". SDG 2 highlights the complex inter-linkages between food security, nutrition, rural transformation and sustainable agriculture. According to the United Nations, there are around 690 million people who are hungry, which accounts for 10 percent of the world population. One in every nine people goes to bed hungry each night, including 20 million people currently at risk of famine in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Nigeria.

References

↑ Brown, Molly E. (2008). "The Future of FEWS NET". Famine Early Warning Systems and Remote Sensing Data . Springer. pp. 297–309. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-75369-8_18. ISBN 978-3-540-75367-4. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
↑ "FEWS NET 25th ANNIVERSARY VIDEO". 24 October 2011.

External links

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[Brown2008_FEWS_NET_future-1] Brown, Molly E. (2008). "The Future of FEWS NET". Famine Early Warning Systems and Remote Sensing Data . Springer. pp. 297–309. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-75369-8_18. ISBN 978-3-540-75367-4. Archived from the original on 2021-02-10. Retrieved 2021-02-10.

[2] "FEWS NET 25th ANNIVERSARY VIDEO". 24 October 2011.

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