Emergency preparedness refers to measures taken in advance to establish capacities and mechanisms to respond rapidly and effectively to disasters when they do occur. This reduces the intensity or scale of any resultant emergency.
Disaster preparedness requires technical assistance for the development of disaster preparedness plans to respond to disasters of different kinds. Institutional structures must be established for the implementation of these plans, and for ongoing staff training. It also involves the development of information systems, including national and regional early warning and food information systems, food insecurity and vulnerability mapping systems. Policies and management guidelines for food security reserve stocks are also necessary. In designing and implementing these information systems, the involvement of a variety of development institutions active in at-risk areas contributes to providing quick, flexible and integrated responses to locally identified needs. These measures aim to reduce the need for costly relief when disaster strikes.
Preparedness: What FAO does For strengthening disaster preparedness, FAO
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FAO assistance to disaster preparedness normally involves the use of consultants, field and Headquarters staff to assist governments and regional organisations in developing preparedness plans. This is done in preparation for drought, hurricanes or cyclones and other disasters affecting the food and agriculture sectors. FAO EMPRES seeks to include preparedness for livestock disease epidemics in national and regional disaster plans. It also assists countries to strengthen their preparedness for such events by providing generic plans for amendment to meet specific national situations and by holding workshops to promote the understanding of the principles of emergency preparedness and contingency planning.
FAO provides technical assistance to national governments and regional organisations to develop preparedness plans for disasters related to food and agriculture. A disaster preparedness plan specifies the status of existing components of disaster preparedness, ways in which these components are to be further developed, and how they can be deployed in the event of a disaster. Once established, the plan needs to be updated regularly to reflect changes in each of the components.
The main areas of FAO technical assistance for disaster preparedness planning are derived from the typical components of disaster preparedness plans, and include the following:
Risk and Vulnerability Profiles: Risk and vulnerability profiles map out the disaster risks faced by the country or region, and likely impacts and needs based on past experience and that of neighbouring countries or regions. This includes:
Past and ongoing risk and vulnerability assessment work should be reviewed. Much of this work falls within the remit of food security information systems.
Food Security Information Systems: Preparedness plans need to provide a summary of the status, outputs and use of national and (where appropriate) regional food security information systems and their inter-linkages (for more details see Section 2.2 of this Handbook).
Institutional Framework: Responsibilities for preparing the disaster preparedness plan; for updating its various elements, and for implementing it need to be clarified. Thereby the role of government agencies, parastatals, non-governmental and community organisations, international, bilateral and regional agencies, and relationships between them need to be outlined. Details of responsible officers within each institution, including contact details should be included.
Resource Base: Information on the resource base for responding to disasters, as well as measures undertaken to improve resource availability is required. This includes the following:
Training and Public Education: Information on completed, ongoing or planned disaster preparedness training and public education is required in preparedness plans. This includes the promotion, assisted by FAO and other UN agencies, NGOs and government institutions, of community level "insurance" systems. These systems amount to local-level preparedness plans for limiting the risk to food security and nutrition of recurrent threats such as locust outbreaks, drought, hurricanes or landslides, or conflict.
Response Mechanisms and Contingency Plans: Situation-specific response measures need be elaborated in disaster preparedness plans. These include the following:
The Food Security and Agricultural Projects Analysis Service (ESAF) provides technical assistance to develop the capacity of government institutions and specialised units to operate information systems on actual or impending crises affecting food security. There are three sub-regional systems operated by inter-governmental authorities, 40 national-level systems operated by governments, and numerous sub-national systems which are often operated by local or international NGOs. With FAO's help, information and methodologies are shared between sub-national, national and regional levels.
FAO's Field Programme normally involves a range of international and national consultancy services including project management, agricultural statistics, agro-meteorology, socio-economics, nutrition and data management or systems analysis. This is backed up by vehicles, communications, offices, agro-meteorological and nutritional surveillance equipment, and national, regional and international training programmes.
Within the constraints of data availability, information systems aim to identify the food security information needs of decision-makers and other users, and also support improvements in the coverage, detail and reliability of available food security related data to develop the capacity to meet these needs more adequately. Such information systems all have the same basic components:
Each of these components benefits from technical support, channelled through ESAF, from the relevant FAO technical divisions. This support includes the development of methodologies for early warning which are made available at each of the levels described below.
At the national level, there are two basic systems, Food Security and Nutrition Information Systems (FSNIS) and Early Warning and Food Information System (EWFIS).
Food Security and Nutrition Information Systems (FSNIS) aims to establish and maintain a bank of data and provide information necessary for the assessment of the situation in the medium term and for the elaboration of medium food security strategies to long term ones. Due to its medium and long-term focus, it is not considered to be an appropriate tool for early warning. FSNIS relies strongly on high quality data and on assembling statistical tools and analytical processes. A prerequisite for its establishment is the use of highly trained and qualified personnel and thus it requires considerable time and investment before becoming operational.
Early Warning and Food Information System (EWFIS) may exist alongside and share a common management structure with FSNIS. However, EWFIS has different objectives, uses different methods, and aims to function as a permanent utility. Its objective is to permit better preparation for and response to disasters in disaster-prone countries. EWFIS should be conceived as an integral part of a disaster planning strategy in providing `sentinel' monitoring of agricultural production, markets, nutritional status and population movements. It also provides a capacity for the rapid assessment of emergency needs in the event of a disaster. The focus in this handbook is on the operation of this type of system, which is the more relevant in the context of emergencies.
EWFIS have the following characteristics:
In line with the above mentioned characteristics, EWFIS comprise a network with a number of components which together permit the triggering of actions addressing food and nutrition security in the short- and medium-term.
Such a network needs to function at appropriate levels of decentralisation. EWFIS's effectiveness depends on three major parameters. It needs to take into account the prevailing political and administrative system. The level at which participating agencies which can contribute to the provision of relevant information needs to be determined. Finally it is contingent on the level at which collaborative and consultative structures (committees and the like) involved in relief and rehabilitation are operating or likely to operate. Such committees are likely to be prime users of EWFIS outputs.
FAO technical assistance may include provision of support at both central and decentralised levels. At the central level, a small technical unit is normally established to collect, analyse and disseminate information. This unit would commonly be supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture and consist of a small team including an economist/marketing specialist, a statistician, an agrometeorologist and a nutritionist.
Functional components within an EWFIS are normally the following:
Agricultural Statistics
For an EWFIS the gathering of statistics serves mainly for the approximate but reliable estimation of crop harvests. Where no reliable data exists in a situation of emergency, this may require an initial, rapid survey to gain an indication of the agricultural situation. Thereafter, a small survey may be conducted each season, based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative information on the state of harvests. Both types of surveys entail development of a relatively simple methodology for data collection, processing and analysis, along with the requisite training of enumerators.
Agro-Meteorology and Remote Sensing
Expected EWFIS output consists principally of harvest forecasts based on rainfall data supplemented by satellite images for cloud cover and the state of vegetation. This requires:
Monitoring of Markets
In EWFIS this can be achieved through defining indicators for monitoring supply and demand conditions in markets. A simple methodology for the collection and interpretation of information for these indicators is developed along with the necessary training of enumerators.
Nutritional Surveillance
Nutritional surveillance activities may include a baseline survey to gain a rapid appreciation of acute malnutrition from simple indicators (e. g. mid-upper arm circumference for under-fives), aimed at identifying households or individuals within households which are in a critical food and nutrition situation. This provides targets for relief and rehabilitation interventions. It may also include the selection of simple indicators, for example adult Body Mass Index (body weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in metres) to permit regular monitoring of the food security situation of these households and their communities.
Vulnerability Monitoring and Needs Assessment
This component calls for monitoring and assessing the needs of vulnerable groups, households or individuals, which are at risk of becoming undernourished. i.e. people for whom food availability, stability or access are such that minimum food requirements might not be met in the future, either if present conditions deteriorate even marginally (the chronically/structurally vulnerable), or because they are in such a position due to a natural disaster or man-made crisis (acute vulnerability). Vulnerability monitoring by EWFIS tends to concentrate on acute vulnerability and involves:
Information Dissemination
Based on the type and frequency of information necessary for users, the EWFIS technical unit determines the form, content and frequency of information dissemination. Information collection at the national level will be organised by the unit to obtain the type of information required at the desired frequency.
A functioning system with all the above components may remain fully intact only in "normal" times. A modular approach is therefore recognised as the most realistic, with different modules proposed according to the circumstances in which the EWFIS is used with respect to the disaster and consequent emergency.
In a situation of extreme emergency, the objective of information collection is to allow assessment of the impact of the disaster on food security and on populations in need. Therefor it is an assessment of immediate needs.
Principal information users are the agencies (national, international, public or private) providing emergency humanitarian assistance, which may also be information providers. Thus an information network can be created or strengthened, enabling co-ordination of information gathered by the various actors. The co-ordination can be performed by a national unit established to manage emergencies, or by an agency with a prominent role in humanitarian assistance.
In a situation of emergence from crisis when institutional structures for the proper functioning of a permanent EWFIS are still weak, objectives are:
The group of users is broadened to include government services (central and decentralised) and principal civil society actors who intervene in the food security domain. Early warning functions are pursued through regular monitoring of a small number of indicators (rainfall, vegetation index, price, adult Body Mass Index and/or other indicators defined by participants in the system) based on the existing information network which will have been reinforced by methodological and training support.
In a "normal" situation the EWFIS objective is to observe the short-term situation, based on monitoring and analysis of a matrix of indicators, quantitative forecasts of anticipated developments and provision of information necessary for taking decisions in the event of a deterioration in the food situation or the declaration of a situation of emergency.
With FAO support, regional level information systems in the food security domain are operated by three intergovernmental authorities in Africa:
CILSS, IGAD and SADC are regional counterparts to the national EWFIS and FSNIS, and serve to enhance preparedness for and response to disasters and emergencies, within their constituencies. Their work focuses on:
GIEWS is based at FAO Headquarters in Rome and managed by the Global Information and Early Warning Service (ESCG). The system is now a world-wide network which includes 116 governments, three regional organisations, 61 NGOs and numerous trade, research and media organisations. Sub-national, national and regional level EWFIS and FSNISs are important sources of GIEWS information. GIEWS provides global analyses of food security information which is useful for monitoring global markets and events and trends in neighbouring countries or regions. (See also Phases Three and Four - Early Warning and Impact and Immediate Needs Assessment).
Several units in FAO and several agencies outside FAO are engaged in the collection, analysis and dissemination of information related to food insecurity and vulnerability. The 1996 World Food Summit called upon FAO to co-ordinate the development of a consolidated information system on hunger and chronic vulnerability, including the nature and degree of risk of hunger at sub-national levels. A technical consultation on a Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) held at FAO in 1997 recommended the preparation of guidelines for the establishment of FIVIMS at the national level. The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) further recommended that national governments be fully involved in the development of FIVIMS guidelines. Draft guidelines have since been drawn up and reviewed by an Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) as well as by the CFS at its meeting in June 1998. Most national governments already provide FIVIMS-related data and information to international institutions as part of well-established co-operative agreements. This information will be used to generate a global FIVIMS to allow for inter-country analyses and comparisons under guidance from the CFS.
Many different partners have participated in the development of FIVIMS. Contributions include: FAO's Food and Nutrition Division's (ESN's) work on food and nutrition surveillance and information; GIEWS/SCF Risk Mapping Project (see Phase Three - Early Warning, p. 3); WFP's Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) programme; FEWSNET's vulnerability assessment work; as well as work on vulnerability analysis and mapping work by other relief agencies and research institutions around the world. FAO is already working actively to ensure close co-operation between the various organisations involved in this field.
FAO contributes to the global exchange of information on disasters and emergencies through information posted on the FAO World Wide Web sites. This includes information under FAO's Global Watch, such as the profiles, reports and alerts posted by GIEWS.
ReliefWeb is OCHA's international information system on emergencies which is disseminated via the World Wide Web. It has become an indispensable tool for agency co-ordination in relief work. Relief Web assembles and updates information on the status of all emergencies, appeals and relief operations from international, bilateral, NGO government and media sources on a daily basis. The information is then organised into a database and can be retrieved by source, implementing agency, date, type of disaster/emergency, country or type of operation.
FAO contributes to ReliefWeb through its data on food aid requirements as a part of the GIEWS cereal supply/demand balance sheet. It also contributes to the agricultural input aspects of the UN Consolidated Appeals, information stemming from FAO's Special Relief Operations Service web page, and GIEWS outputs including regular reports, alerts (see Phase Three - Early Warning) and other links to FAO Web sites.
Over several decades, publicly-held inter-annual stocks of food staples have been developed as an instrument of food policy and planning serving one or more of the principal objectives:
In developing policy on stocks, governments have had to consider the relative costs and constraints of three basic options in response to supply fluctuations: changing the level of domestic food stocks, changing the level of food imports, or allowing consumption levels to change. The lead-time associated with arranging imports/exports and the need to prevent unacceptable drops in food consumption affects the level at which the optimal mix between the three lies. This critical policy issue has tended to revolve around the means and the extent to which domestic food grain stocks should be built up to achieve satisfactory levels of food security. This has entailed important trade-offs between the degree of food security achieved, as reflected in consumption levels and domestic prices, and the costs incurred by government, as reflected in foreign exchange expenditures and domestic budgetary costs.
These objectives are of course inter-linked. For example, failures in food access for vulnerable groups may be averted by use of national or sub-national level reserves to stabilise local food prices. The same physical stocks may be used to serve more than one objective according to their spatial distribution within the country. Nevertheless, the objectives have different implications for size, location, the cost of stocks and the rules of managing them. The domestic price regimes for food staples, impacts on farmer incentives, private sector food markets, logistics and infrastructure requirements and the balance between private and public sector activity are also affected by the objectives.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the parastatals running FSRs supported by FAO saw the elimination of their price stabilisation functions. FSRs have often failed to stabilise prices effectively and efficiently. At the same time, a reduced role for government or parastatal involvement in food markets has been part of a more general trend towards implementation of market liberalisation policy. Consequently, the prime function of FSRs has become one of preparedness to provide food assistance of some kind to targeted food-insecure groups in the event of a disaster.
The shift in the emphasis of FSR objectives implies a corresponding shift in the optimum size, spatial distribution, and management of FSRs. Price stabilisation objectives led to reserves being predominantly large, located in or near main sources of supply (ports, rail termini or large-scale commercial farming zones) or demand (cities and towns) and managed centrally by a parastatal marketing board. FSRs for disaster preparedness need to be located close to the most food insecure groups of the population. These groups are dispersed across large rural areas, implying a need for a more decentralised pattern of smaller storage units. They must be capable of responding to local food security conditions, implying a management structure linked with an effective early warning and food information system. FSRs must collaborate closely with decision-making and operational structures for disaster management and emergency food assistance, including those of donors, NGOs and local civil society.
This in goes hand in hand with improvements in management standards for FSR operation. Reduced global availability of food aid has weakened donor confidence in the role of FSRs and has diminished the donors' willingness to support them. LIFDCs, which bear the additional burdens of being disaster-prone and land-locked with sizeable food-insecure populations in remote areas, would benefit from the reinvigoration of FSRs. The costs to donors and relief agencies of reaching target groups in these countries can be reduced greatly by well managed and strategically placed FSRs.
Over the last two decades, FAO has provided technical assistance to governments for developing FSRs policies, for the establishing national food reserves, for the development and strengthening of storage infrastructure, for the management of such stocks and for associated training activities.
In the context of this support, FAO has developed methodologies for policy work in this area, including tools for modelling the food economy which can be adapted to actual or simulated country circumstances, such as:
These tools allow analysts to assess alternative policies on stocks and other aspects of food security policy in terms of their impact on producers, consumers and taxpayers, on the efficiency of public interventions and on selected food security indicators such as market price levels and the consumption of vulnerable groups.
In countries facing the circumstances described above, FAO deploys expertise to help governments reconstitute and restructure FSRs in a form which is better tailored to the needs of disaster preparedness. Assistance is provided for determining their optimum size and location. The most appropriate storage methods are determined with respect to the facilities that are already in place. Support is also given to meet new requirements of FSR management for effective acquisition and analysis information and for collaboration with other actors in the food security arena. Principles and procedures for procurement are realigned and maintenance and utilisation of stocks is facilitated. This support strongly complements FAO's support for early warning and food information systems (see also Phase One - Prevention).
