Poverty analysis in the RBAs: WFP’s essential needs analysis and FAO’s rural extreme poverty framework

Either as a corporate objective or as a strategic means to achieve zero hunger, poverty reduction is at heart of the work of the UN Rome-based Agencies (RBAs). FAO, IFAD, and WFP are making efforts to increase their capacity to conduct poverty analysis as a way to improve the effectiveness of their operations. With a view to increase collaboration under this fundamental area of work, the FAO Technical Network on Poverty Analysis (Think-PA) has organized a mini-series of webinars in which the three organizations will exchange knowledge about their current poverty analysis practices. In this first webinar, Lena Hohfeld, Ria Lewis, and Nynne Warring will present WFP’s approach to Essential Needs Analysis. The approach is based on the recognition that a household’s ability to meet food and nutritional requirements depends on its ability to also meet other essential needs, such as water, hygiene, education and health. A deeper understanding of food security therefore requires analysts to look beyond households’ basic food consumption and adopt a holistic approach of examining how households’ essential needs interplay with each other. In their presentation, the speakers will discuss how Essential Needs Analysis is used in WFP to assess household needs, coordinate responses with partners, and inform programming, in particular for cash-based transfers. In the second part of the webinar, Benjamin Davis will give an overview of FAO’s Corporate Framework on Rural Extreme Poverty. Established to orient the work of the organization toward reaching Target 1.1 of the SDGs, the Framework identifies four key areas to reach the rural poor and sets five actions through which FAO is increasing its capacity to reduce rural extreme poverty, including by making increased used of poverty analysis for programme and project design.

SPEAKERS:

L. Hohfeld is an Essential Needs Analyst with WFP’s Research Assessment and Monitoring Division. She holds a PhD in economics from University of Hannover and has worked with the World Bank and the German Institute for Development Evaluation before joining WFP.

R. Lewis is a Programme Officer with WFP’s Cash Based Transfers Division. Before joining WFP she has worked for British Red Cross and Save the Children. She holds an MSc in Violence, Conflict, and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

N. Warring is a VAM Officer with WFP’s Research Assessment and Monitoring Division. Before joining WFP, she has worked for FAO, Innovations for Poverty Action and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She holds a MSc. in economics from University of Copenhagen.

B. Davis is the Leader of the Strategic Programme on Reducing Rural Poverty at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). He previously served as Deputy Director of the Agricultural Development Economics Division and team leader of the From Production to Protection (PtoP) project. Before joining FAO, he has served as Social Policy Advisor at UNICEF and as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at IFPRI. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from UC Berkeley.