The FSN Network’s inaugural event, the Spring 2011 FSN Network Technical Meeting, took place on May 9 in Baltimore, MD. The meeting featured a keynote address by Dina Esposito, Director of USAID’s Office of Food for Peace, as well as community building activities and concurrent sessions on key opportunities and constraints facing food security and nutrition implementers. The meeting was an opportunity for networking, sharing information, shaping agendas, learning about and influencing donor priorities, building consensus on best practices, and working to diffuse technical knowledge.
Please see below the list of sessions and presentations (if available). Please note that not all sessions had power point presentations.
Improved Agriculture-Nutrition Linkages through Production and Promotion of Nutrient-Dense Foods
Presented by: Helena Pachon from AgroSalud and Fred Grant from Land O’Lakes
Following the food price crisis of 2007-2008, there was a strong and globally renewed interest in agricultural development. As this interest has developed into concrete initiatives, it has become increasingly evident that efforts aimed at achieving sustained food and nutrition security will require effectively linking the agricultural and nutrition components of food security programs. This subject has recently risen to very near the top of the development agenda. One avenue that has attracted considerable attention is the development, production and promotion of nutrient-dense foods. Home gardening of vegetables and fruits, in particular, has been much discussed. The session looked at other promising approaches, including the production and use of animal-source foods and the biofortification of staple food crops. The role of these approaches in ensuring food security and improved nutrition were discussed as ways forward in the identification and implementation of effective agriculture-nutrition linkages in the broader sense.
Presentation 2 Slides
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Performance Monitoring with Layers: Adapting elements for use in MYAP and M&E systems
Presented by: Gilles Bergeron from Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II (FANTA-2)
Layers is a tool designed to facilitate monitoring and oversight of Title II programs by USAID managers. This is a useful tool for the USAID Missions that need a systematic, rigorous, statistically reliable method for assessing implementers’ delivery of goods and services in Title II activities. Layers is used to assess the implementation of MYAP operations ranging from the conditions of storage in commodity warehouses, to the quality of services delivered by the implementing agencies in their MCHN or agriculture training, Food for Work, food distribution and other interventions.
Layers bundles several methods and technologies into a single package. One of the key methods used in Layers is Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS), a sampling approach originally developed to test the quality of manufactured goods. With LQAS, statistically valid conclusions can be drawn with a relatively small sample size. Layers starts with the assumption that programs are performing adequately; the LQAS sample then allows Layers to identify indicators for which program performance is particularly low.
This session was designed to help participants understand Layers; the indicators it tracks; and where Layers has been implemented to date. In addition, the session explored the significance of Layers to Title II implementers, including potential benefits of Layers; and options and pitfalls when adapting Layers for MYAP Monitoring and Evaluation needs.
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Climate-Adaptive Food Security for Non-Emergency Food Aid Beneficiaries
Presented by: Earl Saxon, Senior Fellow Global Climate Change, AED
Increased climate variability and rapid climate change undermine sustainable development, creating challenges not only to improve development outcomes but also to defend the development achievements of past decades. Climate projections provide sufficient justification to prepare for unprecedented warming, but the magnitude and even the direction of changes in precipitation are unlikely to be well understood before we experience them.
This session explored potential recommendations to PL-480, Title II Awardees on the incorporation of climate-adaptive approaches during the preparation and implementation of Multi-Year Assistance Programs (MYAPs) as well as their exit strategies. The session provided participants with key questions for consideration in assessing whether proposed interventions will reduce climate-related vulnerabilities and support adaptation, taking into account the variability that confronts them across the local regions where they work.
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Social and Behavioral Change: Core competencies and tools for success
Presented by:Tom Davis and Carolyn Wetzel from Food for the Hungry, Phil Moses from FANTA-2 and Ashley Aakesson from PATH
While some Social and Behavioral Change (SBC) tools and methods have been disseminated to health/nutrition staff in some organizations, there are still many organizations that are not using the best tools available for SBC, and gaps exist in staff SBC competencies. Organizations that are using these new tools are often seeing phenomenal changes in behavior (practices) in different sectors. Many of these tools are developed for (or adaptable to) use in non-health/nutrition sectors where they could help improve adoption rates of Ag, NRM and other practices. During this participatory session, participants learned about the top ten core competencies needed for social and behavioral change in food security programs and discuss methods and tools for building these core competencies. They also discussed next steps in assuring that all food security implementers have opportunities to fill in the gaps in their SBC competencies.
Adopting the Prevention of Malnutrition in Under Twos Approach: Theory, reality and the art of the possible
Presented by: Jay Jackson from Mercy Corps Guatemala, Mary Hennigan from Catholic Relief Services, Jef LeRoy and Deanna Olney from International Food Policy Research Institute and Gilles Bergeron from FANTA-2
The session included presentations and discussion on the theory, reality and practical program experiences-to-date with the Prevention of Malnutrition in Under Twos Approach (PM2A) in Burundi and Guatemala.
Presentation 1 Slides
Presentation 2 Slides
Presentation 3 Slides
Presentation 4 Slides
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Operationalizing Gender Integration for Food Security Programming
Presented by: Elizabeth Arlotti Parish, ACDI VOCA, Doris Bartel from CARE, Heather Danton from Save the Children and Grace Funnell from Mercy Corps
There is a growing realization that gender equality and empowerment of women and girls are key to attaining food and nutrition security. It is also increasingly clear that better understanding the roles of women, men, girls and boys in farming and marketing systems, in health systems, and in household and community decision-making can often serve to make food security and nutrition programs more cost efficient and impactful. During this session they discussed how to better integrate gender considerations into their programming. Attendees heard panelists from CARE, Save the Children, ACDI/VOCA and Mercy Corps recount their current and past experiences and strategies for operationalizing gender in food security programs. Afterwards, Sylvia Cabus of USAID's Bureau for Food Security gave an update on the agency's evolving gender strategies and policies. Participants then shared, in a highly animated and interactive exchange, their own personal and organizational challenges and successes. Finally, they mapped a way forward for the FSN Network, with support from the FFP-funded TOPS Program, to build the capacity of food security and nutrition practitioners in this critical area.
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Working Together to Improve Information Systems on Food and Nutrition Security: Examples of recent policy and technical advances
Presented by: Joyce Kangyangwa Luma from World Food Program and Tim Frankenberger from TANGO International
In 2010, FAO and WFP developed individual corporate strategies to guide their work in Information Systems for Food and Nutrition Security (ISFNS). These strategies were prompted in part by the findings and recommendations of the Joint Thematic Evaluation of Information Systems for Food Security of FAO and WFP (2009). The evaluation called for both agencies to strengthen their leadership in ISFNS; promote ISFNS that respond to specific needs of decision makers; promote long-lasting, national multi-stakeholder partnerships; and develop and apply an ISFNS communication and advocacy strategy. The evaluation also recommended that WFP and FAO develop a joint strategy with operational plans for complementary and shared ISFNS support. The Joint Strategy is directly aligned with the individual work of WFP and FAO and takes advantage of their established leadership roles on the global food security stage, with the aim of facilitating unified and coordinated advocacy as well as complementarity of efforts of multiple partners.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) was initiated in Somalia in 2004 as a means of providing meta-analysis of available food security data for informing policy response and the allocation of resources to address widespread food insecurity. It has since developed into a standardized scale that integrates food security, nutrition and livelihood information to create information products for use in decision making at the global, regional and national levels. The IPC process draws on the technical experience and strategic strengths of eight institutional partners (WFP, FAO, CARE, Save the Children UK, Save the Children US, Oxfam, FEWSNET, and the Joint Research Centre (European Commission) to build consensus on appropriate protocols for food security analysis.
This session discussed the joint work to be carried out by FAO and WFP in food and nutrition security information systems, and the technical work being carried out by the IPC Global Support Unit to inform Title II NGOs regarding FSN activities being carried out by institutions outside Title II programs.
Presentation Slides
Presentation Slides
Participant Suggestions for the Way Forward
Seeing Through Their Eyes: Discovering barriers to adoption of agriculture and natural resource management practices
Food security projects invest considerably in promoting practices that will increase agricultural productivity and income, or protect natural resources. Often, however, project participants are slow or even reluctant to adopt the practices that project staff work so hard to promote. In this session, we will discuss how to identify and address the barriers that our project beneficiaries see as obstacles to adopting better agriculture or NRM practices. The session included an overview of the process of behavior change and discussion of forthcoming support from TOPS for Title II projects.
Presented by: Judiann McNulty, Independent ConsultantParticipant Suggestions for the Way Forward