Thank you to Neil Fisher of Action Against Hunger in Malawi for posting a number of items yesterday. Anyone who would particularly like to see them is welcome to request them from: aah@globemw.net

Neil's email points refer us back to previous discussion about the real wage: maize price ratio, and also the role of fertilizer prices and availability in explaining the precarious state of food production under customary tenure in Malawi. These are useful points to keep emphasizing, as they indicate the potentially beneficial impacts of a more proactive agricultural policy than has been permitted in southern African countries (and Malawi in particular) since the liberalisation agenda took hold. Neil also attached a number of documents that will be useful for providing some detail in the revision of the vulnerability theme paper, when this next occurs.

I believe that this e-discussion is now drawing to a close, so if any of the participants in it have anything to add, please do so over the next 24 hours or so. While there has not been a voluminous quantity of interchanges over the period of the e-discussion, the interventions that have been made have covered serious points, have been of high quality, and are substantively helpful in improving the theme paper. They have also drawn my attention to documents or bodies of knowledge that I had not previously taken sufficiently into account in drafting the original version of the theme paper.

I would like to thank all participants for the time and effort taken to put forward your ideas and areas of expertise with respect to vulnerability and food security in southern African countries.

Top

Apart from one affirmative comment on an earlier interchange, we did not get enormously far with regard to the policy framework within which efforts to reduce people's vulnerability will be located in the foreseeable future. Never mind, I am posting a last set of questions here which are to do with vulnerability assessment methods, on which we have already had some very useful comments and insights from the Food Economy Group.

I would like to thank those of you who have made an effort to engage with the discussion so far, and I shall attempt in a couple of days to send out my thoughts on where we have got to and where the priorities must be for the future. Anyway, here are the Qs for 18 and 19 June.

4. Role and scope of vulnerability assessments in 2001-03 and beyond

Discussion: 18-19 June 2003
The southern African countries have an apparently workable famine early warning system (FEWS). Vulnerability assessment methods (CVAs and VAMs) are increasingly utilised both in support of that system, or as standalone exercises designed to gauge short and long term trends in vulnerability, esp. in rural populations.

4.1 what were the defects in your view of the vulnerability information available at the time that a crisis began to unfold for some rural populations in 2001?

4.2 how much was data availability at fault as the crisis developed in 2001-2002, and how much of the subsequent substantial food gap arose due to unhelpful behaviours by governments or donors or both?

4.3 are there improvements in vulnerability assessment methods, or in the integration of different types of information that would prove valuable for avoiding future crises of this kind?

4.4 are you happy with the institutional and organisational structures within which food security information systems are embedded, or could these be improved?

4.5 how can vulnerability assessment methods be expanded to take into account some of the long term contextual factors that were discussed in Session 2 of this e-discussion?

Top

Very interesting comments and information! We should note that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has systematically decreased households' ability to cope with environmental and economic shocks. In fact, women-headed and child-headed households are in any case more vulnerably to such shocks. My point is that the impact of HIV/AIDS has made the situation worse for households that are already vulnerable because of poverty conditions.

Top

The weekend was marked, perhaps unsurprisingly, by relatively little activity concerning the questions that were posed for discussion on 14-15 June. However, a very useful general response to the Theme Paper was provided by Jennifer Bush of the Food Economy Group. This was concerned with differences and agreements between the Household Food Economy (HFE) approach and the synthesis of ideas contained in the Theme Paper. The detailed comments will be very useful for the revision of the Theme Paper. One factor stands out in particular, and that is the widely reported finding from HFE studies that even the poorest apparently subsistence agriculturalists depend to generate more of their total "income" status from non-farm activities and links (esp. into urban areas) than from their farming activities on their own. This corroborates evidence from numerous livelihoods studies, and points to strengthening urban income generation as a way of also raising rural incomes; a deduction that needs a lot of further debate and refinement because is flies in the face of quite a few "grand theories" about the way growth and poverty reduction relate to each other. Many thanks to Jennifer Bush for the time taken to put together that set of observations.

In the next two days, the focus shifts to current "policy frameworks" viz. PRSPs and decentralisation. How are these going to help reduce vulnerability in the region:

3. Contribution of emerging policy frameworks for reducing vulnerability

Discussion: 16-17 June 2003
An emerging policy framework that binds donors and governments is provided by Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Donors are also very keen on democratic decentralisation of government, which they often build into PRSP funding priorities. This section concerns your views on the adequacy (or otherwise) of this new policy framework for reversing rising vulnerability in the region.

3.1 for any PRSP with which you are familiar, do you consider that its main objectives and spending priorities are likely to make a great deal of difference to patterns and trends of vulnerability in particular countries?

3.2 to what extent do you think PRSPs grasp the cross-sectoral nature of both rural and urban livelihoods, and do they contain provisions or priorities that facilitate economic mobility?

3.3 for any country (or group of countries) with which you are familiar how far has the government got in considering or implementing decentralisation policies? is this something that governments want to do, or are they being pressured by donors to do it?

3.4 give your preliminary view on decentralisation as a means to promote decreasing vulnerability for any country or rural area or urban area with which you are familiar?

3.5 overall, what are your thoughts about the PRSP-decentralisation policy framework and its prospects for bringing about radical change in the economic and political fortunes of southern African countries? And specifically, for reversing currently adverse vulnerability trends?

Top

Well, again today two main areas provoked some useful thought and discussion, and these were:

(a) follow-up on price ratio indicators of rising vulnerability

(b) follow-up on my provocative claim that urban vulnerability may have been even more important than rural vulnerability (in some instances and places)

Taking each of these in turn, Sarah Levy and colleagues at Reading have done a huge amount of work on the relative buoyancy (or otherwise) of agriculture in Malawi, in connection with the monitoring of Starter Pack and Targeted Input Programmes over the past 3-4 years. They note in particular, that, yes, the wage rate: maize price ratio is a critical vulnerability indicator in the rural economy of a country like Malawi. But, other factors need also to be considered, as also which component of that ratio is driving it to rise or fall over short periods of time. An important factor is the closely related ratio between farm gate sales prices of maize and the consumer price of maize, this ratio being especially important for food deficit farm families, and tracking it can reveal and sharp deterioration in farmers terms of trade just within maize itself. Secondly, in their view the 2001-02 emerging crisis in Malawi was driven more by rising consumer price of maize than by falling nominal wages (in cash or in kind) for ganyu type work. Finally, monitoring farm wage trends very difficult for all kinds of definitional, seasonal, non-comparability, cash and kind and so on kinds of reason. Nevertheless this areas represents a fertile area for improving the data collection methods that we have available in a vulnerability assessment context.

On urban vulnerability, there has been some support for the idea that the urban vulnerable tend to be neglected in vulnerability assessments and in the ensuing distributional decisions concerning closing food gaps. Toby Porter from FEWSNET refers to attempts to undertake vulnerability assessments in urban areas, and provides website sources for exercises of this kind that have been undertaken. It is clear however, that there are not all that many of these about. Toby also provides some general principles regarding the difference between urban and rural livelihoods with respect specifically to the question of access to sufficient food, pointing to the dependence of urban populations wholly on markets as the key distinguishing characteristic in this regard.

It would be nice to hear from someone in Zambia, perhaps, on the urban and non-farm vulnerability issue.

Thank you for your participation, and have a good weekend. I have posted the questions for the next few days in a separate email.

Top

We read with great interest and enthusiasm the paper written by Frank Ellis to lead the e-discussion on the Human Vulnerability Theme in Southern Africa. We found much to agree with, as well as a few issues to raise for clarification, particularly as it relates to our own work.

Our response is contained in these five points below.

1. Defining Vulnerability
We employ the same definition of vulnerability as Devereux (2002), namely "sensitivity to livelihood shocks". However, so as to maintain consistency and clarity in our analytical framework, we keep to this definition rather strictly. Hence, we would not talk of "food access vulnerability" (Ellis 2003: 17) because a poor household cannot be vulnerable to food access. Instead, a household is vulnerable to an event causing change. In our analysis, a household is vulnerable to a hazard (drought; pests and so on) as well as the resulting economic (or livelihood) shock. This produces an effect, namely the risk of food shortages. Hence, going back to the previous point, we would not talk about "food access vulnerability" but rather of vulnerability to, say, droughts which produces a high risk of food insecurity.

Our definitions of risk and vulnerability, and the specific way which we employ these words, are summed up in the equation R = f(H, V), where R = Risk; H = Hazard; and V = Vulnerability.

We have found that by keeping the two concepts of vulnerability and risk very discrete, and by employing them always in this strict, and perhaps narrow, way, it maintains analytical clarity.

2. Indicators of Vulnerability
The Household Food Economy (HFE) analytical framework does not employ indicators of vulnerability. However, critical to our analysis of vulnerability to hazards is the notion of "expandability", or "coping". The resilience of households to cope with food deficits caused by a hazard or shock depends on what sources of food or income can be expanded to cover the deficit. If savings, assets, and stock reserves are low, and if few existing, or additional, food or income sources can be greatly expanded, then households are considered highly vulnerable to hazards and at high risk of food insecurity.

3. Urban, and Non-farm, Led Development
In reference to point 14 of the Executive Summary (Ellis 2003: v), we would agree with his conclusion that "the key to rising farm productivity is urban and non-farm economic growth, not farm output on its own".

Our main practice of the HFE approach is measuring food (or other) need. However, our field work has yielded interesting data on responses to rural poverty by those most affected. This has led us to revise our views about how best to meet the challenge of rural food insecurity in Africa.

Previously, many of us would have argued that argued that rural poverty alleviation rests on finding ways to increase the skill (and value) of rural labour, and to provide safety nets in ways that complement seasonal employment off-farm. These recommendations have been in line with recent thinking to date which has sought rural answers to rural problems. The chief concern was to avoid the displacement of rural destitutes from rural homes into urban shanty towns. The strategy has been to "contain" rural poverty by saving (or strengthening) rural livelihoods. However, this strategy calls to be re-visited because it ignores some basic characteristics of the livelihoods of most rural poor. The poor do not currently "contain" their activities to rural areas. Instead, their livelihood geography is both urban and rural.

Poor people's solution to making ends meet is to migrate in search of employment elsewhere. If they have sufficient labour, one or two members of the family leave the rural farm to work from 4-10 months/year for seasonal agriculture or town work. Multi-country studies have looked at the type and strength of linkages between migrants and their rural homes, as well as how migrants' urban networks affect their relationship with their rural home (see Environment and Urbanisation, Vol. 10, No. 1, April 1998). These works call for integrated programming which does not let the spatial divide between urban and rural areas overshadow the economic links between the two. In short, rural and urban development planners must take into account that families are not necessarily rural or urban but are often both, with members moving between the two. Likewise, their economic interests also straddle this spatial divide.

It is this field-based context-documented in numerous food economy studies-which gives rise to our support of Ellis' argument. Likewise, we propose that to reduce the vulnerability of the rural poor to economic shocks and to reduce their risk of food insecurity, there should be a shift away from an agricultural-led response and a move toward supporting improved conditions for employment and petty trade in urban areas. What this means is that the linkages between rural-urban economies must be pursued explicitly as a solution to rural poverty. In certain areas, the answer to rural poverty alleviation will lie in urban, not rural, solutions.

Our paths diverge from Ellis where he asserts that "the poorest and most vulnerable are those most heavily reliant on agriculture, and most strongly locked into subsistence within agriculture" (Ellis 2003: 18). This divergence is due, perhaps, to our rather narrow focus on food access, and how households secure their annual food needs, rather than on total income.

Our field work has led to the conclusion that the majority of the rural poor's annual food "income" comes from employment, not crop production. Migrant labour stands out as especially crucial to family earnings. What this suggests is that although much of our work has been in agricultural zones in Africa, farming is no longer the poor's livelihood base. Poor farmers are in fact labourers who farm seasonally but who meet most of their food needs through wage labour or through very petty "commerce" (sales of firewood; thatch, dry goods such as tea, salt or sugar; cash crops and so on). For this reason, our reports consistently emphasise the role of having sufficient (able-bodied) labour in keeping poor and middle-income households slipping down the scale into the very poor group.

Our points above mark some divergence from Ellis' description of the "dynamics of vulnerability" (Ellis 2003: 18). Nonetheless, we feel that Ellis has touched on an important point--although we would present the argument in a different way. We would argue that rather than the poor, it is middle-income households who are heavily reliant on subsistence agriculture. Moreover, they lack the diversified income and asset base of better-off households by which to accumulate savings as a key buffer in times of economic stress. Middle-income households lose much of their food "income" when crops fail. To cope with multi-season harvest shortfalls, they tend to dispose of assets critical for long-term food security. The concern is that middle-income households never fully recover but enter the next crisis with a diminished capacity to cope. Over time, this diminishes their resilience to agricultural shocks and increases levels of impoverishment in the region.

4. Vulnerability Assessments - The Household Food Economy Approach
We would like to add a few points to Ellis' comments about the Household (Food) Economy Approach (see in particular pages 22-26).

He points to the role of HFEA in providing a framework to improve short-term emergency assessments. He further comments that these assessments tend to have a fairly narrow focus on the food issue, especially in Southern Africa (Ellis 2003: 26). The weakness of this approach, Ellis argues, is that this role has been at the expense of exploring larger causes of vulnerability at the national and regional level, and has added little in terms of longer term vulnerability monitoring.

Some of our work has tried to tackle these larger issues-particularly looking at the impacts of development projects in promoting food security in the long term. (See our work, for instance, with OXFAM-Canada in Tigray, Ethiopia and with AFD/Christian Aid in Boloso Sore, Ethiopia on this subject; references to these reports can be found on our web site at www.foodeconomy.com). However, for the most part, Ellis' comment is fair enough. In practice, HFEA has been employed to address short-term problems of food access.

However, we do not see this as a weakness inherent in the analytical framework. Instead, it has been a response to demand from the field. If we have been primarily engaged in emergency assessments, that is because what partner organizations have most wanted from us is help in improving the quality of food needs assessments in particular, and in improving the link between early warning and response in general.

We appreciate the attention Ellis paid to the HFE approach, and, in particular, to his attempt at summarizing the main components of the method using the FEWS NET Mini Manual. We think that his comments about HFE's superficial understanding of food entitlements and gaps in accurate seasonal knowledge are based on a too limited reading of HFE material. There now exists a wide body of field reports which would counter his criticisms. A bibliography of reports as well as a few sample documents are posted on the Food Economy Group website (www.foodeconomy.com).

5. Urban Poverty
We would like to point readers to another paper that shows how HFEA has been used in an urban setting to link macro-economic indicators to household consequences. The reference for this paper is:

Coutts, P. and Boudreau, T. 2002: Food Economy and Situations of Chronic Political Instability. ODI. This paper includes an extensive case study of urban work carried out in Harare, Zimbabwe. It concluded that the urban HFE baseline study was a critical first step "in helping decision-makers understand the parameters in which urban households are making ends meet, the severity of the current crisis in practical terms on real people, and the types of support that might be needed both now and in the future" (Coutts and Boudreau, 2002: 27).

Top

Carlos Barahona and I were interested in your comment that the sudden deterioration of the terms of trade between returns to labour and the cost of food was the single most important trigger of the 2001-02 crisis. You say that the maize price is relatively easily available but the real rates paid for casual labour and the degree to which those seeking it are able to satisify their demand are difficult to get hold of, and that they are never addressed in the research.

We agree with you that this area is neglected in many data collection exercises, but we have quite a lot of related information and have been making a similar point for the past year (see www.reading.ac.uk/~snsbarah/TIP2 - in particular the July 2002 Briefing Notes and the 2001-02 TIP Evaluation Main Report).

Our point is a slightly broader one, namely that the main reason for the 2001-02 crisis was the sharp increase in the cost of food - in particular, but not only, maize -vis a vis rural incomes. The vast majority of smallholder farmers (most of the rural population) are NET PURCHASERS of maize, and in the 2001-02 season 87% had a maize deficit of 3 months or more - i.e. would have run out of maize by around Christmas. Maize prices increased six-fold in the year to February-March 2002, and incomes could not keep up. As you point out, income from casual labour is an important part of total income, particularly for the poorest - but other income sources are also important (see www.reading.ac.uk/~snsbarah/TIP2 - Reports of the 2001-02 pre-harvest and post-harvest surveys).

The following may be of interest to you:
a) I wrote a briefing on the importance of food prices (in particular the relationship between income from farmers' sales of maize and consumer prices of maize) in 2001-02, which I presented to the Donor Committee on Agriculture in Malawi in March. I attach a copy. b) We have three years' data now from our annual, nationwide surveys of agricultural production and food security. These have been done under the umbrella of TIP, but they include a lot of other info and we have placed great emphasis on quality control in the data collection process, so we are confident that the data are reliable. The surveys have taken place in April 2002, 2002 and 2003 (we are still processing the results of the 2003 survey). We have collected data on income from ganyu in the weeding period each year as part of our poverty index, and this could provide a good indicator of 'returns to labour' - not in an absolute sense, but as a relative measure of change from year to year*. We have not analysed this data in the past, but maybe this year we should do so! c) In 2000-01 we collected data on income from ganyu, as part of a study on "Markets and Livelihoods in Rural Malawi". We found some interesting results, which we can send you if you're interested (you may already have a copy - it's on the TIP CD), but it was an extremely difficult data collection exercise. You point out that "the real rates paid for casual labour and the degree to which those seeking it are able to satisify their demand are difficult to get hold of" - I agree that we need such data, but I wouldn't underestimate the difficulty of collecting it a reasonably reliable manner!

* But note that this data only includes money payment for ganyu, not payment in kind, so it will be an imperfect indicator - particularly for women, who tend to be paid in food rather than in cash, especially during the weeding period (because it coincides with the hungry period).

Top

In June 2001, FEWS NET and the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe carried out an Urban Vulnerability Assessment in Harare. This study is available (Acrobat format) in full from the FEWS NET website, link pasted below.

http://www.fews.net/resources/gcontent/gcontent.cfm?
submit=y&f=al&g=1000106&d=al&l=en

I am pasting three paragraphs below from the report which describe how they adapted the food economy methodology to an urban setting. I am not trying to say this is a flaweless way of capturing and then monitoring urban vulnerability, but I think it was an innovative way to try. The follow-up monitoring against this baseline has fallen short of what we had hoped for at the time of the assessment, but this is all part of the learning process. Let me know if you find this useful. At the foot of the three paragraphs, I have pasted another link to a second Urban study we completed in May this year, in Hargeisa (Somaliland) - out of area, I know, but there as a resource for anyone interested.

*start of extract*
The objectives of food security assessment and monitoring are the same for both rural and urban areas. Food security assessment analyses the access that different groups have to food and to cash income in relation to their food and non-food needs. Food security monitoring tracks changes in this access to food and income over time. However, while the principles underlying the analysis remain the same, the details of the analytical approach vary from one context to another.

In a rural setting, it is often most useful to focus on access to food and income for different wealth groups. This is because members of a particular wealth group generally share the same level of food security and a similar limited set of options for obtaining food and income, pursuing much the same strategies at much the same times of year. The relative homogeneity of rural livelihoods makes enquiry into sources of food and income the most efficient way to generate a rapid understanding of food security in a rural context.

The same homogeneity within wealth groups tends not to be true in an urban setting. Here, one source of food - the market - is usually predominant and so the focus of enquiry generally shifts towards questions of cash income and expenditure. In the town, however, there is often a wider range of income sources for any one wealth group, and earnings are also less regular than in the countryside. However, while incomes tend to be heterogeneous in urban settings, patterns of expenditure do not. Poor families tend to spend similar amounts of money on similar things, so that an enquiry into patterns of expenditure is often the most useful approach for establishing an effective baseline for food security monitoring in an urban setting. Since urban economies are primarily market-based, and many of life's essentials, often not paid for in a rural setting (i.e. accommodation, water, firewood, etc.), have to be purchased in the town, it is critical for these non-food elements to be incorporated into an urban analysis.
*end of extract*

http://www.fews.net/resources/gcontent/gcontent.cfm?
submit=y&f=al&g=1000277&d=al&l=en

Top

Frank is raising an important issue of poverty in towns and major settlements in Southern African. Urban poverty is rarely given due attention, but the fact is it is there and plenty of it. I am sure Vulnerability Assessments being carried out by the various Agencies could give us the data and enlighten us on this.

Top

The second is related to the type of indicators that may have helpful for informing policy makers and humanitarian agencies as the crisis gathered momentum. The example given for this latter point is that of Malawi, and the point made is restated here as follows:

Given the normal dependence of a majority of Malawi's rural poor for four months each year on today's casual labour for tomorrow's food supply, the crucial indicator is the terms of trade between returns to labour and the cost of food. In my view, the sudden deterioration of those terms of trade was the single most important trigger of the "crisis" in 2001-02. The maize price is relatively easily available but the real rates paid for casual labour and the degree to which those seeking it are able to satisfy their demand are difficult to get hold of. It is not just that they never appears in the analyses (eg by MVAC) but they are not even addressed in the questionnaires

These are both useful observations about the character of vulnerability and indicators of rising vulnerability, so keep those points of view rolling on the nature of vulnerability rolling in, an here is a hypothesis that some of you may wish to challenge:

"urban vulnerability was entirely neglected in the analysis of the 2001-2003 southern African food security crisis, and for this reason a great number of the urban food insecure were neglected in the food security interventions that eventually took place"

Top

Discussion: 12 & 13 June 2003
1. Defining vulnerability in the southern African context: The paper begins by setting out a definition of vulnerability as 'exposure and sensitivity to livelihood shocks' (from Devereux, 2002) or 'living on the edge'. The purpose of these questions is to explore vulnerability concepts especially with respect to the livelihood circumstances of vulnerable people in rural and urban southern Africa:

1.1 how useful is the idea of 'living on the edge' for understanding vulnerability?
"Living on the edge" is as good as anything but we do not need too strict a definition. We know vulnerability when we see it.

1.2 it is usually thought that vulnerability itself is not measurable; only indirect indicators and trends can indicate rising vulnerability. Are there specific indicators that in your view capture the idea of vulnerability better than others?
Given the normal dependence of a majority of Malawi's rural poor for four months each year on today's casual labour for tomorrow's food supply, the crucial indicator is the terms of trade between returns to labour and the cost of food. In my view, the sudden deterioration of those terms of trade was the single most important trigger of the "crisis" in 2001-02. The maize price is relatively easily available but the real rates paid for casual labour and the degree to which those seeking it are able to satisify their demand are difficult to get hold of. It is not just that they never appears in the analyses (eg by MVAC) but they are not even addressed in the questionnaires.

Discussion: 14-15 June 2003
2. Balance of factors contributing to rising vulnerability in the region
The paper suggests four principal broad scale causes of rising vulnerability in the southern African region:
a. growth failures, rising poverty and declining migration options
Certainly important in Malawi but perhaps also important to note the declining opportunities for local wage employment eg as tobacco profits have declined.
b. market failures in the context of market liberalisation
Malawi's food markets are chaotic and its farm input supply market is grossly inefficient
c. the high incidence and continuing spread of HIV/AIDS
Must be a factor but difficult to quantify. Most "proxies" suggested so far are inadequate. The one thing that can be quantified is the terrible increase in premature death and it is this (rather than "chronic illness") which is reducing the labour supply and multiplying the number of orphans.
d. politics and governance factors, at regional, national and local levels

2.1 do you think these four between them cover most of the long term factors causing rising vulnerability, or are there other factors (or groups of factors) that are not adequately covered in this list?
2.2 amongst those four factors, what is your ranking as to the most important ones in rural areas, and why?
Rising poverty and AIDS are inseparable for practical purposes. Together they are the dominant influence, mainly because they put fertiliser and grain outside the purchasing capacity of the rural poor. Market failure comes close behind. Governance factors are important in so far as government has failed to halt impoverishment and has (along with the Bretton Woods institutions) failed to address the questions of transition between a regulated grain and input market and a liberalised one. Policy continuity and consistency which might have allowed a competitive private market to develop have been lacking but positive inducements to foster indigenous entrepreneurship were (are) probably also required.

Discussion: 16-17 June 2003
3. Contribution of emerging policy frameworks for reducing vulnerability
An emerging policy framework that binds donors and governments is provided by Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Donors are also very keen on democratic decentralisation of government, which they often build into PRSP funding priorities. This section concerns your views on the adequacy (or otherwise) of this new policy framework for reversing rising vulnerability in the region.

3.1 for any PRSP with which you are familiar, do you consider that its main objectives and spending priorities are likely to make a great deal of difference to patterns and trends of vulnerability in particular countries?
I agree with the authors of the Malawi paper that the need is not for new policies but for the implementation of existing ones. A policy which does not seriously address the implementation failures of what went before is not worth the paper it is written on. Malawi has a PRSP and a Safety-Nets Policy which, if implemented, would go a long way to solving both national and household food insecurity

Discussion: 18-19 June 2003
4. Role and scope of vulnerability assessments in 2001-03 and beyond
The southern African countries have an apparently workable famine early warning system (FEWS). Vulnerability assessment methods (CVAs and VAMs) are increasingly utilised both in support of that system, or as standalone exercises designed to gauge short and long term trends in vulnerability, esp. in rural populations.

4.1 what were the defects in your view of the vulnerability information available at the time that a crisis began to unfold for some rural populations in 2001?
There was too much information and the bits that really mattered go lost in the "fog of crisis assessment".

4.2 how much was data availability at fault as the crisis developed in 2001-2002, and how much of the subsequent substantial food gap arose due to unhelpful behaviours by governments or donors or both?
The poor quality, rather than the unavailability, of the Malawian root crop production estimates was undoubtedly a serious contributor to the fog. They are still wildly exaggerated.

4.3 are there improvements in vulnerability assessment methods, or in the integration of different types of information that would prove valuable for avoiding future crises of this kind?
Listen to the rural poor, not the bureaucrats (or academics?). Watch food prices, get more quantitative info on the returns to income earning activities, especially casual labour.

4.4 are you happy with the institutional and organisational structures within which food security information systems are embedded, or could these be improved?
The move to "Vulnerability-based livelihood assessment" is helpful. But VACs need to be encouraged to produce short focussed reports rather than the lengthy discursive documents which they seem to feel themselves bound to at present.

4.5 how can vulnerability assessment methods be expanded to take into account some of the long term contextual factors that are discussed in Section 2 above?
VBLA should in theory achieve this by focussing on the household and the integrated effect of all influences. For this to work in practice, the choice of "key informants" is critical and the nearer they are to contact with the rural poor the better. Another important practical consideration is continuity in the assessors in order that they can make a judgement of what is or is not "normal".

Discussion and feedback: 19-20 June 2003
5. Levers for reducing vulnerability in the future

The e-discussion should end with a synthesis of contributors' ideas about ways of reducing vulnerability in the future. These ways may be short term responsive levers, or long term policy changes that could help to reduce vulnerability. Please make a list of 3-5 things that occur to you that could help to reduce vulnerability in a particular country or in southern Africa in general.

For Malawi:
1. Promote cropping systems which are more tolerant of soil impoverishment. There are plenty of precedents elsewhere in the world. This will include both diversification away from maize and ways of growing maize which are less dependent on fertiliser.

2. The big unutilised resource is dry season labour, therefore promote small-scale rural industry which will enable households to earn cash when it will not compete with the demands of the home farm. Probably mostly by adding value to farm products eg cassava flour. Small scale irrigated winter cropping could contribute but it is currently only available to the well-off and food secure.

3. Get real with HIV prevention.

Top

Talking of vulnerability we should not forget the OLD people who now constitute a significant proportion of the rural population in Southern African Countries as a result of migration to the towns. With rural depopulation there is significant less labour to work on crop and animal agriculture and therefore less food for the vulnerable groups. What we need is to serious start doing something on "Help Age" in Southern Africa.

Top