On July 15, this project was officially launched.  Representatives from all 5 participating country offices from both WFP and UNICEF, as well as three regional offices, had a phone conference to discuss each offices’ monitoring systems, particularly those which had been developed in reaction to the food, fuel and financial crises.  The conference acted both to introduce all participants to each other, to learn from each others’ approaches to monitoring, and to further define the project.

Out of that discussion, as well as following discussions between WFP and UNICEF, the project was further refined in the following manner:

This project seeks to map out the current data collection processes in both WFP and UNICEF with the ultimate goal of informing a system of crisis monitoring.  The project should assess current systems in place and evaluate the extent to which they provide a comprehensive picture of the status of the most vulnerable.  Triangulation between WFP and UNICEF should further be assessed according to its potential as a sustainable crisis monitoring system.  The system should be effective at crisis monitoring (including but not limited to natural and economic shocks) and provide information on the status, vulnerability and recovery of households, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. The system should be light, easy to administer and able to provide timely evidence and actionable information to decision makers and thus promote sustainability. Where existing systems are inadequate, the project will ultimately result in suggestions for designing such a system based on existing food security and nutrition information systems, building on what is currently available and fostering collaboration among UN agencies and with local government institutions. The results of this project should inform not only the data collection processes of WFP and UNICEF, but also the Secretariat’s Global Pulse initiative.

The data which is part of this assessment will include any data that is used by either WFP or UNICEF.  It will be evaluated based on a set of indicators designed to capture nutrition and food security status, as well as key coping mechanisms.