Food

Assistance
Outcomes and
Indicators

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 1 | 60

Canadian Foodgrains Bank. 2019. CFGB Food Assistance Outcomes and Indicators 1.0.
Winnipeg, MB. January.

The Foodgrains Bank welcomes feedback on this document via written feedback to CFGB using the
[email protected] email address. Please be as specific as possible in your feedback, with
concrete suggestions for improvement. Feedback received will be used as part of an annual review
process to integrate any required changes or adaptations.

Front Cover Photo: Ramatou (last name withheld), 2012 Niger. (Photo: Emily Caine).

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 2 | 60

 Table of Contents

Background ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Measuring Food Security .............................................................................................................................. 5
Why bother with measurement in a humanitarian food assistance project? ............................................. 5
Why use more than one measure of food security? .................................................................................. 6
Integrating gender equality into food assistance programming .................................................................... 7
Foodgrains Bank-Funded Food Assistance Program Logic Model .............................................................. 9
Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance ............................... 12
Intermediate Outcome #1– stabilized and/or increased immediate consumption of food by hunger-
affected individuals and households (disaggregated by Gender of the Head of Household) ..................... 23
Food Consumption Score (FCS) ................................................................................................................. 24
Food Consumption Score - Collecting the FCS ...................................................................................... 24
Food Consumption Score - Calculating and Reporting FCS................................................................... 26
Food Consumption Score - Setting the FCS Target ............................................................................... 26
Food Consumption Score - How to calculate the FCS % change .......................................................... 27
Food Consumption Score - What does it mean if your percentage change is negative? ....................... 27
Food Consumption Score - What does the FCS tell us about Household Food Consumption? ............ 28
Reduced Coping Strategies Index .............................................................................................................. 29
Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Collecting the r-CSI ........................................................................ 30
Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Calculating and Reporting r-CSI .................................................... 30
Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Targets ........................................................................................... 31
Intermediate Outcome #2– Protected livelihoods of hunger-affected individuals and households
(disaggregated by the gender of the head of household). .......................................................................... 32
Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI) ................................................................................................ 32
Livelihood Coping Strategies Index – Collecting the L-CSI Data ............................................................ 34
Livelihood Coping Strategies Index – Normal Livelihood Strategies ...................................................... 35
Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Calculating and analyzing the L-CSI ............................................... 35
Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Reporting ......................................................................................... 37
Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Targets ............................................................................................ 37
Immediate Outcome 1.1 and 2.1 – Increased equitable access to food for hunger-affected individuals and
households .................................................................................................................................................. 38
Guidance Gender-equitable access indicators ........................................................................................... 39
End Use of Food ......................................................................................................................................... 40
End Use of Cash ......................................................................................................................................... 41
Food Expenditure Share ............................................................................................................................. 42
Collecting the Food Expenditure Share Data .......................................................................................... 42
Calculating the Food Expenditure Share................................................................................................. 45
Reporting the Food Expenditure Share ................................................................................................... 45
Food Expenditure Share - Target ............................................................................................................ 46
Output 1.11 / 2.11 Food, vouchers, or cash distributed in a gender-sensitive manner .............................. 47
Intermediate Outcome #3– Increased empowerment for women and girls as change agents and leaders
Collecting Baseline Data ......................................................................................................................... 51
Immediate outcome 3.1 – increased confidence for women to participate meaningfully in decision-making
and leadership in food assistance projects ................................................................................................. 53
Output 3.11 – Gender Equitable community advisory committee (beneficiary selection / distribution
advisory committee) formed and functioning .............................................................................................. 54
Complaints Response Mechanism ............................................................................................................. 55
Complaints Response Mechanism Definitions ........................................................................................ 55

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 3 | 60

 The Benefits of Complaints Response Mechanisms ............................................................................... 55
Complaints and Response Mechanism Options ..................................................................................... 56
Guidance for monitoring and reviewing your CRM ................................................................................. 57
Appendix 1: Meals per Day ......................................................................................................................... 58
Calculating and Reporting Meals per Day ............................................................................................... 59

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 4 | 60

Food Assistance Outcomes and Indicators

Background

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank, through its Canadian member network, funds implementing partners to
deliver food assistance, nutrition, and agriculture and livelihoods projects to address acute and chronic
food insecurity in a wide variety of contexts including protracted conflict, sudden-onset disasters, drought,
and chronic poverty. All projects funded by Foodgrains Bank are expected to contribute to improving food
security and measuring the achievement of outcomes is considered a core component of any project.

To ensure that all Foodgrains Bank-funded projects meet minimum standards and meet our reporting
requirements, we have developed a set of standard performance measurement frameworks for food
assistance and nutrition projects, with a set of common core indicators. This framework is intended to
provide a starting point for discussions between Foodgrains Bank program officers, member staff, and
partner staff, and to ensure the collection of common data across all projects for understanding, learning,
reporting, and communicating program achievements.

This monitoring and evaluation guide (together with the entire suite of 2019 Food Assistance guidance
documents) replaces the 2012 Foodgrains Bank Toolbox and Compendium of Indicators. This document
provides background information on a variety of topics:

• measuring food security

• gender outcomes and indicators
• common core indicators and measurement tools
o guidelines on how to modify the tools to suit the unique context of each project)
o how to use the tools in a baseline and post-distribution surveys
o how to analyze and report on the data gathered using each tool.

Measuring Food Security

Why bother with measurement in a humanitarian food assistance project?

Foodgrains Bank understands that implementing partners delivering food assistance - especially in
contexts of protracted conflict and natural disasters - are operating under extremely stressful, high-
pressure conditions. Many in this context question ‘why measure anything at all?’ and ‘shouldn’t the
implementation team in the field focus all its attention on delivering assistance to those in need?’

Well these are valid questions, Foodgrains Bank sees the collection of good monitoring and evaluation
data as a critical part of the implementation process. Project teams need fast, accurate, and relevant real-
time monitoring and evaluation data to ensure assistance is delivered to those most in need, using
processes that take beneficiaries’ preferences, concerns, needs, rights, and safe-guarding into active
consideration. Monthly monitoring data should be used in real-time by the project team to understand if
the assumptions made during design still hold during implementation, or if there is a need for adaptive
management in the implementation process. Baseline and endline evaluation data helps a project team
understand and learn about the impact their project has had for project beneficiaries.

The Foodgrains Bank provides funds to support food assistance that will directly impact household food
security. The purpose of project monitoring and evaluation is to understand the current food
security situation of project participants and measure the impact food assistance transfers have
on increasing access to food and stabilizing and/or increasing immediate household food
consumption.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 5 | 60

Why use more than one measure of food security?

Food security is a difficult concept to measure. Food security is understood to rest on four main ‘pillars’ –
availability, access, utilization, and risk (stability or vulnerability). It is difficult to find one measure that can
easily capture all four pillars. A number of rapid, accurate, and cross-cultural indicators of food security
have been developed over the past decade and they fall into one of five different categories (Table 1):

Table 1 – Food security measurement indicator categories

Category What it captures Types of tools in this category

Dietary diversity and food Different kinds of foods or food groups Food Consumption Score (FCS)
frequency and the frequency with which they eat
Household Dietary Diversity Score
them.
(HDDS)

Spending on food The proportion of income a household Income and household expenditure
spends on food. measures (no one tool)

Consumption behaviours Food security – indirectly – by measuring Coping Strategies Index (CSI)
behaviours related to food consumption
Reduced Coping Strategies Index
(rCSI)
Household Hunger Scale (HHS)

Experiential measures Combines measures of household Household Food Insecurity Access

behavior related to consumption with Scale (HFIAS)
psychological measures
Household Hunger Scale (HHS)

Self-assessment measures Highly subjective in nature and perhaps No one tool – asking households to
too easy to manipulate. Yet, do correlate rate their current food security
with other measures compared to other time periods

Food security measurement experts recommend that at a minimum two different food security
measurement indicators should be used in any project to assess impacts on food security 1: one indicator
that captures the dietary diversity and food frequency category and one that captures the consumption
behaviour category.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has also developed a suite of standard food security indicators under
their Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI)2. WFP’s food security
console combines a suite of indicators into a Food Security Index that represents a population’s overall
food security status. The CARI console uses and combines indicators across three domains (food
consumption, economic vulnerability, and asset depletion) that measure both current food security status
(food consumption) and future coping capacity (economic vulnerability and asset depletion). The simple
version of the CARI console uses the Food Consumption Score to measure current status of food security
and the Food Expenditure Share and Livelihood Coping Strategies to measure future coping capacity.

Foodgrains Bank has selected the Food Consumption Score and the Reduced Coping Strategies Index
as the two core food security indicators required in all food assistance projects. The Food Consumption

1 Vaitla, Bapu, Coates, Jennifer, and Maxwell, Daniel. 2015. Executive Summary: Comparing Household Food
Consumption Indicators to Inform Acute Food Insecurity Phase Classification. Washington, DC: FHI 360 / Food and
Nutrition Technical Assistance III Project (FANTA).
2 World Food Programme. 2015. Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI). Second

Edition. Rome, Italy: World Food Programme.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 6 | 60

Score measures the dietary diversity and food frequency aspects of food security and is increasingly
recognized as the international standard food security measurement tool. The Reduced Coping
Strategies Index captures consumption behaviour and is also a suggested part of WFPs CARI console.

Where a food assistance project is designed to explicitly protect livelihoods (in addition to increasing food
consumption) that project is also required to use the Livelihood Coping Strategies Index as a core
indicator. When vouchers or cash are used as the transfer modality, projects are required to use the Food
Expenditure Share indicator to help understand the impacts of the transfer on household expenditures.

In addition to these standard food security measurement indicators, all Foodgrains Bank-funded food
assistance and nutrition projects must also integrate the gender equality indicators described in the next
section.

Integrating gender equality into food assistance programming

Foodgrains Bank is committed to supporting gender-sensitive and gender-transformative programming to

address acute and chronic food insecurity. The 2016-2021 Grant Agreement with Global Affairs Canada
requires that Foodgrains Bank provide an annual summary of the Global Affairs-funded programming with
regards to gender, including, “how the program ensured that its programming was gender-responsive and
how the program has worked to empower women and girls as change agents and leaders, including
efforts to increase support for local women’s groups to participate meaningfully in humanitarian action”
(Global Affairs 2016-2021 Grant Agreement, Section 1.2.4).

The design of standard and required gender activities, outcomes, and indicators for Foodgrains Bank-
funded food assistance programming is guided by three key documents: the 2017 Foodgrains Bank
Gender Equality Policy (International Programs); Global Affairs Canada’s Feminist International
Assistance Policy (FIAP), and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Gender Marker.

The primary objective of Foodgrains Bank’s Gender Equality policy is to ensure that, “Foodgrains Bank-
supported programming is working towards the realization of gender equality throughout all phases of
project and program assessment, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and reporting.”
Further, the policy states that all Foodgrains Bank-funded projects will be, at a minimum, gender sensitive
and, where possible, gender transformative. To ensure this:

• Gender analysis will be an essential part of all projects, and will include the consideration of other
intersectional sources of marginalization, such as age, ability, ethnicity, etc.
• Both women and men should be actively involved in all phases of the project cycle, and efforts
should be taken to ensure that women, men, girls and boys have equitable access to program
benefits.
• Programming must, at a minimum, do no harm and avoid exacerbating existing inequalities,
including ensuring that gender-based violence risks are identified, and appropriate risk mitigation
strategies are implemented.

Within the framework of the Government of Canada’s FIAP, the level of gender equality within food
assistance programming is most likely to be “limited, integrated” gender equality programming. This
means that in addition to meeting food assistance needs, “limited, integrated” programming should
contribute to changes in skills, awareness, knowledge and / or meeting gender-specific needs to
contribute to gender equality.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 7 | 60

Using the IASC Gender Marker3, food assistance projects should meet Gender Code 2A (Gender
Integrated Approach). This means that a gender and age analysis should be included in a project’s
situation assessment and be reflected in one or more of the project’s activities and one or more of the
project’s outcomes.

Gender-sensitive programming addresses gender norms, roles, and access to resources to ensure that
women and girls benefit from project activities and realize project goals. Gender-transformative
programming addresses unequal gender relations to promote shared power, control of resources,
decision-making, and support for women’s empowerment. To help partners distinguish the difference
between the two, Foodgrains Bank suggests partners consider the differences between project designs
that benefit women by addressing their practical needs and those that empower women by addressing
their strategic needs (see table below for definitions and examples).

It is important to note that a project that simply reaches women as participants in project activities is not
considered to be integrating gender equality. Table 2 (below) outlines important distinctions between
gender sensitive and gender transformative programming.

Table 2 – Gender-sensitive and gender-transformative programming

Gender Sensitive Gender Transformative

Reach Benefit Empower

Objective Include women in program Increase women’s well-being Strengthen the ability of women to
activities. within the realities and constraints make strategic life choices and to
of the current gender norms. put those choices into action.

Strategy Inviting women as participants; Designing a project to consider Enhancing women’s decision-
seeking to reduce barriers to gendered needs, preferences, and making power in household and
participation; implementing a constraints to ensure that women communities; addressing key
quota system for participation benefit from project activities. areas of disempowerment.
in community committees.

Indicators Number or proportion of Sex-disaggregated data for Women’s decision-making power

women participating in a positive and negative outcome e.g. equitable control over cash
project activity. indicators such as food transfers; reduction of outcomes
consumption, income, assets, associated with disempowerment.
nutrition, time use, etc.

Source: The Reach, Benefit, Empower Framework was developed by IFPRI. See:
http://www.ifpri.org/blog/reach-benefit-or-empower-clarifying-gender-strategies-development-projects

All Foodgrains Bank-funded food assistance projects must at a minimum: 1) be gender-sensitive, 2)

benefit women and girls, and 3) provide sex and age-disaggregated data. If sex and age-disaggregated
data has not been collected at the time of proposal writing, estimates should be provided, and
disaggregated data should be collected as soon as possible4. Gender-blind proposals will need to be
revised to ensure the gender sensitive minimum standard is achieved.

Foodgrains Bank recognizes that how (theory of change) and how much (impact) a project benefits and
empowers women and girls will depend on both the type of project and the duration: achieving genuine
empowerment and transformation does not happen quickly.

3 http://www.data.unhcr.org/syria-rrp6/download.php?id=76
4 Refer to Foodgrains Bank Beneficiary Counting Guidance Note

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 8 | 60

In food assistance programming the context and length of the response will significantly influence whether
a project design is gender sensitive or gender transformative. A short response in a context of significant
disruption and dislocation may have little scope for integrating gender equality beyond achieving very
basic benefits. In fact, where assistance is being delivered to already extremely vulnerable people, it can
be difficult and potentially dangerous to attempt to disrupt traditional gender norms and seek to foster
transformation in gender relations.

Projects need to balance the goal of gender equality with protection from gender-based violence. For
example, a two-month response to a sudden onset disaster such as a hurricane, cyclone, or earthquake,
may be limited to being gender-sensitive. Conversely, a longer-term response, for example in the context
of a 12-month response to a drought, has significantly more scope to be gender transformative and
integrate project design elements that will work towards empowering women. Nonetheless, all projects
should still strive to contribute to increasing the level of gender equality as much as possible, given the
project realities.

Foodgrains Bank-Funded Food Assistance Program Logic Model

Foodgrains Bank food assistance and nutrition programming funded under the Global Affairs Canada
2016-2021 Grant Agreement must be designed to align with the program logic model and performance
measurement framework specified in the grant agreement. The logic chain for food assistance
programming is provided on the left side of Figure 1, below (for simplicity, not all indicators are included).

In 2017 – 2018, Foodgrains Bank piloted a set of gender activities, outputs, outcomes and indicators,
based on the explicit requirements of the grant agreement. The piloted logic chain is shown on the right
side of Figure 1. As it was a pilot, the gender logic chain was designed to keep gender activities separate
from the main ‘food assistance’ logic chain.

Delivering gender-sensitive food assistance that equitably benefits women and men, and empowers women and girls through strengthened leadership and decision-making

Intermediate Outcomes

Women’s and men’s perception of

Stabilized &/or increased change in gender relations, roles,
Food Consumption Score (FCS) Increased empowerment for
immediate consumption of food responsibilities and women’s
and Reduced coping strategies women and girls as change
by hunger-affected individuals decision-making power in the
index (rCSI) agents and leaders
and households household & community as a result
of the project

Immediate Outcomes
• Women’s and men’s perceptions
of women’s / local women’s
groups meaningful participation in
project activities Increased support for women /
Increased access to food for Total number of households local women’s groups to
hunger-affected individuals and receiving food / vouchers / cash Gender-sensitive distribution: participate meaningfully in
households transfers • Modality choice took into account humanitarian action
women’s preferences
• Distribution process integrated
women’s preferences & safety
concerns

Outputs
Gender-sensitive beneficiary
• # and % of female and male
targeting:
representatives on community
• Number of women, men, girls and
advisory committee Gender equitable community
Food, vouchers or cash boys registered for assistance
advisory committee formed and
distributed
functioning
Disaggregating beneficiary data: Gender analysis:
Sex- and age-disaggregated data • Gender analysis completed

Figure 1 – Standard Food Assistance Logic Chain and Piloted Gender Outputs, Outcomes and Indicators

In 2017-18, eight food assistance projects that had piloted these gender outputs, outcomes, and
indicators reported final project results to Foodgrains Bank. Two key findings from these pilots were:

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 9 | 60

Most, if not all, food assistance projects use a ‘community committee’ to coordinate project design,
beneficiary targeting and selection, modality selection and distribution design, and project
implementation. The exact nature and role of this committee varies across projects. This community
committee provides a natural venue for food assistance projects to engage women and girls in decision-
making and leadership roles.

Several indicators (for example assessing gender-sensitive beneficiary targeting and gender-sensitive
distribution) would most appropriately relate to and fit directly into the main food assistance logic chain.

Global Affairs’ feedback to Foodgrains Bank on the Foodgrains Bank’s 2016-17 Annual Performance
Report included critique and feedback from the Global Affairs Gender Equality specialist, on our results
reporting. Some of the relevant critique and recommendations from the gender specialist included:

Critiques:

• Projects had inconsistent reporting of sex- and age-disaggregated data

• Providing data solely on the head of household is not a good measure of women’s empowerment

Recommendations:

• Revise project results to include a gender equality perspective

• Develop tools to facilitate consistency of reporting
• Develop gender equality specific indicators such as:
o Percentage of women and men in decision-making positions
o Evidence that regular dialogue is occurring with affected women and men, with separate
forums for consultation with women, if appropriate
o Evidence that monitoring procedures are in place to prevent exploitation and abuse
during registration and distribution process
o Women participate as decision-makers in all aspects of the humanitarian response

Based on a review of the results from the eight pilot projects and considering Global Affairs gender
specialist’s recommendations, Foodgrains Bank is proposing the following standard logic model for food
assistance which integrates a gender equality perspective into the food assistance logic chain and
includes an explicit gender equality focused chain of outputs and outcomes examining women’s
leadership and decision-making. This proposed logic model meets Global Affairs’ recommendations
regarding integrating a gender equality perspective and aligns with IASC’s 2A Gender Code. This
proposed logic model is illustrated in Figure 2 below 5.

5 Again, note for simplicity, not all indicators are included, only those that relate directly to the intersection
of a food assistance transfer and gender are shown in the Figure. For the complete list of required
indicators, see the Performance Measurement Framework Templates.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 10 | 60

 Intermediate Outcomes

Stabilized &/or increased immediate • Food Consumption Score (FCS)

consumption of food by hunger-affected • Women participate as active decision-makers
• Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI) Increased empowerment for
individuals and households • Women participate as active leaders
Both disaggregated by the sex of the head of household women and girls as change
• Women report active project participation has
improved their lives meaningfully agents and leaders

Immediate Outcomes
• Total number of male and female headed households
receiving food / vouchers / cash transfers
• % and number of women to men registered as direct
recipients of assistance (person both registered for • Number and % of women in advisory groups who
and actually receiving the assistance) feel confident to participate in project decision-
Increased equitable access to food for Improved confidence of women
making and/or leadership
hunger-affected individuals and in advisory committees to
• Women’s reported access and control over food / • Number and % of women in advisory groups who
households participate in decision-making
cash distributed report participation has improved their
and leadership
• Women’s reported satisfaction with transfer process confidence to take an active role in decision
• Women, men, girls, boys report feeling safe while making and/or leadership
accessing project information and services

Outputs • Number of women, men, girls and boys registered

for assistance
• Food / voucher / cash transfer process
• # and % of female and male representatives on
implemented in a gender-sensitive manner, based
community advisory committee
on an assessment of: i) Gender analysis completed
• # of gender sensitivity trainings offered for
Food, vouchers or cash distributed in a & reflected in project design; ii) Gender-sensitive Gender equitable community
women, men, and community leaders on the
gender-sensitive manner beneficiary selection; iii) Modality choice took into advisory committee formed and
importance of women’s active participation,
account women’s preferences; iv) Distribution functioning
decision-making, and leadership
process integrated women’s needs, preferences, &
• Committee formed, # of meetings held,
safety concerns; v) Confidential complaint
attendance
response mechanism implemented; vi)
Beneficiaries informed of rights and entitlements.

Situation Assessment
Gender analysis: Disaggregating beneficiary data:
• Gender analysis completed Sex- and age-disaggregated data

Figure 2 – Proposed Standard Logic Model integrating Gender Equality perspectives

To ensure that all Foodgrains Bank-supported food assistance programming is meeting our commitment
to gender-responsive programming all food assistance and nutrition projects funded through Foodgrains
Bank must include the minimum standard gender outputs, outcomes, and indicators that are outlined
in Table 3 (next page).

Following this table, the remainder of this Guide provides details on the measurement, analysis, and
reporting of each of the standard required indicators.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 11 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

Intermediate Outcomes

Intermediate Outcome 1
1.0 Stabilized and/or
increased immediate
consumption of food by FCS6 FCS FCS FCS
N/A
hunger-affected individuals r-CSI7 r-CSI r-CSI r-CSI
and households
(disaggregated by gender
of head of household)
surveys

Intermediate Outcome 2
2.0 Protected livelihoods
of hunger-affected
individuals and N/A N/A L-CSI8 N/A L-CSI
households
(disaggregated by gender
of head of household)

Intermediate Outcome 3 # & % of women to men # & % of women to men # & % of women to men # & % of women to men
N/A
actively participating in actively participating in actively participating in actively participating in

6 Food Consumption Score

7 Reduced Coping Strategies Index
8 Livelihoods Coping Strategies Index

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 12 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

3.0 Increased decision-making in all decision-making in all decision-making in all decision-making in all
empowerment for women phases of project through phases of project through phases of project through phases of project through
and girls as change agents community advisory community advisory community advisory community advisory
and leaders committee committee committee committee
Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in
important decisions on important decisions on important decisions on important decisions on
committee committee committee committee
# & % of women to men # & % of women to men # & % of women to men # & % of women to men
in leadership role in in leadership role in in leadership role in in leadership role in
community advisory community advisory community advisory community advisory
committee committee committee committee
Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in Extent of involvement in
leadership role on leadership role on leadership role on leadership role on
committee committee committee committee
(Optional) # & % of (Optional) # & % of (Optional) # & % of (Optional) # & % of
women surveyed who women surveyed who women surveyed who women surveyed who
report that their report that their report that their report that their
participation in project participation in project participation in project participation in project
activities has improved at activities has improved at activities has improved at activities has improved at
least two aspects of their least two aspects of their least two aspects of their least two aspects of their
lives meaningfully lives meaningfully lives meaningfully lives meaningfully

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 13 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

Immediate Outcomes

Immediate Outcome 1 # of Female & Male # of Female & Male # of Female & Male # of Female & Male # of Female & Male
1.1 & 2.1 Increased Headed Households Headed Households Headed Households Headed Households Headed Households
surveys or focus group discussions, or monitoring data

equitable access to food receiving transfer / month receiving food / month receiving food / month receiving vouchers or receiving vouchers or
for hunger-affected The additional are # & % of women to men # & % of women to men cash / month cash / month
individuals and optional and should be as recipients of as recipients of # & % of women to men # & % of women to men
households discussed with a assistance (person assistance (person as recipients of as recipients of
Foodgrains Bank project registered & directly registered & directly assistance (person assistance (person
officer: receiving assistance) receiving assistance) registered & directly registered & directly
# & % of women to men Type & amount of food Type & amount of food receiving assistance) receiving assistance)
(project records)

as recipients of received per household received / household per Value of food vouchers or Value of food vouchers or
assistance (person per month for total month for total cash received by cash received by
registered & directly distribution months distribution months households / month for households / month for
receiving assistance) End-use of food (by End-use of food (by total distribution months total distribution months
Type & amount of Female & Male Headed Female & Male Headed # and total $ value of # and total $ value of
transfer received / Households) Households) vouchers redeemed vouchers redeemed
household / month for Participant’s reported Participant’s reported End-use of food voucher End-use of food voucher
total distribution months access and control over access and control over / cash / cash
End-use of transfer (by food distributed food distributed Food Expenditure Share Food Expenditure Share
Female & Male Headed Participant’s reported Participant’s reported (FES) (FES)
Households) satisfaction with food satisfaction with food Participant’s reported Participant’s reported
distribution process distribution process access and control over access and control over
voucher/cash distributed voucher/cash distributed

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 14 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

Participant’s reported # and % of women & # and % of women & Participant’s reported Participant’s reported
access and control over men who feel safe while men who feel safe while satisfaction with satisfaction with
transfer distributed accessing project accessing project voucher/cash distribution voucher/cash distribution
Participant’s reported services services process process
satisfaction with transfer # and % of women & # and % of women &
distribution process men who feel safe while men who feel safe while
# and % of women & accessing project accessing project
men who feel safe while services services
accessing project
services

Immediate Outcome 2 Hectares of land re- Hectares of land re- Hectares of land re-
planted with seed to planted with seed to planted with seed to
restore agricultural restore agricultural restore agricultural
2.2 Restored sustainable N/A N/A
production production production
agricultural production
End use of livelihood End use of livelihood End use of livelihood
product(s) product(s) product(s)

Include if project design Include if project Include if project Include if project Include if project Include if project
includes Conditional design includes design includes design includes design includes design includes
transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers:
2.3 Improved access to (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply)
functioning community and # of FHH &MHH with # of FHH &MHH with # of FHH &MHH with # of FHH &MHH with # of FHH &MHH with
environmental assets increased access to increased access to increased access to increased access to increased access to
markets and nearby markets and nearby markets and nearby markets and nearby markets and nearby

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 15 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

communities through communities through communities through communities through communities through
rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated /
reconstructed roads reconstructed roads reconstructed roads reconstructed roads reconstructed roads
Perception of Perception of Perception of Perception of Perception of
accessibility of village by accessibility of village by accessibility of village by accessibility of village by accessibility of village by
road road road road road
Average distance to Average distance to Average distance to Average distance to Average distance to
water sources water sources water sources water sources water sources
Average litres of water Average litres of water Average litres of water Average litres of water Average litres of water
available to households available to households available to households available to households available to households
from rehabilitated / new from rehabilitated / new from rehabilitated / new from rehabilitated / new from rehabilitated / new
water sources (list water sources (list water sources (list water sources (list water sources (list
sources) sources) sources) sources) sources)
Hectares of agricultural Hectares of agricultural Hectares of agricultural Hectares of agricultural Hectares of agricultural
land irrigated by land irrigated by land irrigated by land irrigated by land irrigated by
rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated / rehabilitated /
constructed infrastructure constructed infrastructure constructed infrastructure constructed infrastructure constructed infrastructure
(list infrastructure) (list infrastructure) (list infrastructure) (list infrastructure) (list infrastructure)
Hectares of degraded Hectares of degraded Hectares of degraded Hectares of degraded Hectares of degraded
land rehabilitated land rehabilitated land rehabilitated land rehabilitated land rehabilitated
Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land
reforested reforested reforested reforested reforested
# of trees produced by # of trees produced by # of trees produced by # of trees produced by # of trees produced by
tree nursery tree nursery tree nursery tree nursery tree nursery

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 16 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

# and % of tree seedlings # and % of tree seedlings # and % of tree seedlings # and % of tree seedlings # and % of tree seedlings
planted planted planted planted planted
% survival rate of % survival rate of % survival rate of % survival rate of % survival rate of
seedlings EOP seedlings EOP seedlings EOP seedlings EOP seedlings EOP
Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land Hectares of land
rehabilitated through rehabilitated through rehabilitated through rehabilitated through rehabilitated through
repair / construction of repair / construction of repair / construction of repair / construction of repair / construction of
soil & water conservation soil & water conservation soil & water conservation soil & water conservation soil & water conservation
structures (list structures) structures (list structures) structures (list structures) structures (list structures) structures (list structures)

Immediate Outcome 3 # and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on
3.1 Increased confidence advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who
for women to participate feel confident to feel confident to feel confident to feel confident to
meaningfully in decision- participate in project participate in project participate in project participate in project
making and leadership in decision-making decision-making decision-making decision-making
food assistance projects # and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on
advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who
N/A feel confident to feel confident to feel confident to feel confident to
participate in advisory participate in advisory participate in advisory participate in advisory
committee leadership committee leadership committee leadership committee leadership
roles roles roles roles
# and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on # and % of women on
advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who advisory committee who
report that their report that their report that their report that their
participation in the project participation in the project participation in the project participation in the project

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 17 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

has improved their has improved their has improved their has improved their
confidence to share their confidence to share their confidence to share their confidence to share their
thoughts and opinions in thoughts and opinions in thoughts and opinions in thoughts and opinions in
public settings public settings public settings public settings

Outputs

Output 1 # of women, men, girls, # of women, men, girls, # of women, men, girls, # of women, men, girls, # of women, men, girls,
1.11 / 2.11 Transfer (food, and boys registered for and boys registered for and boys registered for and boys registered for and boys registered for
voucher, cash) distributed assistance assistance assistance assistance assistance
Monitoring data (project records)

in a gender-sensitive Total quantity & type of Total quantity & type of Total quantity & type of Value of food voucher or Value of food voucher or
manner food distributed food distributed food distributed cash transfer distributed cash transfer distributed
# of distributions # of distributions # of distributions # of distributions # of distributions
Composite gender- Composite gender- Composite gender- Composite gender- Composite gender-
sensitive food transfer sensitive food transfer sensitive food transfer sensitive food transfer sensitive food transfer
process marker process marker process marker process marker process marker

Output 2 # of female & male # of female & male # of female & male
2.21 Restorative beneficiaries receiving beneficiaries receiving beneficiaries receiving
agricultural & livelihoods livelihood products livelihood products livelihood products
N/A N/A
inputs provided Amount & type of Amount & type of Amount & type of
livelihood products livelihood products livelihood products
distributed distributed distributed

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 18 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

2.22 Sustainable # of female & male # of female & male # of female & male
agricultural practices beneficiaries trained on N/A beneficiaries trained on N/A beneficiaries trained on
supported (list specific practices) (list specific practices) (list specific practices)

Include if project design Include if project Include if project Include if project Include if project Include if project
includes Conditional design includes design includes design includes design includes design includes
transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers:
2.31 Community assets # of person-days labour # of person-days labour # of person-days labour # of person-days labour # of person-days labour
rehabilitated &/or contributed contributed contributed contributed contributed
reconstructed #, scale & type of #, scale & type of #, scale & type of #, scale & type of #, scale & type of
community assets community assets community assets community assets community assets
rehabilitated or rehabilitated or rehabilitated or rehabilitated or rehabilitated or
constructed constructed constructed constructed constructed
(select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply)
Km of road rehabilitated / Km of road rehabilitated / Km of road rehabilitated / Km of road rehabilitated / Km of road rehabilitated /
constructed constructed constructed constructed constructed
# of community # of community # of community # of community # of community
structures rehabilitated / structures rehabilitated / structures rehabilitated / structures rehabilitated / structures rehabilitated /
constructed constructed constructed constructed constructed
# of wells rehabilitated / # of wells rehabilitated / # of wells rehabilitated / # of wells rehabilitated / # of wells rehabilitated /
dug dug dug dug dug
# of latrines rehabilitated # of latrines rehabilitated # of latrines rehabilitated # of latrines rehabilitated # of latrines rehabilitated
/ dug / dug / dug / dug / dug

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 19 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

# of rainwater harvesting # of rainwater harvesting # of rainwater harvesting # of rainwater harvesting # of rainwater harvesting
structures structures structures structures structures
# of sand dams # of sand dams # of sand dams # of sand dams # of sand dams
# of check dams # of check dams # of check dams # of check dams # of check dams
# of reservoirs # of reservoirs # of reservoirs # of reservoirs # of reservoirs
# of water tanks # of water tanks # of water tanks # of water tanks # of water tanks
Length of rehabilitated / Length of rehabilitated / Length of rehabilitated / Length of rehabilitated / Length of rehabilitated /
constructed irrigation constructed irrigation constructed irrigation constructed irrigation constructed irrigation
canals canals canals canals canals
# of water pans # of water pans # of water pans # of water pans # of water pans
# of rain catchment # of rain catchment # of rain catchment # of rain catchment # of rain catchment
ponds ponds ponds ponds ponds
# of fish ponds # of fish ponds # of fish ponds # of fish ponds # of fish ponds

Include if project design Include if project Include if project Include if project design Include if project design Include if project
includes Conditional design includes design includes includes Conditional includes Conditional design includes
transfers: Conditional transfers: Conditional transfers: transfers: transfers: Conditional transfers:
2.32 Land & environment # of male & female # of male & female # of male & female # of male & female # of male & female
reclaimed & conservation beneficiaries trained in beneficiaries trained in beneficiaries trained in beneficiaries trained in beneficiaries trained in
practices supported land & environment land & environment land & environment land & environment land & environment
reclamation / reclamation / reclamation / conservation reclamation / conservation reclamation /
conservation practices conservation practices practices practices conservation practices

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 20 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

# of soil & water # of soil & water # of soil & water # of soil & water # of soil & water
conservation structures conservation structures conservation structures conservation structures conservation structures
(select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply) (select all that apply)
# of trees distributed # of trees distributed # of trees distributed # of trees distributed # of trees distributed
# of trees surviving EOP # of trees surviving EOP # of trees surviving EOP # of trees surviving EOP # of trees surviving
# of fruit saplings # of fruit saplings # of fruit saplings # of fruit saplings EOP
distributed distributed distributed distributed # of fruit saplings
# of fruit saplings # of fruit saplings # of fruit saplings surviving # of fruit saplings surviving distributed
surviving EOP surviving EOP EOP EOP # of fruit saplings
# of tree nurseries # of tree nurseries # of tree nurseries # of tree nurseries surviving EOP
established established established established # of tree nurseries
Km / ha of terraces Km / ha of terraces Km / ha of terraces Km / ha of terraces established
constructed constructed constructed constructed Km / ha of terraces
Ha of land planted with Ha of land planted with Ha of land planted with Ha of land planted with constructed
grasses grasses grasses grasses Ha of land planted with
Km / ha of check dams Km / ha of check dams Km / ha of check dams Km / ha of check dams grasses

# of cut off drains # of cut off drains # of cut off drains # of cut off drains Km / ha of check dams
Ha of degraded land Ha of degraded land Ha of degraded land Ha of degraded land # of cut off drains
restored restored restored restored Ha of degraded land
restored

Output 3 Advisory committee Advisory committee Advisory committee Advisory committee Advisory committee
formed formed formed formed formed

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 21 | 60

Food Assistance Programming: Required Outcomes and Indicators - At A Glance

Project Duration

Fast-track and projects

of less than three (3) Projects greater than 3 months in length
months duration

In-kind and livelihood Cash transfer Cash and livelihood

In-kind transfer
products transfer (vouchers or cash) product transfer
Modality & Conditionality Any modality (and Food for Work
(and Food for Work (and Cash for Work (and Cash for Work
when applicable)
when applicable) when applicable) when applicable)

3.11 Gender equitable # of meetings held # of meetings held # of meetings held # of meetings held # of meetings held
community advisory # and % of female to # and % of female to # and % of female to male # and % of female to male # and % of female to
committee formed and male representatives male representatives representatives included in representatives included in male representatives
functioning included in project included in project project activities through project activities through included in project
activities through activities through representation on representation on activities through
representation on representation on community advisory community advisory representation on
community advisory community advisory committee committee community advisory
committee committee Optional Optional committee
Optional Optional # & attendance for gender- # & attendance for gender- Optional
# & attendance for # & attendance for sensitivity trainings offered sensitivity trainings offered # & attendance for
gender-sensitivity gender-sensitivity for women, men, & for women, men, & gender-sensitivity
trainings offered for trainings offered for community leaders community leaders trainings offered for
women, men, & women, men, & women, men, &
community leaders community leaders community leaders

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 22 | 60

Intermediate Outcome #1– stabilized and/or increased immediate consumption of food by hunger-
affected individuals and households (disaggregated by Gender of the Head of Household)

All projects of a duration of more than three months, regardless of modality or conditionality, are required
to include the both of the following two indicators under Intermediate Outcome 1. Guidance on collecting,
calculating, and reporting both indicators are given in this section.

Required Indicator: # and % of female-headed and male-headed households reporting “poor”,

“borderline”, or “acceptable” Food Consumption Score (FCS)
• Measurement Tool: Food Consumption Score
• Measurement Instrument: Household survey

Required Indicator: Average Reduced Coping Strategies Index (r-CSI) reported by female-headed
households, male-headed households, and all households combined
• Measurement Tool: Reduced Coping Strategies Index
• Measurement Instrument: Household survey

Foodgrains Bank requires the use of the Food Consumption Score (FCS) to measure changes in
consumption achieved through project activities seeking to increase access to food for individuals and
households. In the past, many projects used the Meals per Day indicator to measure changes in food
consumption. The Meals per Day indicator is no longer an internationally-recognized standard for food
security measurement and will no longer be accepted as a measure of food consumption changes in
Foodgrains-bank funded projects9.

Whether a project is designed to stabilize or increase immediate consumption of food for project
beneficiary households will depend on factors such as the context and length of the food assistance
response, and the pre-crisis household food consumption levels. For example, where a project is
designed to respond to a sudden-onset crisis (e.g. a hurricane or cyclone) and prior to the crisis
households were food secure, the food assistance ration might be designed to return households back to
pre-crisis consumption levels and the objective would be to stabilize household food consumption.
Another example is the case of food assistance projects that are responding to the food needs of
refugees or internally displaced peoples, who just prior to displacement (perhaps due to conflict or a
natural disaster), enjoyed stable food security. Again, the objective of the food assistance might be to
stabilize food consumption at pre-crisis levels and the food ration would be designed appropriately to
achieve this objective.

In contrast, in some project contexts the objective is to increase immediate household food consumption.
For example, this is often the case in projects that are responding to slow-onset drought situations, where
beneficiary households have been experiencing a steady decline (either slow or relatively sharp,
depending on the nature of the crisis) in food security prior to the beginning of the project. In this case,
the objective is to increase household food consumption to an acceptable standard, as measured by the
Food Consumption Score (i.e. an “Acceptable” FCS).

9 Foodgrains Bank recognizes that for some implementing partners the transition to FCS from meals per day may
present challenges to monitoring and evaluation capacity. For this reason, we recognize that some projects may
continue to collect Meals per Day data, in addition to the Food Consumption Score, to ensure that challenges that
may be encountered with using the FCS do not hinder a project’s ability to track and report results against the
intermediate outcome of stabilizing or increasing immediate food consumption. Guidance on measuring, analyzing,
and reporting Meals per Day is included in Annex I of this document.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 23 | 60

Both the FCS and the rCSI are household-level indicators and cannot be disaggregated meaningfully to
the individual level. Therefore, this data can only be disaggregated by the sex of the head of household.

The standard Food Assistance Household Survey Template includes collecting the gender of the head of
the household in section A – Household Characteristics, in addition to the Food Consumption Score and
the Reduced Coping Strategies Index.

Food Consumption Score (FCS)

The Food Consumption Score (FCS) was developed by the World Food Program (WFP) as a standard
indicator to be used in WFP food security and vulnerability surveys. The FCS is an approach that
captures both consumption frequency and dietary diversity. It is a much more accurate and reliable
indicator than Meals Per Day.

• FCS is calculated based on a 7-day recall which captures the important food groups;
• Food items are divided into 9 different food groups and each group is assigned a weight;
• Weights are based on the food group’s quality in terms of caloric density, macro & micronutrient
content and quantities typically eaten and the weightings are taken as a standard from the WFP;
• The maximum number of days counted in one group is 7;
• Each household’s food consumption score has a range of 0 to 112

The raw survey data for the FCS is made up of how many days, in the past seven days, a household
consumed food from each of the nine food group categories: main staples, pulses, fruits, vegetables,
animal, dairy, sugar, oil, and condiments. A weighting is then applied to each of the nine food groups
based on nutritional quality.

Table 3: Food Consumption Score Categories & Weightings

Food Groups Weight
Food Items (Examples)
(Definitive) (Definitive)
Maize, maize meal, rice, sorghum, millet, pasta, bread and other cereals,
1 Main Staples 2
cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, other tubers, plantains
2 Beans, peas, groundnuts & cashew nuts Pulses 3
3 Vegetables, leaves Vegetables 1
4 Fruits Fruit 1
5 Beef, goat, poultry, pork, eggs, fish Meat and Fish 4
6 Milk, yogurt and other dairy Milk 4
7 Sugar & sugar products, honey Sugar 0.5
8 Oils, fats and butter Oil 0.5
9 Spices, tea, coffee, salt, fish power, small amounts of milk for tea Condiments 0

For every project it is important to review and adjust the example food items in each category to be locally
appropriate. For example, teff would be an important main staple to include in Ethiopia but would not be
relevant in Pakistan where rice and chapati are much more important main staples.

Food Consumption Score - Collecting the FCS

The FCS can be measured using the following simple baseline and endline survey instrument:

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 24 | 60

 Table 4: Food Consumption Score Survey Instrument

B: FOOD CONSUMPTION SCORE

B1 Please think of the foods your household has eaten over the past week (the past seven days). How
many days out of the past 7 days have you or someone in your household eaten the following food
groups? (FCS) Circle or mark (√) the appropriate number in each column.

Main Pulses Fruit Vegetables Animal Dairy Sugar Oil Condiments

Staples
Number of
days in the 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □ 0 □
previous 7
days 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □ 1 □
household
consumed: 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □ 2 □
3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □ 3 □
4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □ 4 □
5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □ 5 □
6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □ 6 □
7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □ 7 □
B2 How was this food mainly acquired? Record the single main source of each type of food group
for the past 7 days (using codes provided below)

Examples of foods in categories for B1:

Main Staples includes – Cereals: maize, rice, sorghum, wheat, wheat flour, teff and Roots & Tubers: potatoes,
cassava, yams, enset, etc.
Pulses includes - beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, groundnuts, etc.
Fruit includes - mango, papaya, banana, orange, lemon, apple, dates, wild fruit, etc.
Vegetables includes - carrots, pumpkin, squash, kale, spinach, pepper leaves, lettuce, chard, tomato, onions,
cabbage, etc.
Animal includes - beef, lamb, goat, chicken, egg, liver, kidney, other organ meat, etc.
Dairy includes – milk, cheese, yoghurt, other milk products, etc. NOTE - full portions only. Do not include small
amounts (e.g. milk for tea, etc.)
Sugar includes - sugar, sugarcane, sugar products, honey, etc.
Oil includes - oil, fat, butter, etc.
Condiments includes - spices, tea, coffee, salt, small amounts of milk &/or sugar added to tea or coffee

Food acquisition codes for B2: 4 = Loan 8 = exchange labour or items for
1 = Own production (crops, 5 = market (purchase with cash) food
animals) 6 = market (purchase with credit) 9 = gift (food) from family,
2 = Fishing / Hunting 7 = beg for food relatives, or friends
3 = Gathering 10 = food assistance from civil
society, NGOs, government, WFP,
PSNP, FFW, etc.

Every project will need to customize the examples given for B1 and the codes used for B2 to be relevant
to the project context. The tool above (developed by a partner delivering assistance to Syrian IDPs and
host households in Aleppo) is recommended for use by most Foodgrains Bank partners as it directly
captures the data based on the 9 food groups of the FCS. A longer, more detailed version of this
questionnaire is described in the WFP Food Consumption Score guidance document. This more detailed
version can be used, but is not recommended for most Foodgrains Bank partners.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 25 | 60

Food Consumption Score - Calculating and Reporting FCS

To calculate the FCS for each household:

• Multiply the number of days consumed for each food group by its weight and create a weighted
food group number for each food group
• For each household sum the weighted food group scores, thus creating a total Food
Consumption Score (FCS).
• Using the chart below, categorize each of the surveyed households into one of the three FCS
(Poor, Borderline, Acceptable). Use the standard FCS category thresholds unless the project is
taking place in an area where oil and sugar are regularly consumed (in which case use the
adjusted threshholds).

Table 5: Standard and Adjusted FCS Categories

Adjusted FCS Category Thresholds
Standard FCS Category Thresholds
(where oil and sugar are regularly consumed)
FCS Profile FCS Profile
0 - < 21 Poor 0 - < 28 Poor
21 - 35 Borderline 28 – 42 Borderline
> 35 Acceptable ➢ 42 Acceptable

Example FCS calculation:

Table 6: FCS Calculation Example

Food Groups (Definitive) # of Days Weight (Definitive) Weighted Totals
Main Staples 7 2 14
Pulses 3 3 9
Vegetables 2 1 2
Fruit 1 1 1
Meat and Fish 0 4 0
Milk 0 4 0
Sugar 7 0.5 3.5
Oil 2 0.5 1
Condiments 7 0 0
TOTAL 30.5
HOUSEHOLD PROFILE Borderline

Food Consumption Score - Setting the FCS Target

The target Food Consumption Score (FCS) will usually be some form of “Minimum X% of households
report ‘Acceptable’ FCS post-distribution”. The value of X in this indicator should be set after the
collection and analysis of the baseline FCS data, in discussion with the Foodgrains Bank program officer.
The local context, the modality choice, the size and objective of the transfer (i.e. intended to stabilize or
increase consumption) will all need to be taken into consideration when setting an appropriate target for
the project. For projects that are well-planned and designed the target should be set relatively high (e.g.
80% or higher households report “Acceptable” FCS post-distribution) because the transfer (either in-kind

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 26 | 60

ration of value of the voucher / cash transfer) is designed to maximize the chance that households
receiving the transfer will achieve that level of consumption.

The following table should then be used in project reporting to summarize and compare the results of the
FCS at baseline and post-distribution for all the surveyed households:

Table 7: FCS Reporting Table

FCS Baseline Survey Post-Distribution Survey Percentage Change
Classification (date) (date)
N = 87 N = 90
Profile FHH10 MHH11 All HH12 FHH MHH All FHH MHH All HH
# % # % # % # % # % # %
Poor (0-20) 58 67% 2 2% -97%
Borderline 27 31% 5 6% -81%
(21-35)
Acceptable 2 2% 83 92% +4050
(>35) %
Totals 87 100 90 100
% %

Food Consumption Score - How to calculate the FCS % change

It is often challenging to calculate the percentage change in an indicator from the baseline to the post-
distribution. Many people assume the percentage change is found by simply calculating the difference
between the ‘before’ and ‘after’ numbers, e.g., that the % change in the indicator ‘% of households
reporting a ‘poor’ food consumption score’ would be 65% or 67% - 2% = 65%. However, this is not
correct. That is simply the difference between the before and after – but is NOT the percentage change.

To calculate the percentage change (% change) between two numbers the following formula is used:

𝒚𝟐 − 𝒚𝟏
( ) ∗ 𝟏𝟎𝟎
𝒚𝟏

Where y2 is the ‘after’ number (e.g. % of households reporting ‘poor’ FCS post-distribution) and y1 is the
‘before’ number (e.g., % of households reporting ‘poor’ FCS at baseline) or:
2 − 67
( ) ∗ 100 = −97.01 𝑜𝑟 − 97%
67

Food Consumption Score - What does it mean if your percentage change is negative?

Percentage change can be a positive or a negative number. If it is a positive number, then it is called a
percentage increase and means that the indicator value has gone up or increased from the ‘before’
measurement to the ‘after’ measurement. If it is a negative number, then it is called a percentage
decrease, and means that the indicator value has gone down, or decreased from the ‘before’ to the ‘after’
measurement.

10 Female Headed Households

11 Male Headed Households
12 Households

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 27 | 60

Continuing with the example from above, the calculated value is -97%. This means that, post-distribution,
the ‘% of households reporting a ‘poor’ food consumption score’ decreased by 97% from the baseline
measurement. If the value had been positive, then we would report that, post-distribution, the indicator
value increased.

Food Consumption Score - What does the FCS tell us about Household Food Consumption?

The FCS is a measure of both the frequency and diversity of foods consumed in a household over a
seven-day reporting period. It is important to remember that it is measuring the food consumption of the
entire household, not individual members within the household. Also, it is asking about food consumed
within the household and which in theory is available and accessible to all household members. Food that
is eaten by a household member in a restaurant or at a roadside stall should not be counted in the FCS.

For example, if meat is purchased in a market, brought home, and cooked and eaten in the home 3 days
out of the past 7 days, then that would be counted as 3 for the ‘meat’ food group. The FCS does not
count how many times per day a food group was consumed: if on each of the 3 days meat was consumed
two times per day, this is still only counted as 3 days for the ‘meat’ food group. If only male household
members ate the meat, it would still be counted as consumed by the household. The FCS indicator
captures whether the household can access different foods, not the equity of access to that food. If family
member eats meat purchased from a street vendor when he is outside of the home this is not counted,
because it was not consumed inside the household. The FCS does not capture intra-household
differences or inequalities in food consumption, however this level of detail is beyond the scope of most
food assistance projects which are designed to impact household and not individual levels of
consumption.

What the Food Consumption Score does tell us is whether surveyed households are able to access a
sufficient quantity and quality of food to ensure at least an ‘acceptable’ level of food consumption for the
household.

When analyzing FCS data, partners should consider what foods are known to be accessible to
households at the baseline and post-distribution to help assess whether the survey results ‘make sense’
given what is known about consumption. If you observe, based on experience in the community or focus
group discussions or key informant interviews, that most households at the baseline are only consuming
main staples (such as rice, wheat, or maize) and tea, then you would expect to find a majority of surveyed
households reporting a ‘poor’ FCS at the baseline.

If an unexpected number or percentage of surveyed households report an ‘acceptable’ FCS at baseline,

asking some questions about the data may uncover an explanation. For example, was the sampling done
correctly or were non-beneficiary households included in the survey which may have skewed the results
(i.e., too many food secure households included in the survey). This can happen when the enumerators
sample households from the general population, instead of only including appropriately targeted and
selected beneficiaries.

Another possibility for unexpected results might be that households have access to a food source that
was not considered during project design. For example, a food assistance project in the south-east of
Niger expected that households would only have access to main staples and tea, with possibly some
vegetables. However, the baseline survey found a higher-than-expected number of households reporting
a high-borderline to low-acceptable FCS (e.g. between 40 to 55). Further investigation revealed that
some households were able to access fish several times a week from a nearby lake. Fish and meat has a
high weighting in the FCS calculation (weighting of 4) due to its protein content, which improved the food
consumption score more than was expected. The project team used this information adaptively in the

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 28 | 60

project to assess whether the food ration had been appropriately designed, and to adjust the indicator
target.

Partners should also assess whether the FCS data makes sense when comparing post-distribution data
results to what is expected based on the food ration distributed. If the project is distributing a ration that
includes a main staple, a pulse, and oil and the ration is designed to meet household consumption every
day, then post-distribution it should be expected that a high number of households will at least have a
FCS of 38.5 or ‘borderline’ (e.g., main staples – 7 days X 2 weighting + pulses – 7 days x 3 weighting +
oil – 7 days x 0.5 weighting = 38.5).

FCS data can also be cross-checked against the data collected post-distribution using the End-use of
Food tool. For example, if 80% of households report that they consumed 100% of the distributed ration in
the household, then it would be reasonable to expect that approximately 80% of surveyed households
would report a food consumption score that ‘fits’ with the consumption of 80% of the distributed
household food ration. If these two numbers are very different, then the partner should follow up the post-
distribution survey with some key informant interviews to find out if the project design assumptions were
correct. This information may be useful to adaptively adjust the household ration size for subsequent
distributions, if necessary.

For more detailed information regarding calculating and interpreting the Food Consumption Score,
readers are referred to the World Food Programme resources13.

Reduced Coping Strategies Index

A coping strategies index can be used to capture changes in the vulnerability of project participants over
the life of a project. It can also show what impact food assistance has on reducing their use of food
consumption coping strategies. It is important to differentiate between ‘food consumption’ and ‘livelihood’
coping strategies, depending on the nature and objectives of a project. Food consumption coping
strategies are specific strategies a household uses to cope with changes in food availability and access
(such as reducing the size of meals or skipping meals). Livelihood coping strategies do not directly relate
to food consumption, instead they refer to strategies a household uses in the face of insecurity that
negatively affect a household’s livelihoods. Livelihood coping strategies are collected using a different
measurement tool – the Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI) (described below).

The reduced coping strategy index (r-CSI) is specifically focused on food consumption coping strategies,
and is based on responses to a single question: “What do you do when you don’t have adequate food or
the money to buy food?”

The r-CSI combines:

• The frequency of each strategy (how many times was the strategy used?)
• The severity of each strategy (how serious is the strategy?)

The r-CSI first measures the actual number of days (over the past seven days) that a household has used
each coping strategy. To calculate the r-CSI, a weighting is applied for each coping strategy, as some
coping strategies are considered more serious than others. The r-CSI uses 5 required, standard food
consumption coping strategies, but additional context-specific food consumption coping strategies may be

13 https://www.wfp.org/content/technical-guidance-sheet-food-consumption-analysis-calculation-and-use-food-
consumption-score-food-s for the WFP Technical Guidance Sheet for FCS or https://resources.vam.wfp.org/node/13
for the WFP VAM Resource Centre: How to Construct the Food Consumption Score.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 29 | 60

added to the list of possible strategies, if the partner feels they are particularly relevant and important to
understanding how households are coping with food insecurity.

Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Collecting the r-CSI

The standard r-CSI question format is as follows. The standard severity ratings for each coping strategy
are included in the right-most column)

Table 8: Reduced Coping Strategies Index (r-CSI) & Severity Ratings

In the past 7 days, if you did not have enough food and were unable to buy Number of Days Severity Rating
food, how many days has your household had to: (0 – 7)
a. Rely on less preferred and less expensive foods? 1
b. Borrow food or rely on help from a friend or relative? 2
c. Limit portion size at mealtimes? 1
d. Restrict consumption by adults in order for children to eat? 3
e. Reduce number of meals in a day? 1

Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Calculating and Reporting r-CSI

The following is an example of how the r-CSI would be calculated for a single household:

Table 9: Reduced Coping Strategies Index (r-CSI) Example

In the past 7 days, if you did not have enough food and were Number of Severity Weighted score
unable to buy food, how many days has your household had days weight (number of days
to: (0 – 7) * weight)
a. Rely on less preferred and less expensive foods? 5 1 5
b. Borrow food or rely on help from a friend or relative? 2 2 4
c. Limit portion size at mealtimes? 7 1 7
d. Restrict consumption by adults in order for children to eat? 2 3 6
e. Reduce number of meals in a day? 5 1 5
Total Household rCSI 27

The possible r-CSI scores for each household will range between 0 and 56 (unless additional context-
specific food consumption coping strategies are added to the standard five strategies).

Once an r-CSI has been calculated for each surveyed household, an overall average r-CSI can be
determined for the sampled group of households for the survey. This would be derived by simply
summing the r-CSI scores for all households and dividing by the number of households surveyed as
follows:

∑ 𝒓𝑪𝑺𝑰 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔

𝒗𝒈 𝒓𝑪𝑺𝑰 =
𝑻𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 # 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒔 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒚𝒆𝒅

Projects should calculate and report an average r-CSI for all female-headed households surveyed, all
male-headed households surveyed, and for all households combined. The following table should be used
for reporting the r-CSI to Foodgrains Bank.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 30 | 60

Table 10: Reduced coping strategies index (r-CSI) Reporting Table
Female-headed Male-headed households Total households surveyed
households (n = 60) (n = 40) (n = 100)
Average at baseline
Average post distribution

Reduced Coping Strategies Index - Targets

The standard r-CSI target is ‘average r-CSI reduced from X at baseline to Y at post-distribution’. The
project team should set an appropriate and realistic target for the indicator (Y) based on the planned
intervention (e.g. full food ration vs half ration) and the baseline r-CSI values. Targets should be
expressed as an average r-CSI to be achieved post-distribution. As with all project outcomes and targets,
end of project reporting will then compare the actual result against the target and explain reasons for
significant variances.

When reporting on the project results, it may be useful to analyze which strategies are and are not being
used, and how this has changed over time. A first step in analysis could be to look at how often these
strategies are reported. If the baseline survey interviewed 100 households, how many used each coping
strategy? Is there a difference in strategy use between female- and male-headed households? A
difference between households in different communities? Which strategies are most often used, and by
who? Understanding the answer to these questions can help the project implementation team in
determining modality choice and project design.

The strategy “reducing consumption by adults for children to eat” is given the highest weighting (w = 3) as
food security experts consider this coping strategy as representative of a high level of stress within
households. The strategy “borrowing food or relying on help from a friend or relative” is given the second
highest weighting. Using the example in a table above, strategies ‘b’ and ‘d’ are used the least frequently.
As the household is using all coping strategies at least once a week and has started using the two most
severe strategies, the data shows that the household is experiencing significant food insecurity

When post-distribution data is collected, the project team should see a reduction in the use of coping
strategies as compared to baseline. If at baseline, a majority of households were relying on less preferred
or less expensive foods, and the project selected an unrestricted voucher as the assistance modality so
beneficiaries could choose what foods to purchase, there should a reduction in the use of that coping
strategy. If this is NOT the case, then the team could try to investigate why. Is the value of the voucher
too low? Are beneficiaries purchasing cheaper bulk products to hedge against future food insecurity?
Understanding the answer to these questions can help the project implementation team to determine if
any adaptations need to be made in modality design for subsequent distributions to better meet
beneficiaries needs.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 31 | 60

Intermediate Outcome #2– Protected livelihoods of hunger-affected individuals and households
(disaggregated by the gender of the head of household).

All projects of a duration of more than three months that include a livelihood product transfer specifically
designed to protect livelihoods of project beneficiaries are required to include the following indicator under
Intermediate Outcome 2. Guidance on collecting, calculating, and reporting this indicator are given in this
section.

Required Indicator: # and % of female-headed and male-headed households reporting using “stress”,
“crisis”, and “emergency” livelihood coping strategies
• Measurement Tool: Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI)
• Measurement Instrument: Household survey

Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI)

The Livelihoods Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI) is used to help measure asset depletion and contributes
to a measure of a household’s future coping capacity (as an element of economic access to food). Unlike
many coping strategies tools, the L-CSI does not ask about frequency of use.

The r-CSI (described above) is used as one of the food security measures by the IPC as part of their food
insecurity phase classification system. The L-CSI is a part of WFPs CARI Food Security Console.

The L-CSI is derived from questions about a household’s experience with livelihood stress and asset
depletion during the previous 30 days. Responses are used to understand the stress and insecurity faced
by households and describes their capacity regarding future productivity.

All strategies are classified into three broad groups: stress, crisis and emergency:

• Stress strategies, such as borrowing money or spending savings, are those which indicate a
reduced ability to deal with future shocks due to a reduction in resources or increase in debts.
• Crisis strategies, such as selling productive assets, directly reduce future productivity including
human capital formation.
• Emergency strategies, such as selling one's land, affect future productivity and are more difficult
to reverse or more dramatic in nature.

Stress strategies are understood to be the least severe, and emergency the most severe. A household
can most easily recover from using a stress strategy, whereas crisis strategies are more difficult to
recover from and emergency strategies have the possibility of permanently reducing a household’s
livelihood potential. For example, selling non-productive, replaceable household items is considered a
stress (low severity) coping strategy. Selling productive assets is a more severe or crisis strategy, as it
more significantly affects future livelihood potential. Finally, selling a house or land is considered the most
severe type of coping strategy (emergency), as both house and land represent significant productive
assets which households may never recover from selling.

A master list of 18 possible livelihood coping strategies (which are outlined in the following table) provides
potential questionnaire items for this indicator.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 32 | 60

Table 11: L-CSI Coping Strategies Master List

ID Strategy Category14 Rational / Discussion

1 Sold household assets/goods (radio, Stress Selling off household assets is equivalent to
furniture, television, jewelry etc.) spending down savings – a sign of stress, or mild
food insecurity

2 Spent savings Stress Incurring more debt to meet food needs or

spending down savings are signs of stress, or
mild food insecurity.

3 Sold more animals (nonproductive) than Stress Items indicating reduced ability to deal with future
usual15 shocks due to current reduction in resources or
increase in debts

4 Sent household members to eat Stress A sign of stress, or mild food insecurity
elsewhere

5 Purchased food on credit or borrowed Stress Incurring more debt to meet food needs or
food spending down savings are signs of stress, or
mild food insecurity.

6 Borrowed money Stress Incurring more debt to meet food needs or

spending down savings are signs of stress, or
mild food insecurity.

7 Move children to less expensive school Stress Used in some countries as a sign of stress.

8 Sold productive assets or means of Crisis Selling off productive assets is a crisis strategy,
transport (sewing machine, wheelbarrow, or moderate food insecurity.
bicycle, car, etc.)

9 Withdrew children from school Crisis This decreases human capital, a productive
asset, so is considered a crisis strategy, or
moderate food insecurity.

10 Reduced expenses on health (including Crisis This decreases human capital, a productive
drugs) and education asset, so is considered a crisis strategy, or
moderate food insecurity.

11 Harvested immature crops (e.g. green Crisis

maize)

12 Consumed seed stocks that were to be Crisis This action decreases productive assets,
saved for the next season affecting next year’s harvest, which is a crisis
strategy.

13 Decreased expenditures on fertilizer, Crisis Items that directly reduce future productivity,
pesticide, fodder, animal feed, veterinary including human capital formation, is a crisis
care, etc. strategy

14 Sold house or land Emergency Items that affect future productivity and are more
difficult to reverse, or more dramatic in nature

15 Begged Emergency Items that affect or include loss of human dignity

14Households are grouped according to their most severe strategy: none, stress, crisis, or emergency.
15Questions 3 and 17 do not refer to the normal sale of livestock, rather they are intended to ask about the
exceptional sale of livestock in response to a shock or crisis.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 33 | 60

16 Engaged in illegal income activities (theft, Emergency Items that include loss of human dignity
prostitution)

17 Sold last female animals Emergency Specific to livestock producers; Items that affect
future productivity, and are more difficult to
reverse

18 Entire household migrated Emergency Items that affect future productivity, but are more
difficult to reverse, or more dramatic in nature

Households engaging in routine economic activities that did not use any of these strategies would be
considered “normal” for livelihood coping and food secure according to the L-CSI.

The livelihoods-based coping strategies tool was developed by the World Food Programme for food
security monitoring and to better understand longer-term coping capacity of households. The list of
eighteen pre-classified strategies Foodgrains Bank requires that partners using the L-CSI do not change
the severity classification of the pre-defined list. For each project, the tool should be adapted to suit the
local context. This requires the implementing partner to select relevant livelihood-coping strategies from
the ‘coping strategies master list’ (see Table 11 above), removing any strategies that do not apply to the
local context. If needed, additional context-specific livelihood coping strategies can be added along with
an appropriate severity rating (stress, crisis or emergency).

Livelihood Coping Strategies Index – Collecting the L-CSI Data

Below is an example ‘Livelihood Coping strategies’ tool containing 10 strategies from the master list.
When selecting strategies to include in the tool, the implementing partner must select at a minimum 10
strategies comprised of: 4 stress strategies, 3 crisis strategies, and 3 emergency strategies. The
strategies do not have to appear in the survey tool in the exact order given in the master list. However,
the order of the strategies should make sense to the respondents and should not be confusing.

Table 12: L-CSI Survey Format (Example)

During the past 30 days, did anyone in your Severity Possible Responses
household have to engage in any of the following Level 1 = Yes
behaviours due to a lack of food or a lack of money to 2 = No, because I did not face a shortage of
buy food? food
3 = No, because I already sold those assets or
have engaged in this activity within the last 12
months and cannot continue to do it
4 = Not applicable

1.1 Sold non-productive household assets/goods Stress

(radio, furniture, refrigerator, television, jewelry etc..)

1.2 Reduced non-food expenses on health (including Crisis

drugs) and education

1.3 Sold productive assets or means of transport Crisis

(sewing machine, wheelbarrow, bicycle, car, etc..)

1.4 Spent savings Stress

1.5 Borrowed money / food from a formal lender / Stress

bank

1.6 Sold house or land Emergency

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 34 | 60

1.7 Withdrew children from school Crisis

1.8 Sold last productive female animals Emergency

1.9 Begging Emergency

1.10 Sold more animals (non-productive) than usual Stress

For all livelihood-based coping strategies, the recall period is set at the ‘previous 30 days’. Unlike the
consumption-based coping strategies tool, the L-CSI does not capture the number of times each strategy
was used.

If a household reports they did not use a livelihood coping strategy, the respondent is probed for
additional information. Specifically, they are asked if it was because:

a. they didn’t need to, because they are not experiencing sufficient stress to use that strategy
b. they had already used or exhausted that strategy or in the case of displacement have lost
everything and are totally dependent on external support, or
c. the strategy is not applicable to their family’s situation (e.g. they do not own animals to sell).

Livelihood Coping Strategies Index – Normal Livelihood Strategies

Projects sometimes collect data on livelihood coping strategies considered part of a “normal” livelihood
and which do not affect the household’s future ability to face a crisis. A list of such possible strategies is
included below. If a partner is particularly interested in understanding one or more of these ‘insurance’
strategies, they can be added to the tool, but should not be included in the calculation of the L-SCI.

Table 13: Normal Household Livelihood Strategies

Example strategies Description

Increased casual labour This is a typical income increasing strategy, not

necessarily a sign of stress.

Some household members worked for food only This is a typical exchange process, not necessarily a
sign of stress

Migration of one or more household members or sent an This is a typical income increasing strategy, not
adult household member away to seek work (beyond necessarily a sign of stress
usual seasonal migration)

Increase the number of household members out of the This is a typical income increasing strategy, not
village in search for work (migrants) necessarily a sign of stress

Charcoal production & sale This is a typical income increasing strategy, not
necessarily a sign of stress

Normal sale of livestock This is a typical income increasing strategy, not

necessarily a sign of stress

Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Calculating and analyzing the L-CSI

The data gathered using the L-CSI tool can be analyzed in several ways to help understand the severity
of a household’s coping capacity and can contribute to an understanding of household food security.

1. Understanding the response options and code for each household surveyed.

The L-CSI tool allows four different possible responses to each coping strategy:

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 35 | 60

 1 = Yes;
2 = No, because it was not necessary / I did not face a shortage of food;
3 = No, because I already sold those assets or have engaged in this activity within the last 12
months and cannot continue to do it; and
4 = No, not applicable to my household (e.g., did not sell any livestock because we did not own
any livestock in the first place).

Begin your data analysis by transposing each response for each possible strategy (which could be 1, 2, 3,
or 4) into a 1 = “Yes” or 0 = “No” answer for each coping strategy. Use the following logic:

If the household answered 1 = Yes for a coping strategy, then a 1 is assigned to that strategy
If the household answered 3 = No, because I already sold those assets or engaged in that activity
in the past 12 months, then a 1= Yes is assigned to that strategy. The reason for this is that
households which reported that they were unable to employ a strategy because they have
already exhausted that option are also considered to have used that strategy.
If the household answered 2 = No, because it was not necessary OR 4 = No, not applicable, then
a 0 = No is assigned for that strategy.

Once a household’s responses have been coded to a 1 = Yes or 0 = No for each strategy, the household
L-CSI can be determined by adding up all the 1 = Yes responses for that household. The possible range
will depend on how many livelihood strategies are included in the survey, but at a minimum should range
from 0 to 10 (assuming a minimum of 10 questions in the survey).

2. Classify each household as “normal”, “stress”, “crisis” or “emergency”.

To analyze and report the results of the L-CSI, households need to be classified as normal, stress, crisis,
or emergency and then the number of and percentage that fall into each level of coping severity
determined. This is a two-step process.

First, looking at the L-CSI example in Table 12 (above):

• There are four questions related to the ‘stress’ category (1.1, 1.4, 1.5, and 1.10). If a household
responds ‘yes’ to any of these four strategies, the household would be assigned a ‘1’ for the
category ‘Stress’ coping.
• There are three questions related to the ‘crisis’ category (1.2, 1.3., and 1.7). If a household
responds ‘yes’ to any of these three strategies, the household would be assigned a ‘1’ for the
category ‘Crisis’ coping.
• There are three questions related to the ‘emergency’ category (1.6, 1.8, 1.9). If a household
responds ‘yes’ to any of these three strategies, the household would be assigned a ‘1’ for the
category ‘Emergency’ coping

Second, to determine the overall severity level for each household, we look at the highest level of severity
that the household reported a ‘yes’ to and assign that level to the household. For example, if a household
has a score of ‘1’ for ‘Stress’ coping, ‘1’ for ‘Crisis’ coping, and ‘0’ for ‘Emergency’ coping, the household’s
overall classification for livelihood coping would be ‘Crisis’. If a household reported not using any of the
livelihood coping strategies, then the household would be classified as ‘Normal’.

In this way, each household can be assigned to a severity category, based on the most severe coping
strategy the household employed:

• Normal (if the household reported using NO coping strategies at all)

• Stress (if the household only reported using stress coping strategies, and no crisis or emergency
strategies).

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 36 | 60

 • Crisis (if the household reported using one or more crisis coping strategies, no emergency
strategies, and any number of stress coping strategies).
• Emergency (if the household reported using one or more emergency coping strategies,
regardless of the other strategies used (i.e. may have reported some or no stress or crisis)).

Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Reporting

The following table can be used to report the distribution of severity levels calculated for all surveyed
households for Livelihood Coping Strategies index.

Table 14: Livelihood Coping Strategies Index (L-CSI) Reporting Format

# of households classified % of households classified

(based on most severe type of strategy (based on most severe type of strategy
reported) in each severity level reported) in each severity level

Female Female
Male Headed All Male Headed All
Headed Headed
Households Households Households Households
Households Households

Normal / None

Stress

Crisis

Emergency

Total

Livelihood Coping Strategy Index - Targets

Projects do not need to set a specific target for the L-CSI. This is because given the nature of how the L-
CSI is calculated, even if the food security of the household increases, the L-CSI classification for a
household might not actually change over the lifetime of the project. The reason for this is because of
how the various “No” responses are coded and classified – specifically the No = 3 ‘because I already sold
those assets or have engaged in this activity within the last 12 months and cannot continue to do it’. If a
household answers Yes ( = 1) to a particular strategy at baseline (meaning they have used that strategy
in the past 30 days), then even if at post-distribution they answer No to the same strategy (No = I did not
use that strategy in the past 30 days), because they *did* use that strategy at baseline (which will
presumably be within 12 months of the post-distribution survey), their “No” upon further probing, will be a
No = 3 at post-distribution, which during analysis is re-coded as a Yes (see explanation on calculating the
L-CSI above). Therefore, targets are not necessarily very meaningful for the L-CSI.

More important than any singular target, is for project teams to assess the change in the L-CSI and seek
to understand the explanation behind that change (or lack of change). Depending on the context, a
project may want to really focus on understanding one or two livelihood coping strategies, such as the
sale of livestock and borrowing of money. For example, if a cash transfer project is designed to provide a
sufficient size of transfer that, ideally, households should not have to borrow funds, then partners may
want to focus on that strategy and, in addition to using the L-CSI, follow up with focus group discussions
with beneficiaries to understand if the transfer is having the desired impact on borrowing. If it is not, then
project teams can probe to understand why not. It may be that the transfer needs to be adjusted, or it may
reveal more about the decisions households are needing to make and simply help partners to understand
better the context and impact of their program.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 37 | 60

Immediate Outcome 1.1 and 2.1 – Increased equitable access to food for hunger-affected
individuals and households

The minimum required indicators to be included in the project performance measurement framework
under Immediate Outcome 1.1 and 2.1, depends on the modality (in-kind transfer, voucher or cash
transfer). All projects that include a livelihood product transfer will also include these indicators, as will all
conditional projects (i.e., food for work and cash for work). The specific indicators that are required
depending on the modality are described below. For more information, please contact with your member
and Foodgrains Bank Project Officer.

In-kind transfer (food or commodity voucher), with or without livelihood products, unconditional
or conditional transfer

Required Indicator: # of Female and Male Headed Households receiving food per month
• Measurement Tool: Distribution records

Required Indicator: # and % of women to men as recipients of assistance (i.e., person registered and
directly receiving the assistance)
• Measurement Tool: Calculated from Distribution records

Required Indicator: Type and amount of food received per Household per month for total distribution
months
• Measurement Tool: Distribution records

Required Indicator: End-use of Food

• Measurement Tool: End-use of Food survey

Required Indicator: Participant’s reported access and control over food / cash distributed through the
project (disaggregated by sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Required Indicator: Participant’s reported satisfaction with the food / voucher / cash distribution process
(disaggregated by sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Required Indicator: # and % of women, [girls], men, and [boys] consulted who report they feel safe while
accessing project information, services, facilities (e.g., distribution sites)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Cash voucher or cash transfer, with or without livelihood products, unconditional or conditional
transfer

Required Indicator: # of Female and Male Headed Households receiving vouchers or cash per month
• Measurement Tool: Distribution records

Required Indicator: # and % of women to men as recipients of assistance (i.e., person registered and
directly receiving the assistance)
• Measurement Tool: Calculated from Distribution records

Required Indicator: Value of food vouchers or cash received by households per month for total
distribution months
• Measurement Tool: Distribution records

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 38 | 60

Required Indicator: # and total $ value of vouchers redeemed
• Measurement Tool: Project records

Required Indicator: End-use of cash

• Measurement Tool: End-use of cash survey

Required Indicator: % of household resources dedicated to food (purchase and own production)
• Measurement Tool: Food Expenditure Share

Required Indicator: Participant’s reported access and control over food / cash distributed through the
project (disaggregated by sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Required Indicator: Participant’s reported satisfaction with the food / voucher / cash distribution process
(disaggregated by sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Required Indicator: # and % of women, [girls], men, and [boys] consulted who report they feel safe while
accessing project information, services, facilities (e.g., distribution sites)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Guidance on collecting, calculating, and reporting the four new gender equality indicators, the end-use of
food, the end-use of cash, and the Food Expenditure Share follow in this section, below.

Guidance Gender-equitable access indicators

# and % of women to men as recipients of assistance (i.e. person registered for AND directly receiving
the assistance).
• Measurement Tool: Food distribution records

This required indicator comes from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) gender handbook for
humanitarian action. IASC suggests that thinking about this can help promote women’s increased access
to and control over resources, while acknowledging that men usually have primary control over most
resources.

The idea behind the indicator is that if women are both the household member registered for assistance
and the person who physically receives the assistance, there is a greater likelihood that women will
control the access to the resource. Thus, for example, in a project with 1,000 beneficiary households
where 500 are female-headed and 500 are male-headed, the project may aim to ensure that for all
households the appropriate woman in the household is registered for and receives assistance. This can
be especially important in polygamous households where each wife needs to be registered and receive
assistance separately, to help ensure access for all extended household members.

Participant’s reported access and control over food / cash distributed through the project (disaggregated
by sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

Participant’s reported satisfaction with the food / voucher / cash distribution process (disaggregated by
sex of respondent)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

# and % of women, [girls], men, and [boys] consulted who report they feel safe while accessing project
information, services, facilities (e.g., distribution sites)
• Measurement Tool: Household monitoring survey (see table below) or Focus Group Discussion

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 39 | 60

These three indicators should be collected during post-distribution monitoring (PDM) surveys. A project
can choose to do a PDM household survey using the below table, modified to suit the project, or collect
this data using Focus Group Discussions (FGD). Alternatively, FGDs could be used at the end of the
project to verify and triangulate the data gathered during the project through post-distribution monitoring
surveys. In either case, this data is important to collect during project implementation so that subsequent
distributions may be modified to improve women’s access, control, and / or protection, if needed. The
appropriate monitoring and evaluation design for collecting these three indicators will very much depend
on the project context and overall project design.

Table 15: Equal Access, Satisfaction, and Safety of Food/Cash Distribution Process

ONLY FOR POST-DISTRIBUTION MONITORING, MIDLINE AND/OR ENDLINE SURVEY

QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ASKED OF THE RECIPIENT OF THE Response Explanation

TRANSFER AND DISAGGREGATED BASED ON SEX OF
RESPONDENT

1 Did receiving food distributions from this project increase the amount of
food available to eat for you and everyone in your household?
Yes = 1; No = 0 (access)

2 Did you decide how the food/cash distributed through this project was
used in your household? (control)
Yes, decision was made on [his/her] on own = 1;
Yes, decision was made jointly with [another household member or
husband / wife] = 2;
No = someone else made the decision and you were not involved = 0

3 How satisfied were you with the food / cash / voucher distribution
process?
1 = Very dissatisfied; 2 = A little dissatisfied; 3 = A little satisfied; 4 =
Very satisfied

4 Did you feel safe when you were …? (Check all those that are answered ‘yes’) (Add other questions as appropriate to
project)

 Walking to the distribution point  Waiting at the distribution site to receive your distribution

 Handling the food / cash at the distribution point  Travelling home from the distribution with your food /
cash
5 Did you experience the following as a result of [food / cash] distribution? (Check all those that are answered ‘yes’)
(Optional, if appropriate for your project, add / delete questions as appropriate. These could be modified as
contextually appropriate to ask about incidence of Gender Based Violence as a result of project transfers)

 Felt empowered as a result of the [food / cash]  Household conflict as a result of [food / cash] control?

 Community jealousy due to the [food / cash] transfer  Crime increased in the community as a result of the
[food / cash]

End Use of Food

For food assistance projects that provide in-kind food transfers to beneficiary households a simple End-
Use of Food tool can be used to gather information post-distribution regarding how beneficiary
households used the food they received from the project. This indicator is not measured at baseline since
no food will have yet been provided.

A simple end use of food tool is provided below. It should be adjusted to the local context.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 40 | 60

Table 16: End Use of Food

REMOVE THIS SECTION FOR BASELINE SURVEY. ONLY Rice Maize Beans Oil
NEEDED FOR POST-DISTRIBUTION SURVEY

1 How much food assistance has your household received

in the past month? (kgs, litres, or local unit)

2 Was this the amount you expected? (1 = Yes, 0 = No)

3 How much of this food assistance (kgs, litres, or local

units) was:

3.1 Consumed by the household?

3.2 Saved?

3.3 Shared with other households, family or friends?

3.4 Sold or Traded?

3.5 Spoiled?

3.6 Stolen?

3.7 Fed to livestock?

3.8 Other?

TOTAL (Note: these totals should match the amounts in

#1 above)

In many projects, the focus group discussions may be the preferred method for collecting end use of food
data. A similar set of questions would be used in the focus group discussion, however, no specific
quantitative data would be collected through the focus group, rather the project team would gather
beneficiaries perceptions, experiences, and opinions.

End Use of Cash

For food assistance projects that provide a cash transfers to beneficiary households a simple End-Use of
Cash tool can be used to gather information after some distributions (post-distribution) regarding how
beneficiary households used the cash they received from the project. This indicator is not measured at
baseline since no cash will have yet been distributed.

A simple End Use of Cash tool is provided below. It should be adjusted to the local context.

Table 17: End Use of Cash

REMOVE THIS SECTION FOR BASELINE SURVEY. ONLY NEEDED FOR POST- Cash
DISTRIBUTION SURVEY

1 How much cash has your household received in the past month? (local unit)

2 Was this the amount you expected? (1 = Yes, 0 = No)

3 How much of this cash (local units) was:

3.1 Spent on food items?

3.2 Spent on NFI items?

3.3 Shared with other households, family or friends?

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 41 | 60

 3.4 Used for debt repayment?

3.7 Other?

TOTAL (Note: these totals should match the amounts in #1 above)

Similar to the End Use of Food indicator, projects may prefer to use focus group discussions with
beneficiaries to gather this data.

Food Expenditure Share

The Food Expenditure Share (FES) is used as a measure of a household’s economic vulnerability and
contributes to understanding a household’s coping capacity in the future to shocks or crises that affect
food security. This indicator is based on the premise that the greater the importance of food within a
household’s overall budget (relative to other consumed items or services) the more economically
vulnerable the household. Households which proportionately spend less than 50% of their monthly
expenses on food are considered to be food secure.

The Food Expenditure Share is calculated by dividing the total food expenditures by the total household
expenditures. However, an important caveat is that both the numerator and the denominator should
include the value of non-purchased (own production) foods consumed.

This is important because, by including both non-purchased and purchased foods within the overall food
expenditure share estimate, the indicator considers households with different food access situations
similarly. The indicator helps to understand, with respect to household expenditures, how big of a role the
purchase of food plays in relation to the purchase of non-food items and total expenditures.

Measuring this FES indicator at the baseline and post-distribution will help project teams better
understand the impact of the cash transfer has on household expenditures and whether some of the
assumptions about how expenditures may change with the receipt of the transfer hold true.

Collecting the Food Expenditure Share Data

The Food Expenditure Share indicator should be included in food assistance projects using a cash
transfer modality and in agriculture and livelihoods projects that are seeking to improve household
incomes and want to track changes in household expenditures over time as a result of an increase in
access to cash (income) generated through livelihood improvements.

The Food Expenditure Share indicator requires that two types of data are collected: how much a
household spent on food (including estimates of the cash value of their own production) and how much a
household spent on non-food items. For simplicity it is usually easier to collect this data using two
different tables in a survey: the food expenditures and the non-food expenditures. Examples of the
household survey instruments for each are given below.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 42 | 60

 Table 18: Food Expenditure Share

Monthly Food Basket

H1 – Did you purchase any of the H2– During the last 30 days did
following items during the last 30 your household consume the
days for household consumption? following foods without purchasing
If “NO”, enter ‘0’ and proceed to the them? (e.g., consumed from own
next food item. production, gathered or hunted,
If “yes”, ask the respondent to received as a donation or food aid,
estimate the total cash and credit received in exchange for labour /
expenditure on the item for the last 30 items)
days. (register the expenses in local If “Yes”, estimate the value of the
currency) non-purchased food items
consumed during the last 30 days

Food Item (cash, in local (credit, in local (value, in local currency)

currency) currency)

1. Cereals (maize, rice, sorghum,

wheat, bread)

2. Tubers (potatoes, yams, cassava,

enset)

3. Pulses (beans, peas, groundnuts)

4. Fruits & vegetables

5. Fish/Meat/Poultry/Eggs

6. Milk/cheese/yoghurt

7. Oil, fat, butter

8. Sugar/salt

9. Tea/coffee

10. Other meals/snacks consumed

outside the home

Subtotal (each column)

Column a Column b Column C

Total Monthly Food Basket Value

(sum of the three sub0total
columns a + b +c)
The food basket value is designed to collect data on the value of the food consumed by a household
using the local currency, it is not asking to report the quantity or amount of actual food consumed.
However, in cases where a household consumes a food item without purchasing it (i.e., from its own
production), the respondent must estimate the total value of the non-purchased consumed food, based on
the quantity consumed. For example, if a household in Bangladesh consumes its own rice, and estimates
that the household consumes 3 kg in the past 30 days, and the local cost of rice is Tk 60 per kg, then the
value of their cereal consumption would be Tk 180.

The enumerator will play an important role in validating households’ estimation of food value.
Enumerators will need to ask respondents to estimate the food quantities consumed, and help
respondents based on their knowledge of local market prices, estimate the food value.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 43 | 60

If the 30-day recall period is too long for survey respondents to confidently remember and estimate the
value of their food consumption, the instrument can be designed with a 7-day recall instead of 30-days. If
this is done, then the reported data for the Monthly Food Basket will need to be multiplied by 4.5 before
the Food Expenditure Score is calculated (see description of calculation below).

To avoid confusion, a separate table and set of questions should be used in a household survey to collect
household spending on non-food items. WFP (CARI Guidance Note) also recommends that non-food
expenditures be separated further into two different tables, based on two different time periods 30 days
and 6 months. Again, to avoid enumerator and respondent confusion regarding time periods, it is
recommended that a separate table is made for each time period. Examples of the household survey
instruments for non-food expenditures are given in Table 19 (below).

Table 19: Food Expenditure Share

Non-Food Expenditures

30 Day Expenditures 6 Month Expenditures

H3 – Did you purchase Estimated expenditure H4 – In the past 6 months how Estimated
the following items during the last 30 days much money have you spent on expenditure during
during the last 30 days (enter the expenses each of the following items or the last six months
for household according to the service?
consumption? currency in which it If none, enter 0 and go to the
If none, enter 0 and go was done) next item
to the next item

(local currency) (local currency)

11. Soap & household items 19. Medical expenses / health

care

12. Transport 20. Clothing, shoes

13. Fuel (wood, charcoal, 21. Education, school fees,

LPG, etc.) uniform etc.

14. Water 22. Debt repayment

15. Electricity / lighting 23. Celebrations / social events

16. Cell phone 24. Agricultural inputs

17. Rent 25. Savings

18. Alcohol / wine / tobacco 26. Constructions / house repairs

TOTAL NON-FOOD TOTAL NON-FOOD SIX MONTHS

MONTHLY 1

Household surveys (baseline, post-distribution) do not need to include these entire lists of non-food items.
When the baseline survey is being prepared, the M&E team should adjust (add/remove) items in each of
these two lists to suite the local context. It may only be relevant to ask about two or three expenditure
categories. If an item is not purchased in the local area, then it should be removed from the list. If there is
a common item purchased in a particular area that is not on the list, then it can be added. The intent of
the list is not to be completely exhaustive of every penny spent, but rather it should aim to capture
approximately a household’s total major expenses.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 44 | 60

Calculating the Food Expenditure Share

To calculate a household’s Food Expenditure Share the following five steps are followed:

1. For each household, add together the total food expenditures (cash and credit) for the 30-day
recall period. Next, add this to the sum of the third column in the table, the total value of the non-
purchased food items which were consumed in the past 30 days. Together, these three amounts
make up the household’s total ‘food basket value’ for the past 30-days. This variable is called the
“monthly food basket value”.

2. If a 7-day recall period was used to collect the data on the house food expenditures, then first (as
for the 30-day recall) add together to total food expenditures (cash and credit) for the 7-day recall
period. Next, add to this the sum of the third column in the table, the total value of the non-
purchased food items which were consumed in the past 30 days. Together, these three amounts
make up the household’s total food basket value for seven days. To calculate the “monthly food
basket value” multiply the total food value for seven days by 4.5.

3. Add together the short-term (30 day) non-food expenses. This is the “non-food monthly 1” value.

4. Add together the long-term (6 months) non-food expenses, excluding the ‘savings’ column; divide
this total by 6. This is the “non-food monthly 2” value.

5. To calculate the Food Expenditure Share divide the “monthly food basket value” by the sum of
“monthly food basket value” plus “non-food monthly 1” plus “non-food monthly 2”. The result is the
household ‘food expenditure share’ indicator.
𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒕 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆
𝑭𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒆 =
𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒕 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒖𝒆 + 𝒏𝒐𝒏 − 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝟏 + 𝒏𝒐𝒏 − 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒍𝒚 𝟐

Reporting the Food Expenditure Share

The World Food Programme uses a four-point scale to relate a household’s food expenditure share score
to the household’s level of food security. This four-point scale is given in the table below.

Table 20: Translating Food Expenditure Share to Food Security

Marginally Food Moderately Food Severely Food

Food Secure (1)
Secure (2) Secure (3) Secure (4)

Food Expenditure Share <50% 50% - < 65% 65% - < 75% ≥ 75%

Households spending less than 50% of their monthly expenses on food are understood to be generally
food secure. Households spending more than 75% of their monthly expenses on food are understood to
be severely food insecure. The Food Expenditure Share measures the ‘spending on food’ or household
economic vulnerability aspect of household food security.

Because the FES asks households to estimate the cash value of foods which were consumed in the
household but not purchased (i.e., own production, gifts, food assistance), the value of all foods
consumed in the household – rather than just the value of purchased foods only – is use to determine
how important food is with respect to the overall household budget.

By including non-purchased or home-produced foods in the calculation of the FES, households which are
highly-dependent on non-purchased food still have the ‘opportunity’ to be classified as economically
vulnerable. This is because very little of the food such households consume is actually purchased, and

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 45 | 60

therefore the total purchases would comprise only a very small share of the total expenditures. If the FES
did not consider the value of home-produced food, many poor households, who are highly dependent on
their own production for food, would therefore have a much greater likelihood of being mis-classified as
not spending much money on food and thus being food secure.

The food expenditure share can be reported by providing both the number and percent of households
surveyed that had a food expenditure share in each of the four food security categories: < 50%, 50% - <
65%, 65% - < 75% and ≥ 75%. Table 21 (below) can be used to summarize the findings from each
survey.

Table 21: Food Expenditure Share Reporting Table

Food Expenditure Share Baseline Survey (date) N = Post-Distribution Survey (date) N =

Profile FHH MHH All HH FHH MHH All HH

# % # % # % # % # % # %

Food secure: FES < 50%

Marginally food secure: FES 50% -

< 65%

Moderately food secure: FES 65% -

< 75%

Food insecure: FES ≥75%

Food Expenditure Share - Target

Projects do not need to set a specific target for the Food Expenditure Share. However, project teams are
expected to collect the data at baseline and post-distribution and should compare the two results and be
able to provide an explanation for any changes that are logical in the context of the project activities and
impact. Projects may find it useful to compare the baseline and post-distribution scores and analyze
dynamics such as:

• The increase (from baseline) in the % of households falling into the <50% category
• The decrease in the % of households falling into the ≥75% category

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 46 | 60

Output 1.11 / 2.11 Food, vouchers, or cash distributed in a gender-sensitive manner

All projects of a duration of more than three months, regardless of modality or conditionality, are required
to include the following four indicators under Output 1.11 / 2.11. All fast track and projects of less than
three (3) months duration are also required to include these four output indicators. Guidance on the new
Gender Marker is given in this section, below.

Required Indicator: Total number of women, men, girls and boys registered for assistance
• Measurement Tool: Project registration records

Required Indicator: Total quantity & type of food distributed (in-kind food transfer only)
• Measurement Tool: Project registration records

Required Indicator: Value of food vouchers or cash transfer distributed (voucher or cash transfer only)
• Measurement Tool: Project registration records

Required Indicator: # of distributions

• Measurement Tool: Project registration records

Required Indicator: Food / voucher / cash transfer process implemented in a gender-sensitive manner:
Yes / No indicator based on the following measurement tools (Composite gender-sensitive food transfer
process marker).
• Measurement Tool: This indicator is positive (Yes) if all the following criteria are met:

Table 22: Gender Marker

ONLY FOR ENDLINE SURVEY

Criteria: Successfully completed in project design and implementation: Yes = 1; No = 0 Yes No

Sex- and age-disaggregated beneficiary data reported

Project completed a gender analysis

Gender analysis reflected in project design

Gender-sensitive beneficiary targeting criteria and process used

Modality choice took into account women’s and men’s needs and preferences

Distribution process took into account women’s and men’s needs and preferences

Project beneficiaries were informed of their rights and entitlements under the project

Confidential complaint response mechanism system was designed and implemented

TOTAL Yes = Gender Marker

Additionally, projects may use the following table, modified to suit the project context as indicated, to
monitor project progress towards gender-sensitive transfer design and implementation. Tracking this data
during post-distribution monitoring will help project teams to adaptively manage their projects in real time,
providing timely data to ensure adjustments can be made to rectify any problems with implementation
before the end of the project.

These questions could be asked in a post-distribution monitoring survey and Focus Group Discussions
could be conducted at the end of the project with male groups, female groups, and mixed groups to
corroborate this information. Not all questions will need to be asked for each project. This table should be
modified (questions deleted or reworded) and customized according to the project context. This table is

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 47 | 60

not required, it is intended as a guide for projects. For further explanation please contact your member or
Foodgrains Bank Program Officer.

Table 23: Gender Sensitivity of food/cash transfer process

ONLY FOR POST-DISTRIBUTION OR MIDLINE AND/OR ENDLINE SURVEY

These questions should be asked of the household member who is registered for Response
assistance and responsible for physically receiving the transfer.

1 How many hours or minutes did you take to travel to the last [food / cash] distribution site?

2 How long did you have to wait at the last distribution point to get the [food / cash]?

3 Did you prefer? (Check only one) (The language of the question may need to be modified depending on the
modality of the transfer).

 Preferred receiving food  Preferred receiving cash to food or  Preferred receiving a food voucher
to cash food voucher to cash
Did food prices increase as a result of the cash distribution (cash only) (Yes = 1; No = 0)

4 Were the distributions organized in a way that responded to your needs and preferences in the
following areas?

4a Modality of distribution (Yes = 1, No = 0)

4b Location of distribution (Yes = 1, No = 0)

4c Timing (time of day) of distributions (Yes = 1, No = 0)

4d Frequency of distributions (Yes = 1, No = 0)

4e Adequacy of [food/cash] to meet HH needs (Yes = 1, No = 0)

4f Provide specific feedback on any questions from

3-4 that were answered negatively

Rights and entitlements means both how much food or cash a beneficiary is entitled to receive, but also
what is NOT needed to access the transfer, e.g., no payment, gift, or sexual favour. Each of these
statements is asking whether the beneficiary remembers receiving this information.

5 Do you remember being told about your rights and entitlements? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

6 How did you learn about your rights and entitlements? Verbally in a community meeting = 1; Saw
them illustrated in a poster = 2; Read about them in a flyer / handout = 3; I did not know about my
rights and entitlements = 0

7 Based on what you were told or saw, do you know …

7a Why you were selected as a beneficiary of this project? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

7b Who in your community selected you as a beneficiary of this project? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

7c How much food / cash you would receive at each distribution? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

7d How many distributions you were entitled to receive in total? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

7e How much food / cash you were entitled to receive in total added up over all of the distributions?
(Yes = 1; No = 0)

7f Was it clear to you that you did not have to give any sort of payment, gift, or [sexual favour] in
exchange for the [food / cash]? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 48 | 60

8 Do you know how to make a complaint if you are unsatisfied with any part of the [food distribution /
cash transfer] project? (Yes = 1; No = 0)

9 Do you feel safe to make a complaint (Yes = 1; No = 0)

9a If no, you do not feel safe, explain why.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 49 | 60

Intermediate Outcome #3– Increased empowerment for women and girls as change agents and
leaders

Foodgrains Bank recognizes that real empowerment is very difficult to measure in a singular way. To
answer questions of real empowerment and how women’s lives are genuinely influenced by a project –
e.g., to measure how women’s ability to make strategic life choices and put those choices into action was
changed in a project, participant communities need to be consulted on specific and tangible ways that
empowerment could be expressed and measured in their unique context.

To this end, partners are encouraged to develop contextually-appropriate empowerment indicators, to be

measured in addition to these standardized, required indicators of empowerment. These indicators can
be added to the standard Foodgrains Bank food assistance PMF templates. (See Optional Indicator,
below)

In selecting standardized and required indicators of empowerment, Foodgrains Bank chose to focus in on
women’s empowerment through active decision-making and leadership in project activities through their
participation in community committees. Most food assistance projects establish some form of community
committee and this committee works in a variety of ways with the project implementation team in the
situation assessment, design, beneficiary targeting, distribution, and implementation. For this reason,
Foodgrains Bank has selected assessing women’s empowerment through these committees for the
standardized and required indicators for food assistance programming. This does not mean that
empowerment does not take place in other dimensions in a food assistance project.

All food assistance projects funded by Foodgrains Bank of a duration greater than three (3) months are
required to include the two following required indicators under Intermediate Outcome 3.

Required Indicator: # and % of women and men actively participating in decision-making on food
assistance / distribution / management committees
• Measurement Tool: Committee member survey

Required Indicator: Extent of involvement in important decisions on committee

• Measurement Tool: Committee member survey

Taken together, these two indicators are intended to measure women’s participation as active decision-
makers in an all phases of the project, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The following questions could
be used in a simple survey with committee members or in (gender-segregated) focus group discussions
with the women and men on the community committees to collect the data for these two indicators.

Did you regularly attend meetings of the community advisory committee? (Yes = 1; No = 0)
If yes: To what extent were you involved in making important decisions in the group?
1 = Not at all; 2 = To a small extent; 3 = To a medium extent; 4 = To a large extent
Explain: (Allow for respondent to explain their answer or expand on their experience) (qualitative)

Required Indicator: # and % of women to men actively participating in leadership roles on food
assistance / distribution / management committees
• Measurement Tool: Committee member survey

Required Indicator: Extent of involvement in leadership on committee

• Measurement Tool: Committee member survey

Same as the first two Required Indicators, these two indicators are intended to measure women’s
participation as active leaders in an all phases of the project, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The
following questions could be used in a simple survey with committee members or in (gender-segregated)

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 50 | 60

focus group discussions with the women and men on the community committees to collect the data for
these two indicators

Did you hold an appointed or elected leadership role on the community advisory committee? (Yes = 1; No
= 0)
If yes: To what extent did you play an active leadership role in the group?
1 = Not at all; 2 = To a small extent; 3 = To a medium extent; 4 = To a large extent
Explain: (Allow for respondent to explain their answer or expand on their experience) (qualitative)

Collecting Baseline Data

The following table is not required but is suggested to be used during the Gender Analysis or during the
Baseline Survey to gather baseline data the above Required Indicators. Projects can suggest an
alternative method to collect this baseline data. Depending on the project, this data may be collected
before a community committee has been established, therefore it may be asked of the general
community, not just the community committee members. The intent of this table is to understand how
actively women participate in community decision-making and leadership in ‘normal’ times.

Table 24: Gender – Perception of Women’s Active Decision-Making and Leadership on Committees

ONLY FOR GENDER ANALYSIS OR BASELINE SURVEY OR PRE-PROJECT KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS

Based on the following levels of active participation (do not participate at all, participate somewhat, very actively
participate) how actively do women traditionally participate in community decision-making and community
leadership?
Select only one of: Do not participate at all = 0; Participate somewhat = 1; Actively participate = 2)

Response Explanation

1 Community decision-making

2 Community leadership

Optional Measurement Instrument: The following table could be used as an alternative way to gather
the qualitative data for the Required Indicators. These questions should be asked of women and men on
the community committees, not at the general beneficiary population either through a survey or a focus
group discussion.

Table 25: Gender - Perception of Women’s Active Decision-Making and Leadership on Committees

ONLY FOR POST-DISTIBUTION OR MIDPOINT AND ENDLINE SURVEY

Based on the following levels of active participation (do not participate at all, participate somewhat, very actively
participate) how do you think women have participated in this projects’ food assistance / distribution / management
committee?
Select only one of: Do not participate at all = 1; Participate somewhat = 2; Actively participate = 3

Response Explanation

1 Project planning

2 Beneficiary selection

3 Project activities

4 Community Leadership

5 Decision making

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 51 | 60

Optional Indicator: # and % of women surveyed who report that their participation in project
activities has improved at least two aspects of their lives meaningfully (e.g., actively taking part in
decision-making, feel free to speak up, take on managerial roles, take on income generating role
etc.)

For partners wishing to develop a project-specific indicator of women’s empowerment, the above Optional
Indicator could be customized to measure contextually-specific empowerment. The project team would
need to determine, with project participants through focus group discussions with women and men, which
two aspects best represent a genuine improvement in empowerment for female project participants (the
examples given above are merely indicative and are not an exhaustive list).

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 52 | 60

Immediate outcome 3.1 – increased confidence for women to participate meaningfully in decision-
making and leadership in food assistance projects

Before women can actively participate in decision-making and leadership roles on community advisory
committees, they need to have the confidence in their ability to participate. In many cultures, where
women do not historically actively participate in decision-making and leadership, women lack the self-
confidence to voice their opinions, ideas, and perspectives, contribute to discussions, make decisions and
lead.

A gender-sensitive food transfer project needs to ensure that contextually-appropriate steps are taken to
help build women’s confidence to meaningfully participate on the community advisory committees. This
confidence-building may take a number of different forms, for example training and sensitization
workshops with all committee members on the importance of women’s genuine participation at the
beginning of the project. These required indicators are intended to measure a project’s progress in
building women’s confidence to make decisions and lead on project committees. All food assistance
projects of a duration greater than three (3) months are required to include the following three indicators
under Immediate Outcomes 3.1.

Required Indicator: # and % of women on advisory committee who feel confident to participate in project
decision-making.

Required Indicator: # and % of women on advisory committee who feel confident to participate in project
advisory committee leadership roles.

Required Indicator: # and % of women on advisory committee who report that their participation in the
project has improved their confidence to share their thoughts and opinions in public settings.
• Measurement Tool: Projects can use the following tool to measure the baseline and endline
responses from women who participate on community advisory committees. These tools could be
added to surveys, alternatively this data could be collected through focus group discussions with
the women on the committee.

Table 26: Gender – Perception of Women’s Confidence in Decision-Making and Leadership on Committees

ONLY FOR GENDER ANALYSIS OR BASELINE SURVEY OR PRE-PROJECT KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS

Based on the following levels of confidence (not at all confident, somewhat confident, very confident):
How confident do women feel to participate in community decision-making and community leadership?
Select only one of: Not at all confident = 0; Somewhat confident = 1; Very confident = 2)

Response Explanation

1 Community decision-making

2 Community leadership

FOR END OF PROJECT REPORTING ONLY

Participation in the project has improved your confidence to share thoughts and opinions in a public
setting: Select only one of: Do not agree = 0; Somewhat agree = 1; Strongly agree = 2

Response Explanation

Participation has improved

confidence in sharing thoughts and
opinions in a public setting

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 53 | 60

Output 3.11 – Gender Equitable community advisory committee (beneficiary selection /
distribution advisory committee) formed and functioning

Most humanitarian assistance projects convene a community advisory committee to maximize community
participation in project design, beneficiary selection, distribution process design, and implementation. Not
only should projects strive to include women as participants in these committees (reach), but also ensure
that women’s voices are heard and integrated into the advice emerging to the project from these
committees (benefit). All Foodgrains Bank-funded projects, regardless of duration, are required to include
the first three indicators, the fourth indicator is optional, depending on the project design.

Required Indicator: Advisory committee formed

• Measurement Tool: Project records

Required Indicator: # of advisory committee meetings held

• Measurement Tool: Project records

Required Indicator: # and % of female to male representatives included in project assessment,

beneficiary targeting, design, and implementation through representation on the community advisory
committee
• Measurement Tool: Sex-disaggregated data for membership of community advisory committee

Optional Indicator: # and attendance for gender-sensitivity trainings offered for women, men, and
community leaders on the importance of women’s active participation, decision-making, and leadership in
project activities / committees. (Applicable if project integrates gender-sensitivity training)
• Measurement Tool: project records

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 54 | 60

Complaints Response Mechanism

The Foodgrains Bank network is committed to making itself accountable to the communities we serve. A
key element of this commitment is the need to establish Complaints Response Mechanisms (CRMs) in
every project. These mechanisms involve simple procedures, which provide a safe opportunity for all
those involved in, or affected by, a project. It provides a way for project participants to raise their
concerns/ lodge complaints relating to the project, its implementation, and / or staff behavior, and ensures
that their frustrations or concerns/ complaints are investigated and responded to in a fair, timely, and
transparent manner.

This tool aims to provide implementing partners with the necessary understanding and advice in setting
up effective CRMs.

Complaints Response Mechanism Definitions

Complaint – refers to feedback from a program beneficiary or someone affected by a project, in which
they express their concern to the organization responsible. The concern may relate to the project or to the
actions or behavior of the project staff or local partner staff. The complaint should be directly related to
the commitments made by Foodgrains Bank/Member/implementing partner (either in terms of what it has
promised to deliver, or in terms of how it delivers assistance).

Complaints Response Mechanism – a formalized process known and understood by beneficiaries and
others affected by an agency’s programs, it allows the channeling of complaints and their objective
investigation and response.

Feedback - a positive or negative informal statement of opinion about someone or something – an

opinion shared for information but not with the intention of lodging a formal complaint. A complaint always
requires a response, whereas feedback may not.

The Benefits of Complaints Response Mechanisms

We have a moral and legal responsibility to ensure that our humanitarian interventions are implemented
as effectively as possible - listening and responding to the concerns of community members helps us
achieve this aim. Some of the benefits of Complaint Response Mechanisms (CRMs) are:

• Enable us to capture and respond to the views and concerns of the people we work with and
serve.
• Increase trust and communication between ourselves and the communities where we work.
• Enable us to correct our mistakes, better target our assistance and quality of support, and to use
resources more effectively.
• Lead towards improving the quality, relevance and effectiveness of programs.
• Enable us to identify problems and issues early on and deal with them and to resolve
misunderstandings that could become bigger problems.
• Enable us to learn about possible negative side-effects of our interventions.
• Lead to increased community ownership of programs.
• Deter fraud.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 55 | 60

Complaints and Response Mechanism Options

Table 27: CRM Options Advantage Disadvantages

Community Help Desk • Does not require high levels of • Low levels of confidentiality.
(Group of community literacy. • Subject to abuse by community
members who receive • Problems can be solved by the members operating the help
complaints at meetings and help desk members, reducing desks.
distributions)
implementing partner time. • Success dependent on selection
• Implementing partner can of Help Desk Committee
immediately collect the members.
complaints. • Requires time and investment to
• Empowers communities to set up, including training of staff
participate in the CRM. and help desk committee,
resources for them to use.
Suggestion Box (Locked box • Potentially high levels of • Requires regular collection and
for receiving complaints and Confidentiality (depending responses.
feedback. Include options for on how it is managed). • If complaints are not received
the illiterate e.g. access to • Partner does not have to be immediately by partner, responses
present for it to be used. will also be delayed.
tape recorder and tapes or
literate volunteers)

Logbook Option A • Quick set up Cheap and doesn’t • Not systematic

(Completed by staff on field require great deal of training • Relies on staff recording
visits or volunteers) • Allows staff to consolidate major information to recall details and to
issues daily prioritize what is important
• Cannot be tracked well
Logbook Option B (Left for • Quick set up • Not secure or confidential
communities to fill in • Cheap and doesn’t require great • Can be manipulated when left in
themselves) deal of training community
• Can be left in communities • Not systematic
• Convenient for communities • Cannot be tracked well
Office day (A regular time e.g. • Quick set up • Often inconvenient for
1 day per week is allocated • Cheap and doesn’t require great communities, depending how far
for communities to come to • deal of training they are from the office
the office to give feedback or • More staff are available, making • Can be disruptive for staff
make a complaint) it more likely that complaints can
be
• resolved that day
Telephone or SMS (A • Can be confidential • Systems must be in place to
telephone number is • Cheap for the organization ensure the phone is always
published for receiving • Doesn’t require great deal of answered in the appropriate
complaints training language at the published times
• Can be costly for the poor
• Depends on access to phones
and functioning phone lines
Mail (Feedback/complaints • Can be confidential • Depends on access to stamps
sent in by post) • Cheap for the organization and a functioning postal system
• Doesn’t require great deal of • Can take a long time
training
Local agencies (Trusted local • Communities may be more • Can be manipulated by the local
agencies) honest with intermediaries than agency
collect feedback and pass it with the agency giving aid • People excluded by existing
on to organization • Reinforces community structures power
• Transparent process • structures may continue to be
• responds to complaints excluded

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 56 | 60

Guidance for monitoring and reviewing your CRM

• Has the CRM been established through beneficiary consultation?

• How do staff view the CRM?

• Is the CRM appropriate for the situation, country, program context?

• Do people have knowledge of the CRM procedures?

• Is physical access to the CRM procedures easy?

• Are the procedures non-threatening?

• Do complainants feel dignified, are they treated with respect?

• Are vulnerable/ excluded groups in the community making use of the CRM? Is the CRM child-
friendly?

• Are there clear guidelines regarding the kind of complaints to be received?

• Is the CRM used regularly?

• Are complaints recorded and transmitted without changes made to the content?

• Do complainants receive tangible (written) acknowledgement that complaints have been

received?

• Are time limits for answers to complaints provided?

• Are complaints dealt with confidentially?

• Are representatives from the community involved in addressing complaints and resolving
disputes?

• Do complainants receive a clear response, including reasons for the decision and an explanation
of the process undertaken?

• Do complainants acknowledge that they have understood the answers they receive?

• Are complainants informed of alternative grievance channels?

• Are you keeping a record of the complaints received, the responses provided and the decisions
made/ actions taken in relation to the program/ staff behavior?

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 57 | 60

Appendix 1: Meals per Day

Meals-per-day (MPD) is the simplest food consumption indicator and should no longer be used in
Foodgrains Bank-funded projects, except in special circumstances, as discussed and approved by the
Foodgrains Bank Program Officer.

In most cases, where the Food Consumption Score is also being collected, only a simple Meals per Day
question needs to be included in the survey questionnaire to capture MPD. This simple question can both
act as a good ground-breaker to lead into the more detailed FCS questions, and also as a ‘back up’ if
there are problems with the FCS data that is collected. The standard Food Security Survey Template
contains the following simple MPD question, labelled B1 or the first question in the Food Consumption
Score questions section of the survey:

B: MEALS PER DAY AND FOOD CONSUMPTION SCORE

B1 How many times did the members in your household eat yesterday, during the day
and night (MPD)?

Question B1 will yield a very basic MPD number, usually ranging from 1 to 4.

In rare circumstances, where MPD the Foodgrains Bank Program Officer and Member representative, in
conjunction with the partner have decided that a full MPD should be collected in the project, the following
guidance will be relevant.

When using MPD, information on household food consumption should be collected using the previous 24-
hour period as a reference (24-hour recall).

When using the 24-hour recall method, the interviewer should first ascertain whether the previous day
was “usual” or “normal” for the household. If it was a special occasion, such as a feast or funeral, or if
most of the household were absent, another day should be selected for the interview. If this is not
possible, it is better to select another household rather than conduct the interview using an earlier day of
the week. A response based on a special occasion would bias the result.

MPD asks about meals prepared and consumed inside the household. When developing the wording for
the MPD survey question, consider and clarify how the two important terms “household” and “meals” are
defined and understood in the target communities.

• “Household” – describe how a household was defined in the context of the project. Will a
respondent be able to accurately answer on behalf of the entire household?
• “Meals” – describe what constitutes a ‘meal’ in the context of the project beneficiaries. For some
contexts, a meal is defined according to the volume and type of food consumed. For others, the
time of day it is consumed is important in defining a meal. Thus, the term “eating occasion” can
help to eliminate some of the difficulties caused by different definitions of “meal”. If possible,
clarify whether the survey asks about “meals” in general or “eating occasions”. This definition of
“meals” will affect both the baseline level and the appropriate target level to set for the food
response.

The MPD survey question is typically asked as follows: “How many times did the members in your
household eat yesterday, during the day and night?

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 58 | 60

Calculating and Reporting Meals per Day

Below is an example of the preferred table format to report MPD data. The table includes columns for
both baseline and post-distribution data. At the time of the baseline survey, only the “baseline” columns
(N and %) will be filled in with the summarized findings, to show the distribution of responses. The same
table should be repeated in the end-of-project report (EPR), which would add the impact data and also
show the percentage (%) change in MPD across all surveyed households. If a project includes a “mid-
point” survey, then “mid-point’ columns would be added between baseline post-distribution columns.

The MPD reporting table includes:

• N – the number of households eating X # of meals per day

• the % of households eating X meals per day
• the ‘Average MPD’ for the total sample.

Baseline Post-Distribution
Change
(date) (date)

# of Meals N % N % %

0 12 14% 0 0% -100%

1 39 45% 2 2% -95%

2 25 29% 9 10% -64%

3 9 10% 62 69% +589%

4 2 2% 14 16% +600%

5 or more 0 0% 3 3% +%

Total 87 100% 90 100%

Total Meals 124 277

% ≥ 2 MPD 41% 98% +140%

Average MPD 1.4 3.1 +1.7

To calculate the “% of households eating each # of meals per day” divide the number of households in
the meal category by the total number of households interviewed and multiply by 100. For example, for
the baseline % of households eating 1 meal per day the % of households is calculated as: (39/87) * 100 =
44.8 or 45%. Round the % to the nearest full percent.

To calculate the “Total Meals” (needed to calculate the average MPD for the whole survey sample): Sum
together (# of meals * N). Total meals at baseline = (0*12) + (1*39) + (2*25) + (3*9) + (4*2) + (5*0) = 124

To calculate the # and % of households eating 2 or more meals per day: # of HH eating 2 mpd + # of HH
eating 3 mpd + # of HH eating 4 MPD + # of HH eating 5 or more MPD. In the above example the
baseline is: 25 + 9 + 2 + 0 = 36 and (36 / 87) *100 = 41.3 OR 41% (MPD Indicator 1)

To calculate the “Average MPD” for the total sampled households: Total meals / Total households. For
the above baseline data: 124 / 87 = 1.4 MPD. Round to one decimal place. (MPD Indicator 2)

To calculate the “% Change” in each # of Meals reported consumed from the Baseline (before) to the
Post-Distribution (after): [(post-distribution % - baseline % ) / baseline % ] * 100.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 59 | 60

Targets: Set targets for both the Meals Per Day indicators for the end of project. Target levels will vary,
depending on the size of the food ration being provided. A project providing a full ration will expect to see
a larger increase in MPD indicators than a project providing a partial ration.

FOOD ASSISTANCE OUTCOMES & INDICATORS v.1.0 P A G E 60 | 60