Food Security & Nutrition Network
Monitoring and Evaluation Task Force Meeting
March 23, 2011
Participants:
Mara Russel (Land O’Lakes)
Harry “Hap” Carr (CRS)
Pamela Velez-Vega (FANTA 2/AED)
Makonnen Raphael (Save the Children)
Maria Bina Palmisano (ACDI/VOCA)
Nestor Mogollon (ADRA)
Joyce Luma (VAM, WFP)
Chung Lai (IRD) participated remotely
Tom Davis (Food for the Hungry) participated remotely
Faly Rabetaliana (Land O’Lakes – Madagascar) participated remotely
Kelvin Luputa (Land O’Lakes – Zambia) participated remotely
Arif Rashid (TOPS/ TANGO International)
Thank you all for your active participation. There are four new field-based members joined the Task Force. Donard Nyirendra from World Vision, Haiti; Faly Rabetaliana from Land O’Lakes, Madagascar; Kelvin Luputa from Land O’Lakes, Zambia, and Edson Torrico from Food for the Hungry, Guatemala. Welcome to all of you.
The Task Force welcomed Joyce Luma to attend the meeting. Joyce is the Head of Food Security Analysis, WFP. She was in town to attend another meeting and took the opportunity to participate in the M&E Task Force meeting. Thank you Joyce!
Following are some of the key points from the M&E Task Force meeting.
Greater Field Representation in M&E Task Force
To ensure effective participation of the field-based members, it was agreed that a separate meeting to be organized on a regular basis for the members based in the field.
However TOPS will periodically organize combined meetings for field-based and US based members.
The organizations that have yet to nominate a field-based member for the Task Force are requested to nominate at least one member from the field.
TOPS’ First Year Work Plan
The activities outlined in the work plan are in-line with the goal and objectives of the M&E Task Force. Members noted that some of the activities will continue and will go beyond the first year. Task Force members have made the following suggestions.
a) Add/ revise activities in the TOPS’ work plan to strengthen the links between information generated through M&E system and the decision making process. Members feel that M&E in most cases is primarily being used as a reporting tool instead of a management tool. Often resources allocated to conduct M&E activities are inadequate.
b) PR1.1: TOPS needs to look beyond successful MYAPS and DAPs. Looking at unsuccessful MYAPs and DAPS would help identifying the issues/ barriers. In addition to MYAPs and DAPS, TOPS needs to review other USG programs like Food for Progress and non-title II food security programs to identify IMTs.
Core Competencies
The Task Force members have developed core competencies for two positions. The M&E Coordinator/ Manager who has the overall M&E responsibility at the project level, and the M&E Officer who implements M&E activities in the field and reports to M&E Manager/Coordinator [Attached].
The competencies would be finalized in a week (by 8th of April, 2011) based on the comments from the task force members. Once finalized, the core competencies would form the basis of developing capacity assessment instruments.
Identify capacity gaps of M&E professionals
TOPS would design self-assessment instruments to assess the capacity gaps of M&E professionals working for food security projects. The task force members agreed to take responsibility of implementing the self-assessment activities which includes forwarding the assessment instrument to all M&E staff working for food security projects in their respective organizations and following up with the staff to get them filled-out and return back to TOPS’ M&E Specialist within the stipulated time frame.
Identification of useful and effective M&E tools and methodologies
The taskforce members would identify useful and effective key M&E tools/ methodologies/ information packets and will bring them to the next task force meeting. The IMTs need to be identified by core competency areas. In identifying the useful and successful IMTs the following criteria should be used
a) effectively used in multiple countries
b) there is a consensus within the organization that the IMT is useful
c) there are evidences to justify the effectiveness and usefulness of the IMT
It is to note that the task force will focus on a limited number of IMTs in the first year. Hence it was requested that each member may bring only 2 to 3 most useful and effective IMTs.
If members are aware about other tools that are promising but yet to be tested, small grants could be used to field test the IMT.
Presentation on Food Security Analysis, WFP
Joyce Luma made a presentation on WFP’s Food Security Analysis work. Following are some of the key points from her presentation.
In order to design a response, WFPneeds to answerthe following five questions.
· Who is hungry?
· How many of them are there?
· Where do they live?
· Why are they hungry?
· Who is vulnerable and could become hungry if there is a natural disaster or crisis?
WFP's food security analysis work which is commonly known as VAM (Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping) conducts the analyses of the food insecurity situation to answer the above questions.
VAM produces Food Security Analysis Reportsthat includes food security situation, nutrition, markets, health, and education findings. Using satellite imagery, GIS or PDAs, VAM develops high quality maps identifying food insecurity areas and population as well as emerging vulnerable areas and population. VAM also produces guidelines and reference materials which provide the humanitarian community with up-to-date guidance, tools and tips to assess needs in different contexts. The maps, guidance notes and reference materials are available to the food security and nutrition network practitioners.
VAM uses a set of assessment tools to identify the households that are most vulnerable to food insecurity. The tools include Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA), Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA), Food Security Monitoring System (FSMS), and Market Assessments and Bulletin. WFP produces a quarterly bulletin entitled Market Monitor presenting the trends of prices of staple food commodities and the impact of food prices on vulnerable population. The information presented in the bulletin are being collected from more than 60 most vulnerable countries. A detailed description of these tools can be found in http://www.wfp.org/food-security/reports. Together with FAO, WFP conducts Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) for emergencies related to agricultural production or overall food availability problems.
All reports are available on WFP’s website and requests can be made to Joyce for reports or to get access to the data sets. Currently WFP has been working with the World Bank to harmonize CFSVA with the Living Standard Survey to standardize the tool and to avoid duplication.
Meetings and workshops
a) The FSN Network Spring Meeting is scheduled to be held on the 9th of May in Baltimore. Following is a list of tentative topics for discussion. Please use the following link to register.
http://coregroup.memberlodge.org/meetingregistration?eventId=278059&EventViewMode=EventDetails
Following is a list of tentatively selected topics for the FSN Network Spring Meeting:
· Food Security Update from FFP
· Feed the Future Update from Bureau of Food Security
· Performance monitoring with Layers M&E System
· The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) -- food security measurement, normative standards, and strategies to increase harmonization between agencies and other actors
· PM2A – results to-date from Burundi and Guatemala
· Barrier Analysis for agriculture and NRM
· Climate Change adaptation
· Gender integration
· Agriculture – nutrition linkages
b) TOPS Program has been tentatively planning to organize the following regional M&E trainings in 2011.
Date / Place / Countries / Comments28 to 30 June / Johannesburg / Ethiopia, Malawi, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Zambia / Given the time available between now and the end of June, the Task Force members think that this is an ambitious plan.
18 to 22 July / Monrovia / Liberia, Sierra Leone / Yet to be finalized
Mid September / Dhaka / Bangladesh / Yet to be discussed with the PVOs
c) The next meeting of the M&E Task Force is scheduled to be held on the 19th of April from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm in TOPS Office. Members calling-in from US or Canada please use Toll free #1-866-244-8528. For international callers, please use Int’l Toll # 1-719-457-0816
Winston J. Allen, Senior Evaluation Specialist from USAID’s Bureau of Policy Planning and Learning will attend the next M&E Task Force meeting. Please forward your questions or agenda items so that we can forward to him ahead of time.
d) The meeting with the field based Task Force members is scheduled to be held on the 18th of April at 10:00 am Eastern Standard Time. Please use the following skype address to call: arif.rashid09
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