FOOD SECURITY AT A GLANCE

VAM Analytical Framework and Methodology [1]

The Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) unit supports food aid decision-making in WFP Headquarters, Regional and Country Offices by analysing the food security and vulnerability conditions. In both the relief and development food-oriented activities of WFP, the VAM unit's primary functions are:

• To geographically target the areas where WFP should prioritize further assessments of and responses to food insecurity
• To understand the actual and potential causes of food insecurity and vulnerability in the identified regions or population groups through a problem assessment
• To determine the characteristics of food insecure people through a beneficiary assessment
• To identify whether food assistance can significantly improve the situation of the targeted population in addressing the basic causes of food insecurity and vulnerability
• To be an advocate for the hungry poor by accurately representing their condition to others who may be able to provide assistance

VAM efforts to provide accurate informative outputs are based on a Standard Analytical Framework (SAF). This guideline explicitly links VAM products to specific information needs in both the WFP emergency and development programme cycles. It also supports the complementary needs of the broader international community – including national governments, UN agencies, INGOs and other organizations. 

VAM Conceptual Framework

According to the VAM Conceptual Framework, Food Security is the condition characterized by the sufficiency of available, adequate, accessible, affordable, safe and nutritious food that satisfies dietary needs and food preferences of all people at all times for an active and healthy life (World Food Summit, 1996). This concept includes several dimensions:

• The socio-economic and political environment

• The performance of the food economy
• The food and nutrient intake
• The dietary diversity
• The feeding and care practices
• The nutrition, health, and sanitation status of the population

All these dimensions are incorporated in the 3 main elements of Food Security [2]:

Vulnerability is another food security-related concept which represents “defenselessness, insecurity and exposure to risks, shocks and stress… and difficulty in coping with them.” It can be defined as the probability of an acute decline of food access, or consumption, often in reference to some critical value that defines minimum levels of human well-being. Therefore, vulnerability is not only a result of exposure to hazards but also of underlying socio-economic processes which serve to reduce the capacity of populations to cope with hazards.

The below figure summarizes the Vulnerability and Food Security Framework used by the VAM Branch to undertake its studies.

Figure: VAM conceptual framework of Food Security and Vulnerability

Source: VAM Standard Analytical Framework: Role and Objectives of VAM Activities to Support WFP Food-Oriented Interventions, June 2002 

Summary of the Food Security Situation in the Lao PDR

The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a landlocked nation that covers 236,800 square kilometers in the center of the Southeast Asian peninsula. Its location has often made it a buffer between more powerful neighboring states, as well as a crossroads for trade and communication. The eastern border with Vietnam extends for 2,130 kilometers, mostly along the crest of the Annamite Chain, and serves as a physical barrier between the Chinese-influenced culture of Vietnam and the Indianized states of Laos and Thailand. Laos shares its 541-kilometers-long southern border with Cambodia. In the North, the country is bounded by a mountainous 423-kilometers border with China and shares the 235-kilometers-long Mekong River border with Myanmar.

The Lao PDR is classified as a least developed country[3]. In 2004, 71 percent of its population lived on less than US$2 a day and 23 percent on less than US$1 a day[10]. The economy is largely subsistence-based and agriculture remains the major sector. Only about one quarter of the population lives in urban areas and significant parts of the country are mountainous, uncultivable and inaccessible by road. Unexploded ordnance contamination is still widespread.

The findings of the 2006 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) [4] show that despite the steady economic growth of the last 15 years, the nutritional status of the Lao population has not improved. The CFSVA reports that 50 percent of rural children under the age of five are chronically malnourished. Over the last 10 years, there has been no improvement in the chronic malnutrition, but a reduction in wasting has been noted. Furthermore, the CFSVA shows that food insecurity affects 13 percent of the population and that an additional 50 percent of rural households are at risk of becoming food insecure in case of loss of access to natural resources, flood, drought or/and sudden increases in rice prices. Drought is the biggest threat: 46 percent of the rural population is vulnerable to becoming food insecure due to this natural hazard. During the post-harvest season, when the study was conducted, two thirds of the rural population were either food insecure (13 percent) or lived on the edge of food security and could become food insecure should a shock occur. It is likely that this proportion increases significantly at the peak of the lean season. Contributing to malnutrition is also the low dietary intake of fat. The main sources of fat and protein, wild meat and fish, are under threat.  It is thus critical to ensure their preservation and the continued access of households to them.

Who is Food Insecure?

According to the CFSVA, food insecure people are typically unskilled labourers or farmers with little fishing and hunting activities. They practice upland farming on a small plot of land in highly sloping areas. Often, they do not possess a kitchen garden. They are lowly educated and illiterate. They live in villages with little or no infrastructure, and suffer from poor sanitary conditions.

The Lao PDR is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries, with 49 ethnic groups speaking more than 200 languages. Through ethno-linguistic classification, these 49 groups can be classified into four main groups the Lao-Tai, the Austro-Asiatic, the Sino-Tibetan and the Hmong-Mien [5]. The Sino-Tibetan ethnic groups have the highest proportion of food insecure households, followed by the Hmong-Mien and the Austro-Asiatic groups. They mostly reside in the Highlands. The Sino-Tibetan and Austro-Asiatic groups are the most affected by malnutrition.

From the CFSVA findings, it was outlined that only 7% of the Lao-Tai are in fact food insecure. Food insecure households belong to other ethnic groups: 28% of Hmong-Mien are food insecure, 22% from the Sino-Tibetan and 20% from the Austro-Asiatic groups respectively. In terms of total numbers, the Austro-Asiatic groups make up the largest share of the food insecure, representing 44% of food insecure surveyed households. However, by taking into account other factors than the ones already included in the model for the CFSVA, the Hmong-Mien have been identified as the ethnic group with the lowest food consumption score. This calls for more in depth research on the nutritional habits of ethnic groups.

Figure: Main ethnic groups by food security status

Source: WFP Lao PDR, CFSVA Community Survey, 2006

(The Food Consumption Score (FCS) is a key indicator for food security. For background on this indicator see: Food Consumption Score - Food Consumption)

Where Does Food Insecurity Prevail?

At national level, the levels of food insecurity are generally low, but there are some provinces where the levels are very high. The highest proportions of food insecure households were found in Bokeo (41%), Saravane (30%), Xiengkhuang (25%) and Sekong (24%). Seventy percent of the food insecure households are located in only 7 provinces: Saravane, Sekong, Oudomxay, Bokeo, Luangprabang, Huaphanh and Xiengkhuang. These 7 provinces make up only 31% of the population. Most of the ethnic groups that have a higher proportion of food insecure households reside in the highlands. 

Map: Food security status of rural villagers by province in Lao PDR

  (Download Full Size Map)

Source: WFP Lao PDR, CFSVA Community Survey, 2006

What are the main causes of food insecurity?

Inadequate Implementation of Government Policies

Measures have been lacking to mitigate the negative effects of some policies, such as the bans on opium production, shifting cultivation, and the resettlement strategy, on food security. The opium eradication policy led to a significant decline in opium cultivation but also resulted in the loss of an important source of income for many communities. The resettlement programme has increased vulnerability to food insecurity where resources and services were inadequate for resettled populations.  (See policy induced shocks - Risk and Vulnerability analysis)

The Government of Lao PDR has set ambitious goals for economic development and poverty eradication that should significantly improve the national food security situation. Until recently, however, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry had only one policy document that directly addressed food security: the Food Security Strategy [6], adopted in 2000 and running until 2010. The focus of this policy is on promoting higher rice production in order to produce sufficient rice to meet the necessary calorie intake of the entire population. Unfortunately, this policy falls short of addressing several key issues affecting food security including malnutrition and nutrition knowledge, insufficient dietary diversity, and the impact of policies induced shocks on food security. 

The Government of Lao PDR has recently developed a National Nutrition Policy with the support of UN agencies including FAO, WHO, UNICEF, and WFP. This policy should help to substantially reduce levels of malnutrition, especially of vulnerable groups. Moreover, it also helps to mainstream nutrition in national socio-economic development plans (NSEDPs) [7] in line with the implementation of the National Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (NGPES) [8]. The Prime Minister signed a decree of endorsement for this nutrition policy on December 1st, 2008.

Food Availability:

According to the figures of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the country had a 10% net surplus production of rice in 2005. The surplus mainly comes from the Southern provinces, while major deficits remain in the Northern provinces. Food imports (commercial and food aid) play a key role in providing complementary supply to food deficit areas and in periods of production shortfalls. Formal and informal cross-border trade plays a significant role in food supplies in Lao PDR, especially in the Northern provinces where rice is being imported from Thailand and China.

Food Access:

Rural households in Laos mainly rely on their own production as a source of food. Rice production is the main livelihood activity of the majority of rural households. 

• Access to productive land is a problem for some households. Large parts of the country are characterized by uplands and are only suitable for shifting cultivation and forestry development. Also, large areas of the country are unsafe as they are contaminated with UXO. 
• Markets constitute the second source of food for households, after their own production. A substantial amount of their purchases at markets are made of food items (45%). Seasonal price variation of rice is an important constraint to household access to food, especially during the lean season. More generally, an increase of food commodity prices would have a negative impact on households’ food consumption. 
• The Lao PDR has a very poor transportation infrastructure  that is a major obstacle to accessing markets and to developing integrated domestic markets. This also limits access to export markets.

Food Utilization:

The 2006 MICS [9] survey has shown that inadequate care and feeding practices (especially breastfeeding and weaning) are among the underlying causes leading to the high levels of chronic malnutrition observed in the Lao PDR. To complement this, WFP's CFSVA focuses on food consumption patterns in rural areas:

• Household food consumption:

Lao households rely on a wide variety of food items, but access to many of these items is seasonal and the quantities may be limited. Most households eat rice, or rice coupled with other staples, 7 days a week. Consumption of vegetables is very seasonal, but was sufficient at the time of the survey (October-November 2006, just after the rainy season). Fruit consumption, however, was reported to be very low, but this could be due to seasonality issues. Dietary intake of fat is generally too low. The use of oil in the diet is rare and most of the fat comes from wild meat and fish. Households who have livestock tend to sell it or eat it only for special occasions. What differentiates households with acceptable food consumption from households with poor or borderline food consumption is mostly wild animal or fish protein intake. Access to such food sources is therefore critical.

• Sanitation, health and education:

Access to proper toilet facilities and safe water sources appears to be a serious problem throughout the country. Physical access to water is less of a problem than the quality of the water source itself. In addition, only 10% of villages have a health center, although many have a health volunteer and/or a medical kit. In the remote uplands, health services are often difficult to access. The CFSVA study shows that rural households with higher education and literacy levels are having more healthy food consumption patterns. The level of education is fairly low in rural areas, especially for women and particularly low among the Sino-Tibetan groups. 71% of the spouses of household heads in the surveyed households have no or incomplete primary education.

[1] VAM Standard Analytical Framework: Role and Objectives of VAM Activities to Support WFP Food-Oriented Interventions, June 2002

[2] Emergency Food Security Assessment (EFSA) Handbook, First Edition. World Food Programme, 2005, Rome, Italy

[3] Based on the Human Developed Index. UN Office of the High Representative for LDC, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Developing States, 2009, http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/list.htm

[4] Lao PDR: Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA), December 2007, WFP Lao PDR, Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping Branch

[5]  The Ethnic Groups in Lao PDR, Lao Front for National Construction, 2005, Vientiane

[6]  Lao PDR Food Security Strategy 2001-2010, Government of Lao PDR, 2000, Vientiane

[7]  The Sixth National Socio-Economic Development Plan 2006-2010, Committee for Planning and Investment, 2006, Vientiane, Lao PDR

[8]  National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategy, 2004, Vientiane, Lao PDR

[9]  Lao Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 3 Report, National Statistics Centre, 2007, Vientiane, Lao PDR

[10] Human Development Report for Lao PDR, UNDP, 2005, stats.undp.org/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_LAO.htm