PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 3 Rapid food security assessment: a pilot exercise in Sudan

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 3 Rapid food security assessment: a pilot exercise in Sudan Simon Maxwell Introduction sustainable livelihoods." (Maxwell, 1988). These notes report on an application of RRA techniques to the question of understanding Starting with secondary sources the causes, dimensions and characteristics of food insecurity: a procedure I have dubbed Our task in Sudan was to support food security `Rapid Food Security Assessment' (RFSA). planning by putting together a picture of food The `pilot' in the title betrays the fact that this insecurity for the country as a whole. To fit the was a first attempt on an experimental scale - model, this meant combining specific data on just nine communities across the whole of malnutrition with more general data on Sudan in only two working weeks. The poverty and access to resources. The eventual intention is to structure RFSAs in the secondary sources were of some help, but left mode of a `sondeo': multiple case studies in a surprising gaps. Thus: single area, carried out over the course of a week by a multi-disciplinary team and · we knew that levels of malnutrition were resulting in a written report before leaving the high across the ...