West Bank and Gaza
Programme Activities
Developing the first Socio Economic Monitoring System in the West Bank and Gaza
The volatile socio economic environment in the WBGS requires a reliable socio-economic information system to keep track of household’s rapidly changing living conditions. In this context, the EC-FAO Food Security Programme, in partnership with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and ten UN agencies has helped set up a Socio Economic Monitoring System for the West Bank and Gaza (PalSem).
In particular, a programme economist has provided technical advice in preparing the initial concept note and the survey – including selecting indicators and strengthening the survey methodology.
Advanced Food Security Statistics Training
A policy analyst from the Ministry of Agriculture, a senior statistician from the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics and a FIVIMS econometrist received advanced training in food security statistics at FAO headquarters in Rome. Food consumption statistics from the 2005 Palestinian Expenditures and Consumption Survey (PCES) were used to assess current levels of food insecurity and malnourishment and better understand their causes.
A representative from the Ministry of Agriculture presented a paper called “
Using food security statistics for policy analysis and actions with long-term impact on hunger eradication based on the Palestinian 2005 PECS” at the EC-FAO Food Security Programme’s full day event at the Fourth International Conference on Agriculture Statistics (ICAS-4) in Beijing, China.
> Download paper
Working with WFP on the 2006 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA)
The CFSVA provides an important assessment of current levels and causes of food insecurity in the West Bank and Gaza. An econometrist from the EC-FAO programme worked on the methodology used in this analysis. The is available at:
> Download CFSVA report
Resilience Related Work
“
Strengthening Resilience: Food Insecurity and Local Responses to Fragmentation in the West Bank” is an extensive research study on measuring Palestinian households’ resilience to food insecurity. Measuring resilience is important because its shows how well households can absorb the negative effects of unpredictable shocks or disasters, rather than at predicting the occurrence of a crisis (as is the case of most vulnerability literature).
> See Report
Another study “Towards the Measurement of Resilience to Food Insecurity: An application to Palestinian households” was presented at the Fourth International Conference on Agriculture Statistics (ICAS-4) in Beijing, China and recently at the Palestinian Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS).
Innovative Nutrition Tools for Rapid Assessments
The tools, called the Household Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), help pinpoint emerging food security and nutrition crisis before they reach acute stages and are useful for monitoring the impact of national nutritional policies and education programmes.
They have been adapted to local diets and incorporated into a WFP baseline nutritional survey which took place in December 2007.
> More about the nutrition tools
CountrySTAT Training
CountrySTAT promotes easy access to and exchange of national and international food security statistics by harmonizing national data collections. Two experts from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) received Country Stat training.
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CountrySTAT Gateway
