denise melvin's blog

In today’s highly volatile environment, safety nets play a vital role in building communities’ resilience to crises.

Registration is now open for the International Scientific Symposium on Food & Nutrition Security Information which will take place at the FAO of the United Nations in Rome from Jan 1

An old saying goes, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it, that matters.”

Need to get a rapid snapshot of the food security situation in your country?

Have a look at the new country briefs from the FAO of the United Nations:

Need to get a rapid snapshot and a few statistics of the food security situation in your country?

Have a look at the new country briefs from the FAO of the United Nations:

A free e-learning course on “Communicating for Food Security” has just been released by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme.

Ahora, los hispanohablantes pueden unirse a las más de 50.000 personas que han seguido los cursos sobre seguridad alimentaria que ofrece la FAO, por internet.

Spanish speakers can now join the over 50,000 people who have taken the food security e-learning courses offered by FAO.

These country briefs, updated every three months, provide a snapshot of the food security situation in over 30 countries. They are available at:

FAO’s Sudan Institutional Capacity Programme: Food Security Information for Action (SIFSIA) has a new website:

The course illustrates how markets operate and how they relate to, and affect, food security and vulnerable households.

The course illustrates the basic principles related to the design, evaluation and monitoring of targeting systems.

The course "Food Security Policies -Formulation and Implementation" explains when and why food security policies are required.

This new e-learning course from FAO introduces the concepts and tools used in food security analysis. It also provides guidelines on using conceptual frameworks for analysing food security.

"Collaboration and Advocacy Techniques" - a new e-learning course including resources for trainers and practical guides - has been released by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme in collaboration with

Two new e-learning courses and resources for trainers have been released by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme.

Baseline Food Security Assessments describes the purpose and features of baseline assessments and how they differ from action-oriented assessments. It also provides guidance on selecting a baseline assessment method depending on context and on incorporating historical trends into food security assessments.

"Livelihoods Assessment and Analysis" is the fourth of a series of food security e-learning courses, with related training resources, produced by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme.

The course is completely self-paced and is available free of charge online or on CD-Rom at: http://www.foodsec.org/dl

"Nutritional Status Assessment and Analysis" is the third of a series of food security e-learning courses and sets of resources for trainers produced by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme.

This course covers the basic concepts of malnutrition, describes how nutritional status is assessed, and identifies the most commonly used nutrition indicators, as well as the criteria to be used when selecting the indicators in specific contexts and situations.

Resources for trainers on various food security related topics are now available form the EC-FAO Food Security Programme:
http://www.foodsecinfoaction.org/News/tr_res.htm

Materials include detailed learner and trainer notes, PowerPoint slides, exercises and a variety of supplementary materials and guidelines. Trainers can also adapt the materials to their own needs and local contexts. Current topics include:

The first unit " Reporting Food Security Information" of a comprehensive distance learning course developed by the EC-FAO Food Security Programme is available on-line at:
http://www.foodsecinfoaction.org/DL/