The Targeting of Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in Nicaragua
WFP/VAM, December 2000
Contents:
1. WFP/VAM Targeting Process in Nicaragua
2. Factors of Vulnerability Considered in the Targeting Process
3. General Characteristics of the VAM Composite Map of Vulnerability
4. Zone-by-Zone Characteristics of Vulnerability
1. VAM Targeting Process in Nicaragua
The objectives of the VAM targeting process are principally to:
a) identify (target) those areas and populations that are most vulnerable to food
insecurity that should be the primary focus of WFP development programming,
and
b) characterise the food insecurity and vulnerability issues faced in each of these
areas so that potential solutions to them are more apparent, and a judgement can
be made whether and how best WFP food aid will be an appropriate input in their
resolution.
The targeting of food insecurity and vulnerability in a country is an on-going process that
builds upon information gathered and analysed over time. As the focus narrows on the
most vulnerable, a deepening of the analysis and characterization of food insecurity and
vulnerability is expected in the most vulnerable areas. This targeting information is
expected to be available and practically integrated in the Country Office’s “Country
Strategy Outline (CSO)” and the “Country Programme (CP)”. The VAM role in this
targeting process, and particularly the input of this information into documents is in
conformance with WFP Executive Board and Programme Review Committee guidance
on this matter.
In Nicaragua, the VAM targeting process period was foreshortened in time in order to
better correspond with the timetable of the Country Office’s preparation of its CSO and
CP. Thus, from the time the process began in August 2000, slightly more than one month
was available to provide an initial level of targeting to the CO team preparing the CSO.
From that point, another 2.5 months was available in which to extend and deepen the
targeting analyses to provide information to the CP document.
Within the constraints of this relatively short period of time, VAM-Nicaragua, with the
assistance of the VAM Regional Office in Nicaragua has carried out 3 phases of the
VAM Standard Analytic Framework (SAF) activities:
Analysis of Secondary Data: A two-step process of VAM analysis of available
quantitative data regarding food availability, access and utilization.
National Workshop on Zonification and Characterisation of Food Insecurity: An
effort carried out with the participation of national food security experts,
counterparts, operational partners, and WFP personnel, with the objective to reach
a consensus view of homogenous food security zones and reasons for food
insecurity and vulnerability in each.
Food Security Issues Paper: An in-depth analysis of the prinicipal dimensions of
national food security, prepared by a national expert in food security, and based
upon a literature review, quantitative data, and the expert’s own insight and
observation.
It should be noted here that VAM analyses of food security and vulnerability in
Nicaragua, as in the rest of Central America, are greatly constrained by the limited
amount and lack of temporal depth of disaggregated food security-related data currently
available. What data exist are generally related much more to poverty analyses
(infrequent measures of key social and demographic characteristics and the coverage of
basic services) than they are to measuring the household’s access to food and income
over time (eg. agricultural production data, food prices series, etc.). Therefore, the
indicators used in the VAM Secondary Data Analyses here may appear to many in WFP
and VAM to be relatively distant proxies for food security.
Because of the shortened timeframe of CSO/CP preparation, and this generally sparse
database of key food security information, only a departmental-level Analysis of
Secondary Data was available as a basis for the targeting information provided by VAM
in September 2000 to the Nicaragua CSO design process. For the Nicaragua Country
Programme process, the focus of VAM targeting has moved to the municipio-level.
The completion of the SAF products described above provided a basis for narrowing the
geographic focus and deepening the analysis of key problems and characteristics of the
most vulnerable groups in Nicaragua. In addition to these three products, and upon the
analysis and recommendation of the National Workshop participants, the VAM Team
added an explicit consideration of the primary role that rainfall, and specifically patterns
of drought, mid-season gaps in rainfall (canícula), and the probability of agricultural loss1
play in vulnerability to food insecurity in Nicaragua.
The VAM/SAF analytic process described here is substantially different from VAM
vulnerability assessment exercises in the past. Those analyses generally relied almost
exclusively on secondary data sources, or upon a locally determined mix of anecdotal and
quantitative evidence. Under the new Standard Analytic Framework, such analyses now
share a common approach in all offices, and emphasize a systematic, multi-factor, and
broad participatory process of characterization and analysis of food availability, access,
and utilization.
The SAF process encourages the use of a mix of expert knowledge, objective data, and
informed judgement to confront and reconcile differing pictures of food insecurity that
can be derived from these diverse sources of information. It is intended to address and
overcome known limitations in the databases, observations, and expert knowledge
1
Sources of these information, respectively, are XXX, XX, and X.
available for consultation, and allows and facilitates a systematic assessment of all of
them. Ultimately, the analytic process and the final map of vulnerability derive their
validity from: a) a consistency in the levels and geographic patterns of food insecurity
produced at each step in the process, and b) whether participants in the process are able to
interpret and comfortably accept the patterns that have been produced as a plausible and
likely view of reality.
The Composite Map of Vulnerability to Food Insecurity in Nicaragua shown here
represents the result of the compilation and further VAM analysis of each of these inputs.
This map and the accompanying analysis is one of the primary inputs of VAM to the
Nicaragua WFP/CP process.
Factors of Vulnerability Considered in the Targeting Process
In looking at each of the four SAF products that are the primary inputs to the Composite
Map, what are the key factors of vulnerability that have driven the present classification
of municipio vulnerability? How did they measure and describe vulnerability, and how
do they compare with the Composite Map?
Composite Vulnerability Map and the Secondary Data Analysis: [example] The
municipio-level Secondary Data Analysis conducted by the VAM Office analysed the
following factors, selected for their complementary views of the presence of hunger and
poverty, the two key factors that drive a developmental intervention by WFP.
Low Birthweight: [Source, short description of the indicator]
Clinical malnutrition rates: ….[Source, short description of the indicator]
PEA as percent of total: …[Source, short description of the indicator]
Poverty: [Source, short description of the indicator]
A cluster-analysis using these data produced three significant clusters of vulnerability:
high, medium, and lower. Map XX shows the geographic patterns associated with each.
In general, municipios of the highest vulnerability are seen to be principally located in
Nueva Segovia, Madriz, Jinotega, and in the RAAN, with a few single municipios lying
outside these zones. The zones of least vulnerability generally include most of the
Pacific Coast.
In terms of an analysis of food insecurity, some of the weaknesses of the factors used
here:
 Are only a single view in time of the conditions they measure
 Describe poverty more as access to basic services, a relatively indirect measure of
the levels and composition of the primary sources of household food access
(production and income)
 Describe malnutrition levels of a population that is probably not amongst the
poorest of the municipio
Composite Vulnerability Map and the National Workshop:
Factors measured
Geographic Patterns
Strengths, shortcomings/weaknesses
Comparison with Composite map
Composite Vulnerability Map and the Issues Paper:
Factors measured
Geographic Patterns
Strengths, shortcomings/weaknesses
Comparison with Composite map
Composite Vulnerability Map and Moisture Stress:
Factors measured
Geographic Patterns
Strengths, shortcomings/weaknesses
Comparison with Composite map
3. General Characteristics of the VAM Composite Map of Vulnerability
In order to prepare this map, the VAM Team first examined each VAM Standard
Analytic Framework (SAF) product: Issues Paper, Secondary Data Analysis, National
Workshop2, and moisture stress analysis to identify the frequency with which municipios
were identified as among the most vulnerable in these four inputs, and to study and
compare the reasons that were provided for each classification.
This review of all products provided an initial view of the types and patterns of food
security perceived as most important by the various participants in the SAF analytic
process. Using all of these inputs, the Team has then accordingly classified each
municipio in one of the four vulnerability groupings seen in this composite map of
vulnerability to food insecurity. Note that this classification process was not a simple
summing of references, and did include an evaluation of the reasons advanced and the
quality of evidence provided in each case.
The Composite Map of Vulnerability to Food Insecurity for Nicaragua uses the municipio
(of which there are 151 in Nicaragua) as the smallest unit of analysis of food insecurity.
During most of the SAF analytic process, the municipio-level was generally considered
by participants in the process to be an appropriate level of disaggregation in designating
areas of high or low vulnerability in Nicaragua. In only a few cases were sub-municipio
zones identified as substantially different from the conditions of the rest of the
municipio3.
2
See Annexes X, XX, and XXX for more details of each.
Instances in which sub-municipio conditions were noted mainly concerned small population groups considered to be
much poorer than the municipio average in some municipios found along the Pacific Coast, and especially in Tola
Municipio (Dpto Rivas), and in similar coastal areas of Carazo, Managua and Leon Departamentos. As well, some
reference in the Taller Nacional was made to the differences in food security level in some large sparsely-populated
municipios of the RAAN.
3
Zone of Severe Vulnerability: [example] A zone consistently considered as
containing the most severe vulnerability in the country is found in the northwest quadrant
of the country along the border with Honduras. It particularly includes almost all
municipios in Madriz Department, and most of the municipios in the western half of
Nueva Segovia Department. Madriz and Nueva Segovia departments were among the 3
departments4 identified as the most vulnerable in the country in earlier departmental-level
analyses that supported the WFP-Nicaragua Country Strategy Outline process. The
population found in these municipios of “most severe” vulnerability totals XXX.
Zone of High Vulnerability: This grouping includes XX municipios with a total
population of XXX. The general geographic location of this group is ……..
Zone of Medium Vulnerability: This grouping includes XX municipios with a total
population of XXX. The general geographic location of this group is ……..
Zone of Low Vulnerability: This grouping includes XX municipios with a total
population of XXX. The general geographic location of this group is ……..
4. Zone-by-Zone Characteristics of Vulnerability
Most Vulnerable Zone: [Example] Factors generally identified in the SAF
analyses as critical in the extreme vulnerability of these areas included a high prevalence
and severe level of both poverty and hunger. Poverty stems primarily from an
environment that does not favor economic and agricultural activities: low rainfall and
recurrent drought, steep slopes, poor soil quality and problems of erosion, relatively high
densities of population in relation to the amount of cultivable land. Agricultural activities
of the poorest majority of these municipios are oriented to subsistence production of
basic grains, and cash crop opportunities are generally relatively few and un-economic.
Low rates of ownership of the land and extremely small farm sizes are key constraints to
the poor farmer’s ability to produce more. The area has few roads, access to markets is
difficult, and the cost of transport in this extremely mountainous area is high.
Malnutrition and low birthweights in these areas are primarily related to a lack of
sufficient food and income in the household, and to a reliance on a narrow range of foods
in the diet. Food consumption patterns are especially poor in the period before the major
harvest in October/November.
At the household level, gender limitations, especially limited ownership of land
and participation in economic activities, are especially important features of the poor
access to food in female-headed households. Relatively high levels of female illiteracy
also reflect a limited future ability to undertake more remunerative economic activities.
High Vulnerability Zone: [example] The area of “high vulnerability” identified in
this map may appear as a contiguous and possibly homogenous zone of similar
vulnerability. Nevertheless, the different SAF analyses often distinguished significant
differences in the factors of vulnerability for several sub-regions in this zone of high
4
Madriz, Nueva Segovia, Jinotega
vulnerability. For example, a relatively homogenous sub-zone of high vulnerability can
be found in municipios located between the northern end of Lake Nicaragua and the
“Most Vulnerable” municipios of Nueva Segovia and Madriz. It is generally
characterized by poverty, a reliance on agriculture, although with some diversification of
production into coffee-growing, and recurrent drought. Physical access to this sub-zone
is less of a problem than in the “Most Vulnerable” zone. Gender …
A second sub-zone of this High Vulnerability zone can be seen along the northern
border with Honduras, running basically from Jinotega to the Atlantic Coast. These areas
are generally characterized less by drought than the previously mentioned sub-zone.
They are agricultural in nature although the size of farms is generally larger than in the
Most Vulnerable zone, and coffee production is widespread. Basic infrastructure and
services are rare, as are roads. Much of the economy of these areas is related to the
Honduran market. Gender …
A third sub-zone is comprised of four relatively large municipios that lie around
the border between the RAAN (1 municipio) and the RAAS (3 municipios). These
municipios are characterized very low population densities and poor physical access
(river transport is sometimes the primary mode of movement). The sub-zone has high
and often excessive rainfall, poor and thin soils, and a shifting pattern of agriculture that
begins with a cutting and burning of forest areas. Large livestock farms are moving into
many of these areas, and are quickly converting many of these new agricultural areas into
pasturelands. The sub-zone is very poorly served by services, has few and poor roads,
and is characterized by its high percentage of indigenous populations. Non-agricultural
activities in these areas include the extraction of wood and a geographically-concentrated
mining sector, neither of which have not been able to provide stable employment
opportunities.
Zone of Medium Vulnerability: This zone includes XX municipios with a total
population of XXX. This zone is generally located …
Zone of Low Vulnerability: All of the rest of the municipios in the country (XX,
with a total population of XX, or XX% of the country’s population) were never identified
in any of the SAF exercises as the most vulnerable, and the VAM Team concurs in this
estimation.