Adapting to an Urban World Phase II (2017) Assessment Design in Urban Areas – Expert Consultations

Managing urban areas is one of the major development challenges of the 21st century. While the increasing attention to the urban food insecure is evident, effective information gathering guiding humanitarian response and targeting remain a challenge to meet food security and other basic needs. In order to assess vulnerability to food insecurity in urban settings, the WFP Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping unit, the global Food Security Cluster and their partners are developing innovative approaches based on lessons learned and leveraging opportunities offered by new technologies as part of the second phase of the Adapting to an Urban World Initiative (2017).

As part of the planning phase, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Global Food Security Cluster (gFSC) in partnership with Flowminder/WorldPop convened a technical meeting in Rome to brainstorm and discuss options to improve assessment designs in urban settings and identify innovative solutions for the way forward. Participating partners included the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the GeoData Institute of the University of Southampton, REACH, the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team (HOT), Oxfam and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This report presents a non-exhaustive list of innovative tools and approaches to address identified challenges to assess food security in urban areas. This will be followed by the testing of tools and learning events towards the end of the year.