#ms02: Households with acceptable Food Consumption Score (FCS)

Sustainable food and nutrition security (SFNS) represents a fundamental objective of WHH's #OnePlanetZeroHunger strategy. The Food Consumption Score (FCS) serves as a vital indicator for assessing household food and nutrition security. It enjoys widespread recognition and utilization by numerous institutional donors, including ECHO and WFP. Malnutrition, in all its manifestations, stands as one of the primary channels through which poverty is transmitted from one generation to the next. Therefore, the attainment of adequate diets becomes a prerequisite for individuals to maintain good health, lead productive lives, and subsequently alleviate poverty. These diets encompass not only access to food in terms of caloric intake but also encompass dietary diversity and the consumption of various products with distinct nutritional values. The FCS indicator is valuable in measuring SFNS as it assesses household food and nutrition security by considering dietary diversity and the consumption of different products with varying nutritional values.

The #ms FCS indicator is a composite score for a household's food and nutrition security status based on dietary diversity, food frequency, and the relative nutritional value of different food groups.

Collect the following data by conducting individual interviews with a representative sample (WHH sampling guidelines) of the households targeted in your project.

Questions should be addressed to one member of each sampled household, namely the person (adult) who is responsible for food preparation in the household.

This indicator requires a baseline and comparison value(s) to yield interesting information on project outcomes. At minimum, it should therefore be collected as part of both a baseline and an endline survey. A mid-term survey is optional.

• More information: #ms02 FCS Handbook (EN)
• External resources: WFP Technical Guidance FCS 2008 (EN)

Disaggregate the data by gender, wealth, location or other relevant criteria.

This is a 'Measuring Success' (#ms) indicator. It is obligatory for all WHH projects to integrate all #ms indicators that align with the project context, with a minimum requirement of utilizing at least one indicator (and implementing one #ms qualitative tool).

1) Results may vary according to season (if collected during the period of greatest food shortage, such as immediately prior to the harvest, the score might be lower than if collected at a different time of the year). Therefore, baseline and endline data collection should be undertaken at the same time of the year.

2) Data should not be collected during fasting periods, such as pre-Easter time or Ramadan, nor on days after special feasts or occasions when dietary intake can be expected to be different from normal.

3) Prior to data collection, enumerators should attend a short practical training session. Points to emphasize:

• The list of food groups is somewhat flexible as the individual foods mentioned in each food group/group should be adapted to the regional context and season. Knowledge of the local food habits as well as nutritional considerations should inform the creation of the list of mentioned foods. However, this list should not be too long as too many foods would confuse the respondent because detailed recall is difficult over a 7-day recall period.
• Enumerators should attend a practical training session led by CO MEAL staff or an external consultant and test the questionnaire before collecting data. In addition to advanced survey-collection skills, enumerators need a basic understanding of nutrition.
• Explain the idea behind food groups, using images to illustrate your point. It is easier for respondents to list the meals they have eaten if they can refer to a visual aid (for example a poster or a card with pictures).
• Do not gather information about actual quantities or the numbers of times certain foods have been eaten, but only about the number of days in which a food group has been consumed by the respondent household in the past 7 days.