West Africa Ebola Outbreak

Presentation to the regional FSNWG

Dakar, 30 October 2014

Update on WFP West Africa Ebola Response

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3 pillars of WFP support: 1. Delivering food alongside the health response; 2. Ensuring the movement of partner staff and materials; and 3. Providing common services and infrastructure support for health partners.

EMOP (Regional) 200761– Support to Populations in Areas Affected by the Ebola Outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

SO (Regional) 200773– Logistics Common Services for the Humanitarian Community’s Response to the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak in West Africa.

under the United Nations umbrella and to provide essential support of UNMEER efforts to stop the spread of Ebola

Framework of Interventions

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Scale up under the EMOPPR

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Over 1 million people assisted so far- Communities in areas of widespread

and intense transmission- Ebola patients in treatment- Survivors discharged from Treatment

1-14 Sept 15-28 Sept 29-12 Oct 13-26 Oct0

2000

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6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

Total tonnage dispatched

Guinea Liberia Sierra Leone

1-14 Sept 15-28 Sept 29-12 Oct 13-26 Oct0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

Beneficiairies Assisted

Guinea Liberia Sierra Leone

Guinea: - Plan, Catholic Relief Service, Espoir Santé

Liberia: - Caritas (Monrovia/Capamas/Gbarnga), Liberian Islamic Union for Reconstruction and Development, ADRA, Liberian Red Cross, Liberian Agency for Community Empowerment, and Liberia Agency for Community Development

Sierra Leone: - Ministry of Health and Sanitization, Sierra Leone Red Cross, CIDO, MSF, World Vision, YMCA, Caritas Sierra Leone

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Scale up under the EMOP

• Ebola-specific distributions and nutrition guidelines;

• Modalities of distributions in dense urban settings;

• Rapid response teams;

• Mobile and large scale response to the three-day House to House sensitization campaign;

Adapting our response as we move forward in a unprecedented and unique operating environment

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Challenges

• Volatile security situation;

• Unique operating environment;

• Limited number of cooperating partners for the EMOP and

high demands on the ones present on the ground;

• Access constraints (heavy rains, road conditions…);

• Lack of transport capacity and of lights vehicles (for example

to distribute to Community Care Centres);

• Coordination and information-sharing with the various actors

and hubs.

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Food security analysis under the EMOP

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• FAO/WFP Rapid Food security assessments completed or ongoing in the three countries to understand the impact of Ebola on food security. o Preliminary results available for Sierra Leone and Liberia

• mVAM: Remote tracking of food security indicators to monitor trendso First round completed in Sierra Leone and in Guinea, ongoing

in Liberia (via SMS or interactive voice response);o Second round ongoing in Sierra Leone;

• Market and Price Monitoring

• FAO/WFP CFSAM (Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission) ongoing (Secondary data analysis)

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LYSIS

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mVAM remote food security monitoring

• In September 2014, WFP started conducting remote food security surveys in the Ebola-affected countries of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia through mobile phone surveys.

• The mVAM (mobile Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping) text message (SMS) and interactive voice response (IVR) surveys are sent to a panel of households in the Ebola-affected areas of each country.

• Respondents are asked to respond to a short series of questions on coping strategies used, food availability and prices.

• WFP’s approach to remote data collection for food security surveys is backed up by two years of documented evidence.

• When interpreting the data, readers are cautioned to note that mobile surveys will skew towards better-off households in urban areas.

• SMS surveys will not replace the need for on-the-ground emergency assessments, particularly for targeting and response design.

To download mVAM data on the ebola-affected countries, please visit: http://vam.wfp.org/sites/mvam_monitoring/index.html

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mVAM: First round results

Sierra Leone: September 2014 - Higher coping in the Ebola-affected districts of Kailahun and Kenema

People living in the districts of Kailahun and Kenema are using more severe food coping strategies more frequently, compared to people in other areas of the country. These are the areas where most EVD cases have been reported since the start of the outbreak. According to the 2010 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis, households in Kailahun and Kenema were less likely to be food insecure than in other parts of Sierra Leone.

Low casual wage prices in the east appear to be driving down people’s food purchasing power. This may be one reason why food coping levels are higher in that part of the country.

As the main annual harvest starts, staple food prices in the east are not showing serious anomalies compared to other regions of the country. Price trends will continue to be monitored in subsequent months.

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mVAM: First round results

Guinea: October 2014 - Higher Levels of Food-Related Coping Strategies in Guinea

The Reduced Coping Strategies Index (rCSI) is particularly high in Forest Guinea, the part of the country that has been most affected by the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Households are using more severe coping strategies, leading to a food security situation that is more precarious than in the rest of the country. According to surveys conducted before the crisis, this area already had a high prevalence of food insecurity.

Casual labour rates are lower in Nzerekore than in other regions. Limited market access to trade agricultural products could further reduce the demand for unskilled labour during the harvest period.

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The Way Forward

• Expanding on good practices to continue to scale up food distributions;

• Deploying additional staff for the scale up of food and logistics response.

• Reviewing EMOP requirements to integrate food security pillar alongside support to medical response, based on results of mVAM, market analysis and food security assessments;

• Developing an outcome monitoring system that enables remote data collection through phone calls to beneficiaries on their food consumption patterns, diet diversity, coping strategies, gender and protection