Early Warning and Food and Nutritional Security in the Sahel

In the countries of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) food security monitoring and alert activities are largely based on permanent agricultural surveys (PAS) which enable the cereal balance sheet to be drawn up. This is then combined with information on price fluctuations on agricultural markets to identify areas at risk of food crisis. However the effectiveness of this mechanism was called into question with the food crisis in Niger in 2005 when more nutritional problems were encountered in regions with a surplus of food. At the meeting of the Food Crisis Prevention Network in Paris in December 2005 it was recommended that the various Early Warning Systems integrate nutritional information into the food vulnerability monitoring mechanism.