01 Decision Support

Decision Support Group (DSG) Overview for Handover Documentation

• Decision Support main file archive link

Overview

Purpose and Objective

The DSG is responsible for coordinating the project’s integrated food security analysis, for the reporting and communication on that analysis, and for providing decision support to USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (USAID/FFP) and other parts of USAID, other parts of the U.S. Government, and the broader donor and humanitarian community. The DSG’s main objectives include the following:

• Assure production and delivery of targeted, regular, and ad hoc decision support products;

• Inform and support response and contingency planning processes;

• Lead regular and ad-hoc decision support for USAID and other food security stakeholders; and

• Provide guidance on and build capacity related to decision support

Sector staff

Over the course of FEWS NET III (2012-2019), the team has staffed the following positions:

• Decision Support Advisor (team lead)

• Deputy Decision Support Advisor

• Food Security Analysts (maximum of 8 analysts, not including Decision Support Advisor and Deputy Decision Support Advisor)

• Food Security Analyst Consultants

Product and Process Documentation

DSG Products

• Monthly country reports – each month, each country posts a food security analysis report to the website. The following product documentation discuss the different forms that monthly report might take:

• Food Security Outlook (FSO)

• Food Security Outlook Update (FSOU)

• Remote Monitoring Update

• Key Messages

• The Outlook, Outlook Update, Remote Monitoring Update, and monthly Key Message reports are all produced using a form of scenario development, FEWS NET’s core analytical method. Scenario development is described in FEWS NET’s guidance document on Scenario Development for Food Security Early Warning. The scenario development training process is described in the training documentation listed in the section below.

• Special reporting – information on the two primary types of special reporting with non-set schedules/timing that FEWS NET produces can be found in the following product documentation:

• Food Security Alert

• Special Reports

• Food insecurity needs estimates – the two products FEWS NET produces to document and communicate global needs estimates are:

• Food Assistance Outlook Briefs (FAOB) document

• Twelve-month Outlook

• Weather monitoring reports – the two regularly-produced weather reports the DSG leads on are:

• Seasonal Monitor

• Global Weather Hazards

DSG Processes

• FAOB briefing – this is a monthly briefing delivered by FEWS NET to FFP and the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) on global needs estimates looking forward 6.5 months

• FSO briefing – these are quarterly regional briefings for USAID and the public on the food security outlook

• Seasonal forecast call – this call is part of the monthly process of developing weather assumptions that FEWS NET science partners assess and validate for use in FEWS NET Scenario building and early warning

Training documentation

The following are the trainings the DSG leads, but new food security analysts must have the full foundational training and additional intermediate and advanced trainings as part of the onboarding process.

• DSG Products and Processes – a foundational training that walks through the products and processes the DSG leads on or is heavily involved in facilitating.

• Introduction to Scenario Development – a foundational training on FEWS NET’s core analytical method. This training is listed as both a DSG and KML training, as both sectors contribute to and deliver training and guidance on this methodology.

• FSO Indicators – an intermediate training on the different food consumption and livelihood change outcome Indicators used in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and guidance on how to effectively use them in analysis.

• Estimating Food Insecure Populations – an intermediate training to outline the guiding principles for FEWS NET’s IPC-compatible food insecure population estimates and to provide example methods for conducting that analysis.

• Humanitarian Assistance – an advanced training on how to conduct analysis of the significance of humanitarian food assistance provision on food consumption, and how to apply the humanitarian assistance mapping protocol in IPC analysis and use of the exclamation point in IPC-compatible analysis.