In recent years there has been a growing awareness within the humanitarian community of the need to critically review our practice in the area of food security and livelihoods in emergencies. Strengthening needs assessments and increasing the range of intervention options that we use are key elements in improving responses.

This meeting, organised by ODI and Save the Children, brought together staff from a variety of mainly UK-based NGOs, donors (DFID and SDC), WFP and researchers to learn from recent experiences of food- and cash-based programming, and to try to move towards agreement on the circumstances under which it is appropriate to undertake different food security interventions in emergencies.