An Early Warning System to Detect and Prevent Famines Worldwide
The Challenge
Since 2000, Chemonics has implemented the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). We bring a worldwide network of data collectors gathering market prices of staple foods, nutrition information, agroclimatology, and more, feeding into a team of skilled analysts using a comprehensive food security framework to monitor famine and raise awareness for where famine may strike next.Our Solution
Monitoring Markets to Predict Famines
Chemonics implements FEWS NET, the leading provider of early warning and analysis on acute food insecurity around the world. This global network of data collectors gathers market prices of staple foods, nutrition information, agroclimatology, and more. A team of skilled analysts then assesses this information using a comprehensive food security framework, which is used to monitor current famines and raise awareness of where famine may strike next.
The Impact:
Decades of Data-Informed Decision Making
By issuing warnings of famine to mobilize food aid, we are able to save lives and ensure the limited resources of the international community are used most effectively.
For example, FEWS NET sounded the alarm a full year before the UN declared a famine in Somalia in 2011. Utilizing high-tech satellite data and market analysis, FEWS NET’s 40 food security monitors spread across rural and urban areas of Somalia regularly collected market price data on essential cereals and staple foods, reporting to regional offices in Nairobi and Washington, D.C. for analysis. During the 2011 famine, FEWS NET identified early warning signs of malnutrition in young children and new mothers and alerted the international community of the need for an urgent response.
With more areas than ever facing food insecurity and potential famine, having a proven, internationally-accepted method of analyzing food security and predicting famine helps deploy resources where they need to be, in time to save lives.