Adaptive Planning

WFP’s three-pronged approach to project development creates an adaptive collaborative plan aimed to address food security crises while fostering long-term resilience.

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Adaptive Planning

WFP’s three-pronged approach to project development creates an adaptive collaborative plan aimed to address food security crises while fostering long-term resilience.

Integrated Context Analysis (ICA)

Climate change is impacting Chad and the semi-arid Sahel region with nearly unparalleled impact, such that Chad ranks last out of 182 countries in the 2020 Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative on climate change vulnerability. Inhabitants in the Sahel belt have historically relied upon farming and livestock for their livelihoods, but shifting rain patterns and intensifying droughts make subsistence challenging and agricultural advancement even more difficult.

An increasingly common occurrence, the “lean season” happens in years of intense heat and drought, typically between June and August. The lean season is associated with the hottest time of the year, when food insecurity rises sharply and communities require humanitarian assistance to meet food and nutrition needs. Overgrazing, erosion, the cutting of vegetation for firewood, and biodiversity loss combine to further degrade surrounding ecosystems.

Seasonal Livelihood Programming (SLP)

“Seasonal Livelihood Programming” (SLP) brings together regional partners to assess the potential impacts on food security and livelihoods posed by the “lean season” that occurs in some years between June and August. Extreme heat and intense drought in this period can result in dire environmental and economic consequences.

The well-being, and sometimes the survival, of individuals and households in these scenarios requires food assistance and even cash payments. Gender equity is a key consideration in this planning process. Partnerships are also a critical part of Seasonal Livelihood Programming (SLP), given the importance of coordinated efforts to provide relief and avoid a humanitarian crisis.

Community-Based Participatory Planning (CBPP)

Community-Based Participatory Planning (CBPP) encompasses perhaps the most critical component in developing and maintaining different projects in WFP-Chad’s Integrated Resilience Programme.

The CBPP process begins by ground-truthing community realities and comparing them to proposed regional strategies to tailor plans to the local level. CBPP utilizes a 6-step process that includes a community viability profiling exercise with community members, followed by a community mapping exercise and then a transect walk. Community members then take their observations from the transect walk and refine the community map.

These exercises culminate in the validation and prioritization of proposed activities before finalizing the development plan, a plan that is continually revisited and revised.

Nutrition

Interventions designed to support individuals and households often vary by season. The goal of increasing resilience among all members of a partner community requires a balance between offering support when needed and avoiding the creation of ongoing dependency. In years of heat and drought, assistance is usually more critical during lean seasons than in other parts of the year.

During times of intense environmental or socioeconomic challenges, unconditional food assistance might be provided to everyone. Conditional food assistance is offered according to need in periods when circumstances vary among individuals and also between sedentary and nomadic communities.

Nutritional supplement packages are provided to ensure all nutritional needs are met, and home gardens and small livestock are encouraged and supported when appropriate.

Ecological Benefits Framework (EBF)

The Ecological Benefits Framework (EBF) focuses on six ecological benefits: air, water, soil, biodiversity, equity, and carbon. These ecological benefits are fundamental to the work of the World Food Programme. EBF places food, nutrition, and equity into a place-based context that shows the interconnected relationships between ecosystems, food systems, and food security.

Using a peer-reviewed collection of Lex Icons, EBF provides a common language and visual interface for expressing the impacts of WFP projects at local, regional, and international scales.