North Kordofan is located in central-western Sudan at the northern edge of the savanna belt. The region is semi-arid and characterized by recurrent episodes of drought and increasing desertifcation. As a result, its population, which is now large sedentary and estimated at 1.3 million, is highly vulnerable to the effects of chronic and occasionally acute food shortages.
In recent years, CARE Sudan has addressed food insecurity in the region through a mixture of relief, rehabilitation and development interventions. In the future, however, CARE believes that, while a similar range or mix of activities will continue to be appropriate, the following capacities will need to be developed:
- to assess and track food security in order to identify and initiate appropriate timely and resource efficient responses to declining food security situations;
- to ascertain the nature of food security in order to identify and initiate activities that will impact on food security as it may occur in the future;
- to evaluate the impact of interventions taken on the basis of food security information.
To this end, the North Kordofan Food Information System (NKFIS) is proposed.
The NKFIS identifies its final goal as being:
By December 1997, and as a result of the establishment and operation of the NKFIS and the subsequent identification of food security responses, a significant and measurable improvement will be achieved in the food security of 300,000 people living in rural North Kordofan.
The project's final goal will be achieved through the monitoring and evaluation of selected baseline and current vulnerability indicators. The systematic assimilation of such information by CARE, and its dissemination to other interested agencies will allow the NKFIS to undertake the formulation of appropriate and resource-efficient responses (relief and non-relief) to variations in local and regional food security levels over time. In addition, the project will provide a basis for, and be a central player in, the assessment of CARE's other interventions in North Kordofan in terms of their impact on food security in the region.
