The IPC Acute Analysis was conducted in four drought prone districts of Sindh Province. The results of the IPC acute analysis showed an alarming situation prevailing across all the 4 districts analyzed. The 4 districts were selected for the analysis based on their perceived vulnerability in the lean period. The results of the analysis clearly indicate an Emergency situation (IPC Phase 4) on going in all 4 districts requiring immediate attention.

The analysis is conducted for the pre-monsoon period and results are valid until the start of the monsoon. While it is not expected that the vulnerability conditions will be alleviated it can be assumed that the start of the monsoon particularly in rain fed areas will lead to some changes. However a delayed start of the monsoon or a failed monsoon could lead to considerable deterioration.

As per the results, 3 out of the 4 districts were classified as Phase 4 (Emergency) as at least 20% population was in Phase 4, and only Umerkot was in Phase 3 (Crisis). It should be noted, however, that Umerkot while in Phase 3, is on the borderline with many indicators pointing to a Phase 4 scenario.

The IPC analysis reveals that a large proportion of households is facing food consumption gaps as seen through the proportion of households that were found to have Poor Food consumption (Food Consumption Score below 28), with around 20% in Jams-horo and Umerkot, and close to 46% for Tharparkar. In terms of household hunger, while there is a very small proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger, there is still a substantial proportion of households across the 4 districts experiencing moderate hunger. The food consumption gaps are further witnessed through the reduced coping strategy index which accounts for food based coping strategies. As per the results, 30% were engaging in “high coping” while 24% have utilized “medium cop-ing” indicating the existence of food consumption gaps that are covered only by using a range of coping strategies. The inability of households to meet their food needs is further indicated by the high rates of livelihood based coping strategies adopted, with almost 34% of households engaging i ”Emergency coping strategies” and 25% adopting crisis coping strategies.

Women dietary diversity is found to be very low and only 30% of women were consuming more than 5 food groups leaving 70% consuming an inadequate diet. While these are issues of food consumption quality, and not quantity which is the focus of IPC acute, this has major implications on household dietary intake. Comparatively around 80% of children were not consuming diet of minimum dietary diversity (Consuming more than 4 food groups). The poor levels of consumption are manifested through high levels of acute malnutrition also indicating an emergency situation. Recent nutrition data is available for Jamshoro, Umerkot and Tharparkar, and the results indicate a highly alarming situation with Acute Malnutrition rates in three districts exceeding the 15% Emergency threshold.

Access to improved sources of water was relatively better with around 63% accessing water through improved sources. Howev-er access to improved sanitation was a major limiting factor as only 29% had access to improved sanitation facilities and 38% connected to drainage system.

Accessing heath care is a problem for all areas. Across all districts only 19% of households said that they faced no issues in accessing health care. The major restricting factors reported by households were long distance (46%), high cost of health ser-vice (47%) and unavailability of transport available (48%). Access to markets is also a somewhat limiting factor as average dis-tance to food market is 15 KMs and around 23% of households stated that they had to travel more than 20 km to access the nearest food market.

The IPC Technical Working Group issued the following recommendations:

• The results of the IPC analysis have indicated a need for immediate action in the concerned districts. Therefore a wider dissemination of the results among key stakeholders is recommended.
• The results are valid till the start of the monsoon period and this period is considered to be the lean period in the analyzed districts. However if there is a delay in the monsoon, or lower than average rainfall the impacts on the drought affected areas will be quite severe. Therefore continuous monitoring is also recommended.
• The results of the food consumption indicators, particularly those related to child feeding, suggest that it is likely that malnutrition rates will be high in these districts. Therefore, a detailed malnutrition analysis for these districts would be highly valuable.
• The Livelihood Food Security Analysis provided a lot of critical information for the IPC, however, the survey required a lot of resources. For sustainability of IPC, it would be useful to have more regular data collection systems that can provide information for IPC.
• It is suggested to have another round of IPC Acute analysis for the targeted districts in November/December 2017 for comparative situation analysis of acute food insecurity.
• An IPC Acute Malnutrition analysis is planned as a pilot for the same districts using the key nutrition data that was available through the LFSA and recent SMART surveys.