What is in the IPC Technical Manual Version 3.1
The IPC Technical Manual v3.1 includes a complete range of classification scales: Acute Food Insecurity, Chronic Food Insecurity and Acute Malnutrition. Each scale informs specific types of action needed, thus providing decision-makers with invaluable information for the strategic design of actions to address food insecurity and malnutrition. The scales have been fully harmonized, thus enabling:
- new scales to be applied more easily at the country level as protocols are shared across all scales, allowing analysts greater fluidity across the entire IPC portfolio;
- the path for integration of the three scales, with similar analytical parameters and a consolidated conceptual framework, increasing the ability to compare and establish linkages between the three conditions.
In addition, the Manual includes the most up to date reference tables, including the newly added Food Insecurity Experience Scale. The IPC Technical Manual Version 3.1 also includes elaborated communication protocols, with more informative and adaptive modular communication templates. Throughout the manual, guidance to users is included in order to promote higher-quality analysis and global comparability. The manual includes also protocols for:
- Famine classification: Protocols for use in the most severe crisis contexts, setting the global benchmark for declarations of famine. These have been updated since version 3.0 to allow rigorous and accountable classifications to be done even in context of inadequate data availability.
- Classification of areas with limited or no humanitarian access to collect evidence: Specific protocols for classification under extreme circumstances, maintaining IPC standards through adherence to recommended minimum parameters.
- Evidence reliability assessments: More specific criteria providing better guidance on the use of evidence for classifications.
The IPC Technical Manual Version 3.1 is organized into two parts:
- Part 1 provides the general user, including donors, implementing partners and governments, with adequate information to understand and critically utilize IPC products.
- Part 2 provides the analyst with the protocols, including tools and procedures, to conduct the classification.
A number of Guidance Notes and Working Papers covering specific aspects of the IPC were developed. These are part of IPC Resources and provide useful supporting guidance for this Manual, which will be of particular interest to advanced analysts, trainers and facilitators. The IPC Resources can be accessed through the IPC website (http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/resources/ipc-guidance-notes/en/).