After many years of use in crisis situations, the IPC scale has been expanded to measure chronic food insecurity in non-crisis and development contexts. The development of the IPC Chronic Food Insecurity Phase Classification started in earnest in autumn 2012 through an iterative learning and prototype application process.

The 1st round of chronic pilot exercises took place in Nepal (Sept 2012), Malawi, Lesotho and Zimbabwe (Oct - Nov. 2012);  Honduras and the Philippines (Feb 2013). In each country, training and analysis workshops were conducted to introduce and apply the IPC prototype tools and procedures to analyse chronic food insecurity. Feedback and lessons learned from the country chronic pilot exercises  were presented and discussed at the 1st Synthesis Meeting of the IPC Global "Working Group on Classifying Chronic Food Insecurity" in March 2013, which led to improved prototypes of the chronic food insecurity reference table.

The 2nd Synthesis Meeting of the IPC Global "Working Group on Classifying Chronic Food Insecurity" took place from 6 to 10 May 2013. At the end of the 2nd Synthesis Meeting, the IPC Chronic Working Group members made substantial progress by reaching an agreement on many outstanding issues, and by preparing the first draft of a joint prototype. The prototype is currently being refined  and the second round of chronic pilot exercises will take place in Africa, Asia, and Central America between July and October 2013.

Version 1.0 of the IPC Chronic Food Insecurity Phase Classification will be released and ready for implementation in early 2014.