The Food Security and Nutrition working Group (FSNWG) in East and Central Africa (ECA) organized a Response Analysis and Planning Workshop in Nairobi which took place from April 29 to May 1, 2013. The workshop drew its participants from the National IPC Technical Working Groups (TWGs) and agency representatives involved in programming and decision making. Each country had 3 to 4 participants – representing respectively the Government, UN agencies and civil society.

The workshop objectives were to:

• Clarify how IPC analysis results can be better linked to response analysis & planning,
• Outline a process for conducting response analysis and planning, and
• Document country case studies.

In addition to pursuing these objectives, the organizers also underpinned the importance of changing livelihoods and its implications in the response analysis and planning. Using the IPC results as a starting point, four generic steps were proposed:

• Identify population of concern (Food Insecure population);
• Determine critical pathways to achieve food security;
• List response options; and
• Develop programme/response plan.

The workshop was informed by the literature and the results from the pilots in response analysis conducted in the past. In particular, the work done by FAO under the Response Analysis Framework (RAF) project and the pilot exercise conducted in Somalia were crucial resources. The workshop was also preceded by a pilot in Karamoja region of Uganda whereby IPC analysis results were applied to develop response options. The pilot exercise in Karamoja was used as a case study to demonstrate the process to the participants.

The workshop elicited overwhelming interest and participants agreed on the importance of  the response analysis and planning process and its linkages with the IPC analysis results. Participants proposed to engage in piloting the response analysis and planning process outlined during the workshop, share their experiences with others as well as learn from the experience of their peers, contributing to its technical development with the end goal of having standardized response tools. To do so, it was proposed to create a central repository for storing, sharing and disseminating these experiences.