Acute Food Insecurity Overview

Phase 3-crisis

Households either:

• have food consumption gaps that are reflected by high or above-usual acute malnutrition; or
• are marginally able to meet minimum food needs but only by depleting essential livelihood assets or through crisis-coping strategies

Phase 4 Emergency

Households either:

• have large food consumption gaps that are reflected in very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality; or
• are able to mitigate large food consumption gaps but only by employing emergency livelihood strategies and asset liquidation

Phase 5 Catastrophe/ Famine

Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs even after full employment of coping strategies. Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. For famine classification, area needs to have extreme critical levels of acute malnutrition and mortality.