Food Security Policy and Implementation Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Food Security Officers, Government Policy Advisers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-FS-035

Before you join: Participants should have basic familiarity with development, humanitarian, agriculture, nutrition, social protection or public policy work.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Food security policy fails when evidence, policy choices, financing and delivery systems do not connect. Governments and development partners must make decisions amid price volatility, climate hazards, conflict, displacement, weak market access and uneven nutrition outcomes. Policy teams need to distinguish chronic from acute food insecurity, identify who is affected and why, select feasible interventions, and translate commitments into funded implementation arrangements. They must also account for trade-offs between affordability, producer incentives, nutrition, fiscal space and environmental resources.

This course develops the practical skills required to formulate, implement and monitor food security policy. Participants use the four food security dimensions, rights-based approaches, results chains, food security indicators, market analysis and Integrated Food Security Phase Classification concepts. They assess policy instruments such as cash transfers, food reserves, input subsidies, local procurement, school feeding, food fortification and climate-smart agriculture. The course also addresses institutional mandates, consultation, targeting, procurement, contingency planning, monitoring and adaptive management.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with sector cases, facilitated group analysis, policy design exercises, market-response scenarios and implementation planning. Cases reflect common challenges faced by ministries, humanitarian agencies, social protection programmes and food system partners. Participants leave with a reusable food security policy implementation pack: a problem analysis, policy options matrix, results framework, indicator reference sheet, implementation workplan and risk register. The five-day instructor-led course is available in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, and includes a certificate of completion.

What you will be able to do

  • Diagnose food security problems using the four dimensions, systems mapping and disaggregated evidence
  • Interpret food security, market and nutrition indicators for policy prioritisation
  • Formulate policy options using theory of change, problem-tree analysis and distributional assessment
  • Assess cash, voucher, in-kind and production-support responses through market and feasibility analysis
  • Design governance arrangements covering mandates, coordination, accountability and consultation
  • Prepare implementation workplans with budgets, responsibilities, milestones and delivery risks
  • Develop monitoring frameworks using results chains, indicator reference sheets and feedback loops
  • Apply contingency planning and early action protocols to food security shocks

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce clearer food security policy recommendations supported by evidence and explicit assumptions
  • Assess whether cash, vouchers, food assistance or production support fit market conditions
  • Contribute confidently to interministerial food security strategy and coordination processes
  • Build implementation plans that connect policy commitments with budgets and accountable owners
  • Interpret early warning and food security classification findings for timely action

For your organisation

  • Improves the quality and feasibility of food security policy proposals
  • Reduces poorly targeted assistance through stronger vulnerability and market analysis
  • Strengthens coordination between agriculture, health, social protection and emergency actors
  • Produces clearer monitoring evidence for budget decisions and programme adjustment
  • Improves readiness for price shocks, drought, displacement and other food security crises

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can frame food security problems using rights-based and food systems perspectives.

  • Food security dimensions: availability, access, utilization, stability and agency
  • Rights-based food security duties under ICESCR and national constitutions
  • Distinguishing chronic food insecurity, seasonal hunger, shocks and famine risks
  • Systems mapping links food supply, markets, incomes, diets and services
  • Identifying policy trade-offs between production, affordability, nutrition and resilience
  • Stakeholder power-interest mapping for ministries, producers, traders and communities

Participants can select and interpret evidence for food security policy decisions.

  • Household food security indicators: FCS, HDDS, rCSI and HHS
  • Selecting indicators through results-chain assumptions and decision-use criteria
  • Food Insecurity Experience Scale methodology, thresholds and disaggregation
  • Sampling frames, seasonal calendars and recall periods for household surveys
  • Sex, age, disability and displacement disaggregation in food security analysis
  • Triangulating survey, market, remote-sensing and administrative data sources

Participants can interpret early warning and market evidence to identify priorities.

  • IPC Acute Food Insecurity classification evidence requirements and analytical functions
  • Cadre Harmonisé phases and convergence of evidence protocols
  • Market price monitoring using reference markets, terms of trade and anomalies
  • Rainfall, vegetation and crop-production indicators for early warning
  • Constructing problem statements from magnitude, severity, geography and population data
  • Communicating uncertainty, confidence levels and data limitations to decision-makers

Participants can formulate policy options linked to diagnosed food security problems.

  • Theory of change links policy actions to food security outcomes
  • Problem-tree analysis separates immediate, underlying and structural causes
  • Policy instruments: public stocks, cash transfers, subsidies, trade and regulation
  • Assessing distributional effects by income group, gender and livelihood
  • Cost-effectiveness comparisons across targeted transfers, procurement and production support
  • Drafting policy options with assumptions, risks, fiscal implications and safeguards

Participants can design governance arrangements for accountable policy implementation.

  • Institutional mapping clarifies mandates, coordination gaps, incentives and accountability
  • National food security strategies aligned with agriculture, health and social protection
  • Interministerial coordination mechanisms: committees, technical working groups and secretariats
  • Decentralised implementation roles, financing flows and local accountability arrangements
  • Conflict-of-interest controls for procurement, subsidy allocation and market regulation
  • Participatory consultation methods for farmers, women, youth and displaced populations

Participants can select and design appropriate food security response modalities.

  • Targeting criteria combine vulnerability, geography, livelihood and exclusion risks
  • Response analysis compares cash, vouchers, in-kind food and services
  • Market assessment tests supply capacity, trader competition and price risks
  • Transfer-value calculation uses minimum expenditure baskets and market prices
  • Procurement plans apply quality specifications, delivery schedules and supplier due diligence
  • Protection, gender and disability measures reduce exclusion and harm

Participants can assess production and market interventions within food security policy.

  • Climate-smart agriculture options assessed against livelihoods, resources and climate hazards
  • Input subsidy design addresses targeting, redemption, market distortion and exit
  • Smallholder aggregation models: cooperatives, contract farming and warehouse receipts
  • Post-harvest loss reduction through storage, handling, grading and cold chains
  • Water governance choices balance irrigation access, equity and ecosystem needs
  • Land tenure analysis identifies barriers to investment and women's rights

Participants can integrate nutrition objectives into food security policy and programming.

  • Nutrition-sensitive agriculture pathways link production, income, care and diets
  • Minimum dietary diversity indicators inform food system policy priorities
  • Food fortification standards, quality assurance and regulatory enforcement arrangements
  • School feeding design connects menus, local procurement and nutrition education
  • Food safety risk management uses HACCP principles and inspection systems
  • Urban food environments shape affordability, convenience, marketing and diet quality

Participants can plan timely, accountable responses to food security shocks.

  • Shock-responsive social protection triggers use forecast, price and displacement data
  • Contingency plans specify thresholds, roles, funding and pre-agreed actions
  • Early action protocols connect early warning signals to response measures
  • Humanitarian-development-peace coherence addresses conflict drivers, displacement and market recovery
  • Sphere Handbook food security standards guide response quality and accountability
  • Famine prevention planning prioritises access constraints, mortality risks and coordination

Participants can prepare a monitored implementation plan for a food security policy.

  • Logical frameworks define outcomes, outputs, indicators, baselines and assumptions
  • Implementation workplans sequence activities, responsibilities, milestones and dependencies
  • Budget costing separates recurrent, capital, contingency and administrative expenditures
  • Indicator reference sheets specify definitions, sources, frequency and disaggregation
  • Adaptive management uses monitoring findings, feedback loops and decision logs
  • Policy implementation plan assigns actions, owners, resources, risks and deadlines

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Food security problem-tree template
  2. Policy options assessment matrix
  3. Food security results framework
  4. Market and response analysis checklist
  5. Indicator reference sheet template
  6. Policy implementation workplan and risk register

Who should attend

  • Food Security Officers — need to convert assessments into policy and programme decisions
  • Government Policy Advisers — need practical methods for drafting implementable food security policies
  • Humanitarian Programme Managers — need to select and manage appropriate food security responses
  • Social Protection Managers — need to link transfer systems with food security outcomes
  • Agriculture and Rural Development Officers — need to align production support with access and nutrition goals
  • Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists — need to build decision-useful food security measurement systems

Skills and tools covered

Food security analysisPolicy formulationMarket response analysisProgramme implementation planningFood security monitoringShock response planning

Tools and standards

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), Sphere Handbook, CFS Voluntary Guidelines on the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish concepts and methods, followed by case work drawn from food price shocks, drought response, social protection and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. Participants analyse assessment findings, compare policy instruments, develop implementation arrangements and test choices against market, fiscal and protection constraints. Facilitated group exercises examine policy trade-offs and coordination problems. Simulations use early warning information and response thresholds. Each participant completes an application plan adapted to a current policy, programme or operational challenge.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic familiarity with development, humanitarian, agriculture, nutrition, social protection or public policy work. Experience reading programme documents, interpreting simple tables and participating in planning meetings is useful. The course assumes participants can discuss local food systems, household livelihoods and institutional arrangements from their own professional context. Prior formal study of economics, statistics, food security assessment or humanitarian standards is not required. It is not a technical course in crop science, econometrics, survey programming or emergency logistics.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need basic familiarity with development, humanitarian, agriculture, nutrition, social protection or public policy work. Formal training in economics, statistics or food security assessment is not required.

Bring a laptop if possible and a current policy, programme document, assessment report or operational challenge from your work. Course materials are provided, and participants can use anonymised examples where documents are sensitive.

It suits government officers, humanitarian and development practitioners, programme managers, social protection staff, agriculture officers and monitoring specialists. It is designed for professionals who contribute to policy, programme design, implementation or coordination.

This course connects household food security outcomes with policy choices, social protection, markets, nutrition, governance and crisis response. It does not focus solely on agricultural production, supply-chain operations or emergency logistics.

Participants can use the templates to structure a policy problem, compare interventions, specify indicators and prepare an implementation workplan. The methods also support stronger contributions to assessments, strategy reviews, coordination meetings and budget discussions.

The course runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with approximately 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between instruction, case analysis, group work, response simulations and preparation of an individual application plan.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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