Food Security Resilience Planning Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Food Security Managers, Livelihoods Programme Officers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-FS-028

Before you join: Participants should have practical experience in food security, livelihoods, humanitarian response, agriculture, nutrition, social protection or disaster risk management.

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 programmes must make decisions under changing conditions: failed rains, conflict, market disruption, displacement, disease outbreaks and fiscal pressure can rapidly alter household access to food. Teams need more than a needs assessment or a response plan. They need a structured way to analyse risks, understand household and market systems, select resilience pathways, set triggers and monitor whether interventions reduce future vulnerability.

This course develops the planning skills needed to design and manage food security resilience strategies for humanitarian, recovery and development settings. Participants work through the food security pillars, resilience capacities, shock analysis, seasonal patterns, household economy analysis, market assessment and vulnerability classification. They learn to connect evidence to programme choices covering food assistance, livelihoods, agriculture, market support, social protection, natural resource management and disaster preparedness. The course also addresses conflict sensitivity, climate risk, accountability, adaptive management and coordination with government and local actors.

Teaching combines focused instructor briefings with realistic cases from drought-affected rural areas, urban displacement settings and market-disrupted communities. Participants interpret assessment findings, test response options against scenarios, develop triggers for contingency action and critique monitoring frameworks. They leave with a food security resilience planning pack containing a risk profile, seasonal calendar, resilience theory of change, response-option appraisal, trigger matrix and monitoring framework that can be adapted to their operating context.

The course is suited to professionals who already work with food security, livelihoods, emergency response, social protection or resilience programming and now need stronger planning and decision-making capability.

What you will be able to do

  • Analyse food security risks using the four pillars, shock typologies and resilience capacities
  • Construct seasonal calendars and risk profiles from hazard, livelihood and market evidence
  • Interpret Household Economy Analysis and CARI findings for programme targeting decisions
  • Assess market functionality and price risks before selecting food assistance or livelihood responses
  • Design resilience theories of change linking shocks, capacities, interventions and outcomes
  • Develop contingency triggers, preparedness actions and financing assumptions for predictable shocks
  • Build adaptive monitoring frameworks using outcome, process, market and accountability indicators
  • Produce a context-specific food security resilience planning pack for operational use

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make defensible response recommendations from food security and market evidence
  • Translate seasonal and shock analysis into practical preparedness decisions
  • Use recognised food security frameworks confidently in planning discussions
  • Design monitoring indicators that show changes in household resilience
  • Present a credible resilience planning pack to managers, donors and partners

For your organisation

  • Improves consistency between assessments, targeting decisions and programme design
  • Strengthens preparedness for predictable seasonal, climate and market shocks
  • Reduces unsuitable assistance choices through structured response-option appraisal
  • Creates clearer triggers for early action, contingency budgets and escalation
  • Improves reporting on resilience outcomes, assumptions and programme adaptation

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can frame food security resilience problems using systems, shock and capacity analysis.

  • Four food security pillars assessed through availability, access, utilisation and stability indicators
  • Resilience capacities distinguished as absorptive, adaptive and transformative functions
  • Shock typologies map drought, flooding, price spikes, conflict and displacement
  • Systems mapping traces households, markets, services, governance and natural resources
  • Seasonal calendars identify lean periods, hazards, labour demand and income
  • Risk assumptions documented using probability, impact, exposure and coping capacity

Participants can develop an evidence-based risk profile for a food security planning area.

  • Hazard profiles combine historical events, forecasts, severity and geographic exposure
  • Vulnerability analysis identifies differential risks by livelihood, gender, age and disability
  • Conflict sensitivity examines dividers, connectors, access constraints and resource tensions
  • Climate risk screening tests rainfall variability, temperature trends and ecosystem pressures
  • Political economy analysis identifies institutions, incentives, power and exclusion patterns
  • Scenario planning compares most likely, best case and worst case conditions

Participants can plan an assessment that generates usable evidence for resilience decisions.

  • Assessment questions link decision requirements, information gaps and intended users
  • Mixed-method designs combine household surveys, key informants, observation and market data
  • Sampling frames define population groups, strata, sample size and selection procedures
  • Food Consumption Score interpretation identifies dietary frequency and consumption patterns
  • Reduced Coping Strategies Index measures stress responses to food access constraints
  • Data quality checks address enumerator bias, missing values, outliers and triangulation

Participants can interpret household-level evidence to segment vulnerability and prioritise support.

  • Household Economy Analysis profiles wealth groups, livelihoods, expenditure and food sources
  • Outcome analysis estimates survival deficits and livelihood protection gaps
  • CARI combines food consumption, coping capacity and economic vulnerability measures
  • IPC evidence protocols distinguish acute food insecurity severity and contributing factors
  • Targeting criteria balance severity, exposure, inclusion risks and operational feasibility
  • Community validation tests household categories, local terminology and exclusion concerns

Participants can assess market and livelihood conditions when selecting resilience interventions.

  • Market systems maps identify actors, services, rules, infrastructure and power relationships
  • Rapid market assessment reviews supply routes, trader capacity, prices and competition
  • Price monitoring tracks staple costs, wage rates, terms of trade and volatility
  • Livelihood diversification appraises income sources, seasonality, skills and entry barriers
  • Agricultural resilience considers inputs, water access, storage, pests and extension services
  • Response modality analysis compares cash, vouchers, in-kind support and market assistance

Participants can design a coherent resilience strategy from evidence, priorities and feasible pathways.

  • Problem trees distinguish immediate constraints, underlying drivers and structural causes
  • Theory of change links shocks, capacities, interventions, assumptions and outcomes
  • Resilience pathways combine protection, promotion, prevention and transformation measures
  • Response-option appraisal tests relevance, feasibility, risks, cost and expected reach
  • Portfolio design sequences emergency assistance, recovery support and longer-term systems work
  • Results frameworks define impact, outcome, output and activity-level accountability

Participants can prepare trigger-based actions for foreseeable food security shocks.

  • Contingency plans define scenarios, objectives, responsibilities, resources and decision authority
  • Early warning indicators combine rainfall, vegetation, prices, conflict and displacement data
  • Trigger matrices specify thresholds, actions, evidence sources and approval timelines
  • Forecast-based financing links anticipatory actions to predefined hazard thresholds
  • Preparedness checklists cover supplier arrangements, staffing, targeting systems and communications
  • Scenario budgets estimate response costs, contingency reserves and funding gaps

Participants can organise delivery arrangements that support accountable and adaptable resilience programming.

  • Partner capacity assessment reviews technical systems, fiduciary controls and local relationships
  • Work breakdown structures assign deliverables, dependencies, milestones and accountable owners
  • Risk registers track programme, fiduciary, protection, security and reputational risks
  • Adaptive management cycles use evidence reviews, decision logs and course corrections
  • Feedback mechanisms capture complaints, preferences, access barriers and response commitments
  • Coordination plans align government systems, clusters, local organisations and donors

Participants can create a monitoring and learning framework for food security resilience outcomes.

  • Indicator selection measures food access, livelihoods, assets, shocks and recovery capacity
  • RIMA-II dimensions organise resilience measurement around capacities, assets and services
  • Baseline plans define comparison groups, timing, tools and disaggregation requirements
  • Outcome harvesting captures unexpected changes, contribution claims and supporting evidence
  • Market monitoring dashboards connect price movements, supply disruptions and programme decisions
  • Learning agendas prioritise uncertainties, evidence needs, review cycles and management actions

Participants can assemble an operational resilience planning pack with clear governance and financing assumptions.

  • Governance arrangements define mandate, authority, oversight, escalation and reporting lines
  • Social protection linkages assess registries, transfer systems, grievance channels and coverage
  • Budget narratives connect intervention costs, unit assumptions, contingencies and funding sources
  • Donor proposal sections present evidence, logic, risks, indicators and sustainability commitments
  • Planning packs consolidate risk profiles, theories of change, triggers and monitoring frameworks
  • Ninety-day application plans identify priorities, stakeholders, deadlines and review points

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

What you take back to work

  1. Food security resilience risk-profile template
  2. Seasonal calendar and shock-analysis model
  3. Resilience theory-of-change template
  4. Response-option appraisal matrix
  5. Early-action trigger and contingency checklist
  6. Resilience monitoring and learning framework

Who should attend

  • Food Security Managers — responsible for planning evidence-based resilience programmes
  • Livelihoods Programme Officers — designing household income and asset-strengthening interventions
  • Humanitarian Coordinators — aligning preparedness, response decisions and partner actions
  • MEAL Specialists — building indicators and learning systems for resilience outcomes
  • Government Food Security Officers — preparing local plans and coordinating response systems
  • Donor Programme Managers — assessing resilience logic, risk assumptions and delivery feasibility

Skills and tools covered

Food security analysisResilience strategy designMarket assessmentContingency planningAdaptive monitoringResponse option appraisal

Tools and standards

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), Household Economy Analysis (HEA), Consolidated Approach for Reporting Indicators of Food Security (CARI), Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis II (RIMA-II)

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by case-based analysis, facilitated group work and decision simulations. Participants work with household, market, hazard and seasonal information drawn from realistic humanitarian and development settings. They compare response options, test assumptions against shock scenarios, develop contingency triggers and draft monitoring measures. Instructor feedback focuses on evidence quality, programme logic, feasibility and accountability. Individual application planning helps participants adapt the course tools to a current or anticipated food security programme.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience in food security, livelihoods, humanitarian response, agriculture, nutrition, social protection or disaster risk management. They should understand basic project-cycle concepts and be comfortable reading assessment findings, simple tables and programme documents. Experience conducting surveys or using specialist statistical software is not required. The course does not assume prior use of Household Economy Analysis, CARI, IPC or RIMA-II; these frameworks are introduced and applied at a working level. It is not an introductory course on humanitarian principles or food security terminology.

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 should already understand basic food security, livelihoods, humanitarian or development programming. No prior experience with IPC, HEA, CARI, RIMA-II, statistical software or formal assessment design is required.

Bring a laptop if possible and, where permitted, a current programme document, assessment summary or planning challenge. Course materials and templates are provided, and participants can work from the cases supplied.

It is designed for programme managers, technical officers, coordinators, MEAL staff, government officers and donor staff with food security or resilience responsibilities. It is particularly useful for people moving from implementation into planning, design or technical oversight.

Assessment courses concentrate on collecting and interpreting data. This course uses assessment evidence as one input to resilience strategy, response selection, preparedness, contingency planning, implementation and adaptive monitoring.

Participants leave with reusable planning tools that can be adapted for proposals, country strategies, contingency plans and programme reviews. The application plan helps identify an immediate work priority, stakeholders and next steps.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group work, simulations, discussion and structured application planning across ten modules.

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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