Background One of the reported causes of high malnutrition rates in Burundi and Rwanda is children's inadequate dietary habits. The diet of children may be affected by individual characteristics and by the characteristics of the households and the communities in which they live. We used the minimum dietary diversity of children (MDD-C) indicator as a proxy of diet quality aiming at: 1) assess how much of the observed variation in MDD-C was attributed to community clustering, and 2) to identify the MDD-C associated factors. Methods Data was obtained from the 2010 Demographic and Health Surveys of Burundi and Rwanda, from which only children 6 to 23 months from rural areas were analysed. The MDD-C was calculated according to the 2007 WHO/UNICEF guidelines. We computed the intra-class coefficient to assess the percentage of variation attributed to the clustering effect of living in the same community. And then we applied two-level logit regressions to investigate the association between MDD-C and potential risk factors following the hierarchical survey structure of DHS. Results The MDD-C was 23% in rural Rwanda and 16% in rural Burundi, and a 29% of its variation in Rwanda and 17% in Burundi was attributable to community clustering. Increasing age and living standards were associated with higher MDD-C in both countries, and only in Burundi also increasing level of education of the mother's partner. In Rwanda alone, the increasing ages of the head of the household and of the mother at first birth were also positively associated with it. Despite the identification of an important proportion of the MDD-C variation due to clustering, we couldn't identify any community variable significantly associated with it. Conclusions We recommend further research using hierarchical models, and to integrate dietary diversity in holistic interventions which take into account both the household's and the community's characteristics the children live in.

Le Cadre Harmonisé est un outil utilise au Sahel et en Afrique de l’Ouest pour l’identification, l’analyse des zones à risque et des populations en insécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle. Depuis les années 2000, cet outil en construction s’est rapproché plus de sa sœur IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification) utilise dans les autres coins du monde, particulièrement en Afrique de l’Est. Tous les 17 pays de l’Afrique de l’Ouest sont appelés à utiliser le même outil ; ce qui permet une comparabilité dans le temps et dans l’espace. Le matériel utilise dans les analyses et les formations est donc dynamique dans le sens ou régulièrement les deux outils s’influencent mutuellement en terme de développement. Le matériel est donc mis à jour régulièrement pour permettre de prendre en compte les nouveaux enjeux ou challenges rapportes du terrain par les analystes. La formation des Coaches/facilitateurs régionaux organisée par le CILSS et ses partenaires du 25 juillet au 02 août 2016 à Cotonou (au Bénin) s’inscrit dans le cadre de revisiter le matériel de formation et de renforcer les capacités des coaches régionaux qui sont appelés à former les experts pays au sein des différentes Cellules nationales d’Analyse (CNA). D’un côté, cette formation a donc permis de revoir les éléments qui posent problème dans les différents sujets développes dans le matériel de formation et ainsi effectuer une mise à jour. Des éléments relatifs à l’usage du proxy calorique et des prix des denrées alimentaires (céréales) qui avaient été analysé en profondeur lors de la formation des Experts AGRHYMET/Projet ECOAGRIS ont été partages avec les coaches régionaux. D’autres points concernant la nutrition, les moyens d’existence ont été respectivement présentes par le groupe de travail Nutrition et le groupe HEA. D’un autre côté, une formation de formateurs/coaches régionaux a été dispense pour que tous les participants puissent s’approprier le processus CH du début à la fin tout en assimilant et en harmonisant notre compréhension des outils de formation CH. A la fin de cette formation, des coaches régionaux formes devaient aller former les experts nationaux dans les pays suivants : Burkina Faso, du Libéria, du Mali, de la Mauritanie, du Niger, du Nigeria, de la Sierra Léone et du Sénégal.

Food insecurity is still remarkably high in the poorest areas of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Many rural households struggle to have sufficient access to the food they need or prefer. This article explores the extent of food access insecurity and assesses the perceived impact on food security of an Empowerment for Food Security Programme that was launched in the Province in 2007. One of the programme aims was to improve agricultural practices in community gardens, home gardens and broiler production. Data were collected among 390 beneficiary households involved in these agricultural projects in 2010. Findings confirmed that experience-based food insecurity levels were still high, despite the agricultural support programme and the government income transfers. Nevertheless, respondents attribute an improved dietary diversity and better access to resources to the programme.

Rice is one of the most important staple foods in urban area of West African countries. Using monthly retail prices of imported rice from January 2004 to April 2012, this paper mobilizes ARCH/GARCH and ECM/VECM models to estimate and compare the conditional volatilities of imported rice prices. The results show that in the world market, volatility of return rice prices is significantly influenced by volatility of the previous month (57%) and by the shocks of last month (47%). Comparison among countries show that Senegal rice market is strongly influenced by the volatility (70%) and by the errors squared (63%) of the previous month. This means that Senegal is facing directly high domestic volatility with high sensitivity to a shock. In the Niger and Mali rice markets, results highlight that volatility of returns in rice price is highly influenced by the shocks occurring during the previous month. The results from the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) reveal that in the long run there is a significant price transmission between the world and the domestic markets. About 65%, 57% and 56%, respectively for Senegal, Niger and Mali represent price variation transmitted from the world market. Taking the error correction coefficient in absolute terms, Senegal has a high speed of adjustment (31%) as compared to Mali (26%) and Niger (21%).

One of the pillars of food security in developing countries is the accessibility to food. Over the last decade, world food market experienced events during which food prices increased significantly. The periods of high food prices were also accompanied by a high degree of volatility in prices. Those events were somewhat transmitted on the local markets in developing countries. Traditionally, transmission of volatilities is analyzed in financial assets but the same exercise is not commonly done in agricultural markets. This research tries to handle the volatility in the selected food prices in agricultural sector and understand the magnitudes of price transmission across foods and countries. The questions to be answered in this study are the following: -Does price volatility occurs at the same degree in different cereal markets; -Is there any relationship between world/International market and domestic markets? -If there is any transmission, what is the speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium? To measure the price transmission model, the vector error correction model (VECM) developed by Engle and Granger (1987) is used in order to establish any relationship (long-run equilibrium, short-run dynamics) between prices from the World and the domestic cereal markets in different countries. The time series properties of each of the price variables will be examined by using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test (Fuller, 1976). The order of integration of each of the selected cereal prices is determined. Regarding the orders of integration, VECMs or vector auto-regressions (VARs) are specified and estimated. As developed in scientific literature on time series analysis, several criteria like Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) for lag lengths are verified before the VECM and VAR models. In order to handle volatility in different food price series, the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) developed by Bollerslev's (1986) as extension from Engle (1982 is used. In this paper the exponential form of GARCH model specified by Nelson (1991) is mobilized to model the asymmetric effects of price shocks on the conditional variance between the World cereal prices and the domestic markets. At this stage, we do not have results but we have some assumptions/hypothesis. The first part on the literature review is finished. As now, we have the data sets on different markets in the countries, we will quickly try to have some results and submit as soon as possible the full paper.

This paper deals with the devastating food insecurity in two densely populated provinces in the north of Burundi as a result of overpopulation and low production capacity in the aftermath of conflict. We compare data that was collected in the Ngozi and Muyinga Province in 2007 with data of households interviewed on the same hills in 1996. Households live from subsistence farming, erratic surplus sales, sales of coffee and banana and occasional off- and non-farm work. We find that not only did production levels decrease but also total factor productivity (Malmquist indices calculated with DEA approach) dropped in 83% of the hills between 1996 and 2007.