The overall goal of this review is to contribute to a strengthening of livelihoods-based Food Security Information Systems (FSIS) within governments, UN agencies and other institutions. It is hoped that by reviewing the extensive experience of Save the Children UK in supporting FSIS over the past 15–20 years that key lessons can be extracted to strengthen future FSIS activities. The paper is based largely on a number of case-study documents compiled by Save the Children UK practitioners. These deal with FSIS in south Sudan, Darfur, Somalia, Tanzania, Ethiopia and southern Africa. Two other source documents provide, respectively, an overview of Save the Children UK’s experiences of secondment to strengthen FSIS and a synthesis of donors’ views on FSIS. The paper also draws on recently published key documents (Levine and Chastre 2004; Darcy and Hofmann 2004), more general published literature, and the author’s own experience and knowledge.
