Background: the five-phase IPC scale used to measure Afghanistan's hunger

Background

The finding that 15.9 million Afghans face acute food insecurity, with 3.4 million of them a step from famine, was made using the IPC, so the scale itself is worth learning. IPC stands for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. It is a global initiative that sorts a population's food security into five phases, so that figures from different countries and different years can be compared. In the Afghanistan analysis, Phase 3 is described as the crisis level and Phase 4 as the emergency level, the phase that comes immediately before famine. More than 32 per cent of Afghanistan's population was placed in Phase 3 or worse. Because the phases are defined the same way everywhere, an IPC number is what humanitarian agencies use to decide where food aid must go first. The World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization both work from IPC findings when they appeal for money.