This paper reflects on where the people termed a “community of practice” stand in the food security enterprise. That is, those people who have a common interest or problem, who collaborate to share ideas, find solutions and build innovations. The paper looks at the way that food security issues have been dealt with in terms of analysis and response, from both a technical and political perspective, making three key points, which it relates to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) tool.

The first point it makes is a technical one, related to the level of analysis being done within food aid programmes. These programmes that are operated by the community of practice either contain little or no analysis. In the case when analysis has been done it has lacked transparency. In this situation the IPC tool enables comparative analysis by suggesting how specific indicators can work to create a “common currency” for direct comparison of different programmes.

The second point looks at response analysis, how to decide which response is the best one to use when a food security problem arises. The IPC doesn’t provide detailed instructions on this kind of analysis, but does clearly draw people’s attention to it.