Livelihood Coping Strategies – Food Security (LCS-FS)

Outcome

Impact

% of households by Livelihood Coping Strategies for Food Security (LCS-FS) category (no coping, stress, crisis, emergency)

The Livelihood Coping Strategies for Food Security (LCS-FS) indicator measures the extent to which households resort to various coping strategies in response to a lack of food or money to purchase it during the 30 days preceding the survey. These strategies are categorized by severity - stress, crisis, and emergency - based on their long-term impact on household well-being and productivity. The indicator also accounts for coping strategies that households had already exhausted during the previous 12 months.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Identify Relevant Livelihood Coping Strategies: The first task is to identify the most common coping strategies households use to manage food access challenges. Consult Cash Working Group or other local coordination bodies for existing lists of such strategies and review them for local relevance using focus group discussions with affected populations. Examples of the standard LCS-FS question list grouped under stress, crisis and emergencies are available in the guidance below.

Select ten coping strategies for the final LCS-FS calculation: four stress, three crisis and three emergency strategies. More than ten may be included in exploratory surveys, for example when the relevant strategies are uncertain or the survey covers both urban and rural populations. In such cases, select the final ten for analysis as explained in Step 4. Avoid selecting strategies that overlap or describe essentially the same behaviour. When selecting strategies, ensure that diverse groups are consulted, including women and men, younger and older people, people with disabilities, and marginalised population groups, as the severity of impacts and available coping options may vary across these groups.

 

2) Determine Severity Weights for Each Coping Strategy: Assign severity weights based on WFP’s categorization of coping strategies into stress (weight = 1), crisis (weight = 2), and emergency (weight = 3) levels. Severity reflects the extent of negative impacts on future household food security and livelihood sustainability. Use locally validated severity classifications developed through focus group discussions with affected populations, ensuring that weights remain consistent for comparability. Contact the Food Security Cluster or other relevant actors to determine whether such a classification already exists. If not, refer to the WFP LCS-FS Guidance Note (see below) for detailed guidance on community validation and severity weighting procedures. As in Step 1, ensure that different groups are consulted.

 

3) Conduct a Household Survey Using a Standardised Questionnaire: Interview a representative sample of households using probability sampling. Ask whether each strategy was used during the past 30 days specifically because the household lacked food or money to buy it. Survey response options should include:

   - Yes (used within the 30-day recall period)

   - No, not necessary

   - No, exhausted (used the coping strategy within the past 12 months but can no longer continue using it)

   - Not applicable (don’t have access to this strategy)

Additionally, for sensitive strategies such as begging, also include the option “Prefer not to answer."

 

4) Calculate the Livelihood Coping Strategies - Food Security indicator using the following steps:

• First, group the coping strategies based on the severity levels: stress, crisis, and emergency. If more than the required number of strategies were used in the survey, then 1) look at how often each strategy was used, and 2) within each severity group, keep the most prevalent strategies only until you have 4 stress, 3 crisis, and 3 emergency strategies for the final calculation.

• Next, create binary variables for each severity level: A household is classified under a severity category only if it actually relied on the strategy (i.e. the answer is "Yes") or exhausted at least one coping strategy (i.e. the answer is "No, exhausted"). The option "exhausted" is included because it shows that the household already relied on that option recently and has no capacity left there.

• Then, classify each household into no coping, stress, crisis, or emergency category based on the highest-severity coping strategy they used (or had already exhausted). In practice, this means: if they used or exhausted at least one emergency strategy, classify them as Emergency; if not, but they used or exhausted at least one crisis strategy, classify them as Crisis; if not, but they used or exhausted at least one stress strategy, classify them as Stress; and if none of these strategies were used or exhausted, classify them as No coping. This way, every household is counted only once, at the most serious level of livelihood coping they relied on.

5) To determine the indicator’s value, calculate the percentage of households in each coping severity category (no coping, stress, crisis, emergency):

   - For each category, count the number of households classified in that category.

   - Divide this count by the total number of surveyed households with a valid LCS-FS classification.

   - Multiply by 100 to express the result as a percentage.

Disaggregate the data by gender of the head of household, geographical area, population group, wealth, household composition (for example, households with older people, households with members with disabilities, single-caregiver households), displacement status, and other locally relevant vulnerability markers, provided the sample size is sufficient to ensure reliable representation.

1) Stress strategies typically include actions such as borrowing money or spending household savings to meet food needs. They indicate a reduced ability to deal with future shocks due to a current reduction in resources or increase in debts. Crisis strategies are more severe and often undermine productive capacity — for example, selling productive assets or withdrawing children from school to reduce expenses. Emergency strategies represent the most extreme responses, such as selling land / housing or begging. They affect future productivity and are extremely difficult to reverse or more dramatic in nature.

2) Regularly review "Not applicable" responses for each coping strategy. A high proportion may indicate that the selected strategies are not locally relevant or that households have exhausted coping options long ago. A household classified as "no coping" is therefore not necessarily food secure, as it may lack access to the assessed strategies or have exhausted them more than 12 months earlier. Interpret the results alongside other food security indicators, such as the Food Consumption Score or the Reduced Coping Strategies Index.

3) Consider reporting also the prevalence of "exhausted" coping strategies to understand the depletion of livelihood assets and identify reduced coping options.

4) Some coping strategies are undertaken by specific household members (for example, withdrawing children from school, sending members to migrate, or begging). Where feasible, record who in the household applied the strategy (adult women, adult men, girls, boys) to identify disproportionate impacts, and use the findings to adapt programming.

5) Incorporate qualitative monitoring (for example, repeated focus group discussions with different groups) to understand why coping strategies change over time and how these changes differ across population subgroups.

6) The LCS-FS methodology requires contextual adaptation. For meaningful comparisons across survey rounds, use the same coping strategies and severity weights. Always consult the recommendations provided by relevant coordination groups (e.g., a Cash Working Group) who should lead this process locally.

 

7) Ensure consistent recall period for coping strategies (30 days for “Yes” and 12 months for “Exhausted”) to ensure data comparability. When comparing results over time, collect data during comparable seasons and, where relevant, at similar intervals after food or cash distributions. Otherwise, differences may reflect the timing of data collection rather than changes in households' coping.

8) The Livelihood Coping Strategies indicator exists in two versions: For food security (= this indicator) and for essential needs (available on this site). The version for essential needs should be used in Essential Needs Analysis, or whenever the context is broader than food security. The Food Security version should be used when a narrow focus on food security is intended.

 

9) Refer to the full WFP LCS-FS guidance for detailed methodology, example questionnaires, and analysis guidance (see below).

10) Where required by DG ECHO, report the indicator “% of households without crisis and emergency Livelihood Coping Strategies (LCS)”. Calculate this as the combined percentage of households classified as "no coping" or "stress". To select the appropriate LCS version:

• Use LCS-EN (Essential Needs) when the result / indicator is intended to measure coping related to meeting essential needs more broadly (multi-sector basic needs, including but not limited to food).

• Use LCS-FS (Food Security) when the result / indicator is intended to measure coping specifically related to food security outcomes (ability to access food).

Also consider using the following indicators:

• Livelihood Coping Strategies – Essential Needs (LCS-EN) (alternative version covering coping strategies used to meet broader essential needs, including food, shelter, health and education)

• Food Consumption Score (measures recent household food consumption, complementing information on livelihood coping)

• Reduced Coping Strategy Index (rCSI) (measures short-term food consumption-related coping, complementing the longer-term livelihood strategies captured by LCS-FS)

• Household Hunger Scale (measures severe household food deprivation, particularly relevant in contexts with high levels of food insecurity)

Also consider using the following indicators:

• Assistance Delivery (assesses whether food or cash assistance is delivered safely, accessibly and accountably, helping identify problems that may prevent households from receiving support)

• Perception of Equal Opportunities (assesses whether different population groups perceive that they have equal opportunities to benefit from assistance, helping identify potential gender, age and inclusion barriers)