Oxfam GB's food and nutrition approach has long been at the forefront of humanitarian food and livelihood work. Our Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods (EFSL) specialists have been heavily involved in the development of techniques and approaches that are widely used today.

In particular Oxfam was one of the first agencies to highlight the potentially harmful effects of international food aid in some situations, as far back as 1982 with the publication of Against the Grain: The Dilemma of Project Food Aid.

This ability to challenge the status quo and move things forward continues today and Oxfam is still at the cutting edge of humanitarian thinking with the development of cash transfer and market-based approaches that aim to save lives and save livelihoods.

The objective of our EFSL work is to assist people that are prone to, or affected by, humanitarian crisis:

• To prevent acute malnutrition by helping them to meet their immediate, minimum food needs.

• To protect, diversify and recover their livelihoods.

Direct implementation

EFSL interventions may include a range of different activities such as:

• Nutrition analysis, i.e. surveillance, anthropometric surveys, nutritional causal analysis.

• Food security and livelihoods analysis, i.e. monitoring, early warning, emergency food security assessments.

• Food distributions, i.e. general food distributions, dry supplementary feeding.

• Cash transfer and market access programmes, e.g. cash-for-work, vouchers and cash grants.

• Livelihood asset distributions, e.g. seeds, tools, livestock.

• Asset de-stocking, e.g. de-stocking of livestock.

• Asset protection, e.g. animal health care, flood protection.

• Capacity building, e.g. agricultural extension, business skills training.

EFSL assessments

• EFSL assessments are central to understanding how people construct their livelihoods in a particular context.  With this understanding the team can design responses that are appropriate and proportional to needs.

• Oxfam places great emphasis on promoting the full participation of the people involved - empowering communities and individuals by providing them with the ability to rebuild their livelihoods.  This includes a particular focus on working with women and marginalised groups. 

• Oxfam is also leading an approach to determine how agencies can best support local markets and livelihoods. 

• Alongside the planning, monitoring and implementation of programmes at country level, Oxfam's EFSL specialists also support media and advocacy work; using their skills and knowledge to influence other aid actors, NGOs, UN agencies, governments and donors. 

• This may include country-level strategic advocacy around location and type of intervention, or it may be high-level strategic advocacy aimed at influencing key stakeholders. 

• A good example of this is the team's current work on cash and market interventions. Oxfam is pioneering the use of 'cash transfers' in emergency situations. Where there is food available locally but people can't afford it, Oxfam advocates the provision of cash aid instead of food.

Read more about our involvement with the Cash Learning Partnership.