The Coordinator (with the IMO) is responsible for ensuring that a range of information is regularly made available. Some of the core reporting (and communication) outputs, as per standard Coordinator TOR, are outlined below (for details on communication and advocacy overall, see chapter 7 and for an overview of FSC standard tools for regular monitoring and reporting, see 5.15.1 above).
Food Security Situation Reports, Newsletters and Bulletins
Food Security Situation Reports, newsletters and bulletins are core deliverables for the Coordinator. They can be used to convey up-to-date information and strengthen advocacy and public information efforts.
FSC Situation Reports should provide updates on the emergency situation and its impact on food security, food security implementation priorities, collective progress, results and constraints. They include key information on the food security situation and should be updated quarterly, more often at onset of crisis (daily/weekly). Their purpose is to support better monitoring of the country-specific situation. The audiences are partners, internal communications networks and donors.
Newsletters, often produced monthly, provide a roundup of the cluster’s work, including updates on programmes/projects, events and success stories. FSC Bulletins often combine updates on situation monitoring, operational issues and policy-level information, in addition to communicating announcements and sharing experience among the FSC. The contents of FSC bulletins will be context-specific, related to the characteristics of the emergency and response and to available data. See more in chapter 7.
What is the role of the FSC Coordinator? The Coordinator is responsible for preparing these products in a timely manner and follow the gFSC guidelines and templates. He/she should work closely with the IMO to ensure that relevant and up-to-date data is included and that, where necessary, CLAs endorse material prior to publication. See 7.2.2 for tips on how to ensure FSC communication products are useful.
Examples: See examples of a Food Security Situation Report from FSC Bangladesh (2021 - floods) here and for FSS Palestine (2020 – COVID-19) here. See examples of a Newsletter from FSAC Afghanistan (2021) here and examples of a Bulletin from FSS North East Nigeria (2021) here, and from South Sudan FSLC (2021) here (note: these are samples – the gFSC Team can be contacted for the latest templates).
Guidance and Tools:
- The FSC Style guide (2017) offers information on the FSC logo, icons, fonts and colour codes that should be used when producing FSC-related material. Apply the guidance as much as possible when producing material to help maintain FSC corporate identity.
- Contact the gFSC Communications Team (FSCcommunications@fscluster.org) for up-to-date FSC product templates (food security situation reports, newsletters and bulletins) as well as for mapping, communication and advocacy guides.
- See the main Communications and Advocacy page on the FSC website.
- See chapter 7 for more information on tools for communication and advocacy.
OCHA Humanitarian Situation Report
In addition to stand-alone FSC products, the Coordinator is responsible for contributing to inter-agency products such as OCHA’s Humanitarian Situation Report (sitrep). This sitrep is a concise, public document intended to give a snapshot of the humanitarian situation in a country (e.g. needs, gaps, challenges, financial requirements) with a specific short section for each Cluster. The OCHA sitrep helps actors directly involved to be aware of ongoing work, and to inform the wider humanitarian community and other interested stakeholders about developments in the field. It is also used for advocacy and resource mobilisation.
The content should be concise, and the style should be a quick, factual account of the situation. The FSC inputs should focus on what has happened during the reporting period, with figures including the totals from the reporting period as well as cumulative totals from the start of the crisis (for example for people in need and people receiving assistance).
- Process: The OCHA reports officer will agree on a reporting schedule (deadline for inputs, whether there is a revision period, frequency and maximum length of entries, etc.) with ICCG.
- Frequency: In the initial phase of a major emergency, a sitrep is often issued daily. As the situation becomes more stable and the information changes less frequently, this can then move to every second or third day, and later to every week or month, depending on the situation.
- Content: Each cluster will report on the specific needs, response, gaps and constraints in their operational area, numbers (e.g. total number of people in need) and sources as well as cross-cutting dimensions.
- Length: As short as possible (OCHA may provide specific guidance at country level).
- CLAs: In some countries (pending the individual agreement with the CLAs), the Coordinator may require CLA approval for FSC inputs for OCHA reports (naming specific agencies, including FAO/WFP, is generally discouraged).
Examples: See OCHA’s Humanitarian Reports here
Guidance and Tools: See the template here. All Situation Reports should have the following section headings: Highlights, Situation Overview, Funding, Humanitarian Response, Coordination.
FSC website
It includes a repository, as well as tools and guidance notes. The website remains the key channel for information sharing.
Online platforms are critical tools for knowledge management and information sharing. The FSC has its own website, primarily to support coordination and collective planning, but also external communication. Along with email dissemination and social media (where relevant – see also chapter 7), the website allows the country FSC to increase the visibility of the cluster’s work by ensuring core information products are readily available to a range of stakeholders.
Each country FSC has a dedicated webpage, which should include:
- Contacts of the FSC Team (Coordinator, IMO etc.)
- Meeting schedule and current agenda
- FSC meeting minutes
- Latest dashboards, partner presence maps, mapping of food security information, newsletters, bulletins and sitreps
- Latest statistics, assessment reports and analyses
- FSC strategy and documents, such as TORs/SOPs
- Technical best practices and relevant guidance notes (cluster or country specific or relevant IASC documents), etc.
The country page should be updated regularly, and ideally be available in the language of coordination. Sub-national FSC information should also be posted. The FSC website is often linked with the inter-agency website HumanitarianResponse.info, which is designed to enhance humanitarian coordination within the cluster system and is managed by OCHA (note that content on HumanitarianResponse.info is expected to shift to ReliefWeb during 2023).
What is the role of the FSC Coordinator? The Coordinator, with support from the IMO, should ensure that the FSC country page is updated with all relevant information in a timely manner.
TIPS – some points to keep in mind:
- Consider confidentiality, security, timeliness, sensitivity and quality before adding documents, information or images to the FSC website.
- Adopt clear naming conventions to assist in describing, managing and locating information and arrange documents in a way that promotes easy access.
- Highlight new information and resources.
- Conform to agreed FSC standards for shared websites (see resources).
Examples: The list of country FSC pages is available here.
Resources: The Website Country Page Guidelines are available here. The FSC website also includes the FSC intranet (contact GST for access) – a useful platform for sharing documents (guidelines, tracking tools, resources, etc.) between the GST and the FSC teams at country level, and therefore a key resource for Coordinators and IMOs.