How Much Does the Food Insecurity Experience Scale Overlap with Poor Food Consumption and Monetary Poverty? Evidence from West Africa

Jul 19, 2026

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The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), integrating multiple food-access dimensions into one indicator, is increasingly adopted in national statistics. Yet little is known about how the subjective experience component aligns with poor food consumption. Using West Africa data, the study finds that across 4 of 10 countries the FIES prevalence is similarly distributed between segments likely to be undernourished and those less likely. In 5 of 10 countries, prevalence is comparatively higher among groups least likely to be undernourished.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages21

Reading Time53 min

Introduction

FIES adoption and policy use

Challenges in linking subjective experiences to undernourishment

Empirical approach

Comparison with Food Consumption Score (FCS)

Comparison with monetary poverty

Key findings (overview)

Overlap patterns across West African countries

Implications for indicator selection

Pub lic Disclosure Authorized Pub lic Disclosure Authorized The World Bank Economic Review, 38(2), 2024, 422–442 [https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhad031](https://doi.org10.1093/wber/lhad031) Article How Much Does the Food Insecurity Experience Scale Overlap with Poor Food Consumption and Monetary Poverty? Evidence from West Africa Jonathan Lain, Sharad Tandon, and Tara Vishwanath Abstract The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which combines three food-access dimensions into a single indicator, is rapidly being incorporated into national statistical systems. However, there is no prediction about how one of the incorporated dimensions—subjective experiences associated with food insecurity—overlaps with poor food consumption. Using data from West Africa, this study illustrates that in 4 out of 10 countries, thereis a similar prevalence of food insecurity according to the FIES among segments of the population that are likely undernourished and segments that are likely not undernourished. And in 5 out of 10 countries, there is a relatively large prevalence of food insecurity according to the FIES in the segments of the population that are least likely to be undernourished. Combined, the results offer guidance to policymakers when choosing food-access indicators and illustrate the importance of using the FIES along with other food-access measures. JEL classification: D12, I31, I38, O10, O53 Keywords: food security, measurement, West Africa 1. Introduction The Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), which combines eight yes-no questions on undernourishment, undernutrition, and subjective experiences associated with food insecurity into a single indicator, is increasingly being used by policymakers across the world.1 The measure was adopted as an official indicator to track progress towards achieving the second Sustainable Development Goal (see, e.g., UN 2017); the measure has been included in the suite of indicators used by the United Nations and partner organizations to officially declare a famine (see, e.g., IPC 2021); and nearly 100 countries have either Jonathan Lain is an Economist with the Poverty & Equity Global Practice of the World Bank, Washington DC, USA; his email address is ([jlain@worldbank.org](jlain@worldbank.org)). Sharad Tandon (corresponding author) is a Senior Economist with the Poverty & Equity Global Practice of the World Bank, Washington DC, USA; his email address is ([standon3@worldbank.org](standon3@worldbank.org)). Tara Vishwanath is a Lead Economist with the Poverty & Equity Global Practice of the World Bank, Washington DC, USA; her email address is ([tvishwanath@worldbank.org](tvishwanath@worldbank.org)). The authors would like to thank the editor and three anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft. The views expressed here are those of the authors and may not be attributed to the World Bank. A supplementary online appendix for this article can be found at The World Bank Economic Review website. 1 One common definition of subjective well-being is "how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domainsand activities in their lives”(see, e.g., NRC 2014) . " This definition would encompass FIES component questions, such as worrying about food consumption and what one thought about what was enough to eat. Furthermore, self-reported measures of worrying are specifically highlighted as subjective well-being measures in influential reports describing the importance of both objective and subjective well-being measures (see, e.g., Stiglitz, Sen, and Fittoussi 2009) . 􀀂C 2023 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank. Published by Oxford University Press Downloaded from [https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/38/2/422/7308597 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on 01 May 2024](https://academic.oup.com/wber/article/38/2/422/7308597 by Sectoral Library Rm MC-C3-220 user on 01 May 2024) incorporated the FIES into their national st

FAQs

What does the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) measure?

FIES combines food-access dimensions into a single indicator, including subjective experiences associated with food insecurity along with questions related to undernourishment and undernutrition.

Why is overlap between FIES and poor food outcomes not straightforward?

The subjective experiences captured by FIES may rely on individual-specific scales, making them ambiguous in how they relate to actual food consumption and undernourishment.

What do the West Africa results show about overlap with poor food consumption and monetary poverty?

Across countries, FIES-based food insecurity prevalence can be similarly distributed between likely undernourished and less likely segments in some cases, while in others it is higher among groups least likely to be undernourished; overall results guide how to pair FIES with other food-access measures.

Jul 19, 2026

Upload by Maeve