Although food assistance needs in urban and peri-urban areas are expected to require increased resources in the coming years, most experience with food-based programs is in rural areas. Against this backdrop, USAID’s Office of Food for Peace Occasional Paper No. 6, Emergencies in Urban Settings: A Technical Review of Food-Based Program Options, examines 11 common food-based programs to highlight advantages, disadvantages, targeting and implementation modalities in the urban context. The programs include: targeted household food distribution, food for work, food for training, wet feeding programs, community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programs, supplementary feeding in maternal and child health and nutrition programs, institutional feeding for street children, orphans and vulnerable children and other vulnerable groups, school feeding programs, food support to child care facilities, market assistance programs, and support to national strategic food reserves. The paper also presents tools to help determine the most appropriate interventions and approaches for given settings.
