Context indicators are often taken to mean some form of household food-economy assessment susch as SC-UK;s HEA method. I do not want to downplay the utility of this type of data but it can be difficult to collect well and to analyse well. I think that simpler but still useful indicators can be collected. I am thinking of quantitative indicators such as market prices for staples, wage rates for unskilled labour, price of livestock. Analysing these are ratios (e.g. days of labour required to purchase 50kg of maize or quantity of maize than can be purchased for the sale of a shoat) over time can provide context. Semi-quantitative techniques aimed at building calendars of disease (human and livestock), food availability, labour demand, &c, are also useful. Helen Young covers this briefly in the OXFAM guide (#7) "Food Scarcity and Famine : Assessment and Response" which might still be available from OXFAM. A fuller treatment can be found in RRA and PRA guidelines (in particular McCracken's "An introduction to rapid rural appraisal for agricultural development").

From Jen Peterson: Fiona - You might find this document on CARE's coping strategies index useful as well. Cheers - Jen [url]http://www.ennonline.net/pool/files/ife/coping-strategies-index-manual-second-edition-(final)[1].pdf[/url]

The vagaries of this content management system means that the link you gave is malformed. I have fiddled around and this link and: [url]http://www.ennonline.net/pool/files/ife/coping-strategies-index-manual-second-edition-(final)&#91&#49&#93.pdf[/url] should work. These are interesting indicators. WFP have something similar.

Regarding the WFP guidance on Coping Strategies that Mark mentioned - it is the same document as the CARE one. WFP also has a Technical Guidance Sheet (No.14) on Strengthening Rapid Food and Nutrition Security Assessment which looks at links between food security and nutrition indicators in food security assessments. It can be downloaded at: http://www.wfp.org/food-security/guidelines.