Processing food consumption data from household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES)

Household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) have been typically undertaken to compile information for important macroeconomic indicators, such as consumer price indices, and to provide input into national accounts. With time, the use of HCES has been extended to welfare and poverty analysis, and more recently to food security and nutrition analysis. The food data collected in HCES provides core information for these types of analyses. However, the data is comprehensive and complex to process; users, based on their needs or interests, often tend to follow different approaches when preparing the data for analysis. When data from the same survey is processed independently for different uses, it quite often leads to inconsistent results. Such practice is inefficient and costly. 

Recognizing the importance of having a standard approach to preparing HCES data for analysis, the United Nations Committee of Experts in Food Security, Agricultural and Rural Statistics (UN-CEAG) developed unified guidelines on how to prepare food consumption data from HCES for “all uses” including for the compilation of information on poverty, economy and food security. The Guidelines provide countries with standard methods for processing food data from HCES, to increase efficiency, quality and consistency when the data is further used for national accounts, consumer price indices, poverty and food security analyses. These are the foundation for this e-learning course.

This e-learning course was developed by SIAP, FAO, SPC and Statistics Norway. It was co-funded by Norway through the Food Security Statistics project, which is a partnership between Statistics Norway, the COMESA secretariat and the African Union Institute for Statistics (STATAFRIC); by FAO through the European Union project 'Produce reliable information on food security and nutrition to guide policies and interventions to end hunger and malnutrition (EU grant number NDICI CHALLENGE/2023/442-024)’; and by SIAP.