The Influence of Market Support Interventions On Household Food Security: An Evidence Synthesis Protocol

Humanitarian Evidence Programme
The influence of market support

interventions on household
food security:
An evidence synthesis protocol
The influence of market support interventions on household food security 2
The authors of this report are:

Hlne Juillard, Lili Mohiddin, Marion Pchayre, Gabrielle Smith and Rebecca Vince
Funding
This is an independent report commissioned by the Humanitarian Evidence Programme
(HEP), a partnership between Oxfam GB and Feinstein International Center (FIC) at Tufts
University, and funded by the Department for International Development (DFID). This
material has been funded by UK aid from the UK Government. However, the views
expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK Governments official policies.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Oxfam and FIC for the financial support. A special thanks goes to
Laurenz Langer for his invaluable support throughout the process.
Conflicts of interest
There were no conflicts of interest in the writing of this report.
Contributions
The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of Oxfam, FIC or the
funders. Responsibility for the views expressed remains solely with the authors.
Citation
This report should be cited as: Juillard, H., Mohiddin, L., Pechayre, M., Smith, G. and Vince,
R. (2016). The influence of market support interventions on household food security. An
evidence synthesis protocol. Oxford: Oxfam GB.
Picture
Market. Nigeria. Photo: Curt Carnemark / World Bank.
Copyright
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CONTENTS
ACRONYMS 4
1. INTRODUCTION 5
2. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS 6
2.1. Research question 6
2.2. Scope of the evidence synthesis 6
2.2.1. Humanitarian crises 6
2.2.2. The humanitarian system, ecosystem and arena 8
2.2.3. What do humanitarian responses look like? 9
2.2.4. The concept of household food security 9
2.2.5. From food aid to market support interventions 12
2.2.6. The links between markets and food security 15
3. THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 17

3.1. Market-based programming framework 17
3.2. Theory of change 21
4. METHODS 24
4.1. Inclusion and exclusion criteria 24
4.1.1. Populations 24
4.1.2. Interventions 25
4.1.3. Context 26
4.1.4. Outcomes 26
4.1.5. Study types 26
4.2. Search for evidence 28
4.2.1. Potential sources 28
4.2.2. Screening process for eligible studies 30
4.2.3. Data extraction 31
4.2.4. Critical appraisal of included studies 32
5. DATA SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS 33

5.1. Thematic synthesis 33
5.2. An updated theory of change 34
5.3. Accounting for heterogeneity 35
5.4. The robustness of the synthesis conclusions 35
6. REFERENCES 36
7. APPENDICES 42
7.1. Appendix 1: Keywords for the search 42
7.2. Appendix 2: Screening guide 43
7.3. Appendix 3: Data extraction template 44
7.4. Appendix 4: Mixed methods critical appraisal tool 48
ACRONYMS
1. 2. BEAM Building Effective and Accessible Markets
3. 4. CaLP Cash Learning Partnership
5. 6. CRS Catholic Relief Services
7. 8. CTP Cash transfer programme
9. 10. DFID Department for International Development
11. 12. ECHO European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department
13. 14. EMMA Emergency market mapping and analysis
15. 16. ERC European Research Council
17. 18. FAC Food Aid Convention
19. 20. FANTA Food Security and Nutrition Technical Assistance project
21. 22. FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
23. 24. FCS Food consumption score
25. 26. FSNAU Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit
27. 28. GSDRC Governance and Social Development Resource Centre
29. 30. IDS Institute for Development Studies at Sussex University
31. 32. IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
33. 34. IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute
35. 36. IIED International Institute for Environment and Development
37. 38. IPC Integrated phase classification
39. 40. IRC International Rescue Committee
41. 42. JPAL Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
43. 44. KDS Key Development Services
45. 46. MDG Millennium development goals
47. 48. NGO Non-government organization
49. 50. OCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
51. 52. ODI Overseas Development Institute
53. 54. PCMA Pre-crisis market analysis
55. 56. PICOS Populations, interventions, comparisons, outcomes, and study types
57. 58. RAM Rapid assessment for markets
59. 60. RCT Randomized control trial
61. 62. SDG Sustainable development goals
63. 64. SEEP Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network
65. 66. SLA Sustainable livelihoods approach
67. 68. SPRING Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally
69. 70. UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
71. 72. UNICEF United Nations Children's Emergency Fund
73. 74. UNDP United Nations Development Programme
75. 76. WaSH Water, sanitation and hygiene
77. 78. WFP World Food Programme
79. 80. WHO World Health Organization
81. 82. WTO World Trade Organization
83. 84. 3ie International Initiative for Impact Evaluation
1. INTRODUCTION
Within the context of the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016, and the successful
agreement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the humanitarian sector is
increasingly recognizing the potential role of markets in achieving not only sustainable
economic development but also higher impact humanitarian responses. Additionally, as the
gap between needs and funding widens, the increased uptake of cash transfer programmes
1
(CTPs) can help close this gap through increased cost efficiency and effectiveness and
provide opportunities to improve humanitarian assistance (Center for Global Development,
2015:9). Markets are an integral part of peoples lives, and people are an integral part of
markets, so humanitarian responses not only need to be designed with a good
understanding of key markets but can also support markets. With this in mind, the goal of
market support interventions is to improve the situation of the crisis-affected population by
providing support to critical market systems the target population rely on for goods, services,
labour or income. These interventions can target specific market actors, services and
infrastructures trough dedicated activities (i.e. the market support activities) to enhance
2
outcomes for people affected by humanitarian crises, such as households food security.
Humanitarian organizations have increasingly incorporated market assessments in their

assessment protocols and response analysis frameworks, yet the implementation of
activities supporting the market as a direct result of analysis is not common irrespective of
market analysis recommendations (IRC, 2014). As a consequence, the influence of such
activities on the lives of people affected by a crisis remains unclear, with the pieces of
evidence on this issue scattered.
The purpose of this document is to describe the scope of, and methodology for, an evidence
synthesis on the influence of market support interventions on household food security in
humanitarian crises so that the search and analysis of the literature can potentially be
replicated and tested in the future. As in a similar humanitarian evidence programme piece
of systematic research (Maynard, Parker, and Twigg, 2016), an evidence synthesis will be
undertaken. The intention is to move away from a narrow review of academic research
towards a synthesis of evidence including also grey literature, project evaluations and more.
Section 2 of this protocol describes the aim of the review, defines key terms and delineates
the scope of the research. Section 3 sets out the analytical framework and in Section 4 a
step-by-step description of the evidence synthesis methodology is provided, including an
explanation of the inclusion and exclusion criteria and details on the search strategy. Finally,
Section 5 of the protocol provides information on how the data will be synthesized and
analysed during the search phase.
1
CTPs refer to all programmes where cash (or vouchers for goods or services) are directly provided to beneficiaries. In the context of
humanitarian assistance, the term is used to refer to the provision of cash or vouchers given to individuals, household or community
recipients; not to governments or other state actors. CTPs cover all modalities of cash-based assistance, including vouchers. This excludes
remittances and microfinance in humanitarian interventions (although microfinance and money transfer institutions may be used for the
actual delivery of cash). The term can be used interchangeably with cash based interventions and cash based transfers. For more
information see the cash learning programme glossary: http://www.cashlearning.org/resources/glossary Retrieved 16 May 2016
2
The term household refers to individuals living and eating together (WFP, 2009:56).
2. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE

EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
2.1. RESEARCH QUESTION

This research aims to gather the available relevant literature and synthesize evidence
regarding the influence of market support interventions on household food security in post-
shock contexts. The findings of the evidence synthesis will be available publicly, with the
ultimate goal of improving humanitarian policy and related market support activities.
The evidence synthesis aims at answering the following question:

What is the influence of market support interventions on household food security in
humanitarian crises?
Given the known weaknesses of the evidence base, we will focus on both attribution and
potential contributory effects, or influence, of the market support activities. If clear causal
relations emerge in the process of synthesizing evidence, we will analyse them specifically.
As much as possible the evidence synthesis will qualify the type and level of influence.
The secondary research questions are:

What are the project parameters that drive the inclusion and exclusion of market support
interventions in humanitarian crises?
What are the potential barriers and enablers to market support interventions (contextual
and institutional ones)?
What effects of market support interventions are measured?
What is the influence of interventions supporting traders on household food security in
humanitarian crises?
What is the influence of interventions supporting market services and infrastructures on
household food security in humanitarian crises?
Who are the main actors targeted for market support activities? Are there any specific
exclusion factors?
What are the gaps in research evidence about market support approaches?
2.2. SCOPE OF THE EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
2.2.1. Humanitarian crises

This evidence synthesis focuses on market support interventions implemented in contexts
often called humanitarian crises or humanitarian emergencies. Humanitarian actors have
defined the expression humanitarian crisis as an event or series of events that represents a
critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group
of people, usually over a wide area (World Health Organization, 2007:7; Humanitarian
Coalition, 2015). This definition has been criticized because of its potential depoliticizing
effect. In June 1994, the United Nations Security Council resolution 929 referred to the
genocide happening in Rwanda as a humanitarian crisis (Brauman, 2009), the expression
acting as an instrument for states political disengagement.
The expression is intrinsically ambiguous as it associates crisis i.e. the set of problems
people may face, with the word humanitarian originally associated in the four Geneva
3
Conventions (1949) to impartial actors providing relief in conflict settings, as well as their
activities and duties.
Bearing in mind these critiques, this evidence synthesis will not avoid the expression
humanitarian crisis as it is widely used in the literature that will be synthesized. Yet in order
to overcome the challenge of delineating the literature dealing with humanitarian crises, we
will consider that situations are labelled humanitarian crises when actors that claim to be
humanitarian get involved in supporting affected people. Whether actors call themselves
humanitarian and whether they are active in specific contexts is objectively verifiable
(through organizations websites and issued reports etc.), therefore their presence will help
delineate humanitarian crises as follows: There is humanitarian aid quite simply when
groups claim to implement humanitarian action and organize to this end an intervention
apparatus applying to other social groups (Dozon and Atlani-Duault, 2011:400).
This approach hence escapes normative assumptions about what is and what is not a
humanitarian crisis. The expressions humanitarian emergencies or emergencies could
also be debated, but we will align with the common practice in the humanitarian sector as
taking emergencies to be synonymous with humanitarian crises. However, we would
favour the use of less loaded terms such as crisis or post-shock contexts.
Most of the countries where humanitarian actors implement humanitarian response projects
are lower and middle income countries (LMIC) as defined by the World Bank. Yet
additionally, they are countries where some peoples lives and/or access to basic needs
including food, water, healthcare and shelter are threatened on account of some form of
humanitarian crisis. Those crises are sometimes divided into natural disasters and complex
emergencies or complex political emergencies (Duffield, 1996; Macrae, 2000). Yet even
though categories such as complex emergencies can be useful for analysing the role of
political violence in emergencies (Keen, 2007), or for policy and advocacy purposes (OCHA,
1999), we do not find this divide relevant for our analysis. Such a divide could give the
impression that natural disaster settings do not feature as complex environments when it has
been showed that they are (Revet, 2012). Furthermore, some contexts that are labelled
complex emergencies do also include consequences of natural disasters (Keen, 2007:3).
Our approach in this evidence synthesis is instead to include all humanitarian crises and to
consider the specificities of each context in which market support interventions are
implemented by describing them and naming the type of crisis. Notions of complex
emergencies and natural disasters will be unpacked if they are used in the literature, in order
to identify whether they relate to internal or international conflict, ethnic cleansing, genocide,
large-scale epidemics such as the recent Ebola outbreak, natural disasters such as
earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, droughts, economic shocks and inflation or a mix of several
events.
Likewise, we would prefer to avoid categories of humanitarian response phasing relief,

early recovery and reconstruction in our analysis. It has long been agreed that such phases
cannot be neatly compartmentalized and that activities associated through their funding to
relief or reconstruction or development may in fact happen simultaneously (Buchanan-Smith
and Maxwell, 1994:3). In the run-up to the May 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, the UN
high-level panel on humanitarian financing emphasized this issue from an institutional point
of view. The humanitarian and the development worlds cannot continue to exercise what is
at best a benign neglect towards each other. They must commit to working constructively
together. Part of the problem lies in the use of outdated definitions, used primarily by donors,
which create artificial and unhelpful divisions, the panel said (Sharrock et al., 2016: 3). Our
synthesis will therefore describe how the response activities fit within the chronology of the
humanitarian crisis and if they are implemented with a short or a long-term objective.
3
The expression International Committee of the Red Cross or any other impartial humanitarian organization appears in all four 1949
Geneva Conventions.
2.2.2. The humanitarian system, ecosystem and arena

In recent years the literature has increasingly referred to humanitarian actors as evolving in a
humanitarian system or a network of interconnected institutional and operational entities
through which humanitarian assistance is provided when local and national resources are
insufficient to meet the needs of the affected population (Stoddard et al., 2015:18). Such a
system has also been presented in the developing literature on humanitarian innovations, as
an ecosystem for innovations within which there is a potential for new connections, mutual
learning, and cross-fertilization (Betts and Bloom, 2014:9).
Figure 1: The humanitarian ecosystem
Source: Betts and Bloom (2014: 9)
From an anthropological perspective, humanitarian actors evolve in an arena in which they

negotiate the outcomes of aid (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010: 1120) and in which [they]
engage with and respond to their surroundings (Ibid.: 1137).
All three perspectives are not mutually exclusive. They can be combined in our analysis of
the literature as they collectively contribute towards a stronger definition. They illustrate the
complexity within which actors undertake any kind of activities, they show that the
environment of humanitarian crises is not made up exclusively of humanitarian actors (listed
in Figure 1) and they spell out the existing interactions and negotiations between these
actors.
2.2.3. What do humanitarian responses look like?

According to the latest state of the humanitarian system report: The number of international
responses has gone down appreciably, particularly interventions for natural disasters At
the same time, significantly greater numbers of people were targeted for assistance and
the price tags for the responses have risen accordingly (Stoddard et al., 2015:32).
Additionally, in more than 80 percent of the countries currently receiving humanitarian
4
assistance, such responses have been taking place continuously for the past five years and
40 countries (69 percent) were on their 10th straight year of receiving humanitarian aid
(Stoddard et al., 2015: 33).
Even though the majority of humanitarian actors are local and national NGOs operating only
in their respective countries, the vast majority of donor funding, tracked by Financial
Tracking Service, flows directly to UN agencies, INGOs and the Red Cross/Red Crescent
movement (Stoddard et al., 2015:39). Additionally, Mdecins Sans Frontires, Save the
Children, Oxfam, World Vision and International Rescue Committee, sometimes called the
big five, represent together approximately 31 percent of NGO humanitarian expenditures
(Ibid.: 41).
Those humanitarian expenditures, and especially the ones coming from the use of public
5
funds, are increasingly being scrutinized for their value for money (Jackson, 2012). Several
stakeholders have undertaken extensive research into the value for money of various
humanitarian response modalities (i.e. in kind, cash and voucher). While the Department for
International Development (DFID) looked at the value for money of cash transfers (DFID,
2011; Scott, 2014) and the World Food Programme (WFP) at one of the different modalities
to cover food security needs (Hidrobo et al., 2014), the potential value for money, including
the potential multiplier effect, of market support activities seems to remain largely
unexplored.
2.2.4. The concept of household food security

The term food security was first used in the mid-1970s, following the World Food Conference
in 1974. Food security was defined in terms of food supply and price stability, very much
6
reflected in the definition used at the time (FAO, 2006). By the early 1980s an
understanding of food access as well as supply was gained, resulting in a reformulated
7
definition that reflected both elements (Ibid.). The inclusion of household and individual
levels as analytical units within food security was later included.
A World Bank poverty report in 1986 highlighted the distinction between seasonal or
temporal natures of food security, introducing chronic and transitory food insecurity. The
report stated how chronic food insecurity could be associated with problems related to
continuing or structural povertyand low incomes. Conversely transitory food insecurity was
a result of periods of disruption and pressure on household resources and capabilities
caused by natural disasters, economic collapse or conflict elements (Ibid.). This distinction
was further complemented by Sens theory of famine published in 1981, in which he
emphasized the effect of personal entitlements on food access (Ibid.), laying the theoretical
foundations for what would be CTPs (Bailey and Harvey, 2015).
4
We do not use the word intervention, as humanitarian interventions or operations have commonly referred to wars launched in the
name of a cause presented as just and necessary (Weissman, 2004; Bass, 2008; Fassin and Pandolfi, 2010), often for the sake of
protecting civilians. In this evidence synthesis we will only consider non-armed activities.
5
Value for money is about striking the best balance between the three Es economy, efficiency and effectiveness and increasingly an
additional E for equity, included to ensure value for money assistance accounts for the importance of reaching diverse groups. Value for
money is a way of thinking about using resources well.
6
Availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to
offset fluctuations in production and prices (FAO, 2006: 1).
7
Ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need (FAO, 2006: 1).
These findings culminated into the 1996 World Food Summit food security definition that
embraces and reinforces the multi-dimensional nature of food security including food access,
availability, use and stability. Today, food security is widely understood to exist when all
people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious
food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO,
2006:1). This widely accepted definition points to four dimensions of food security including:
8
food availability, food access, utilization and stability. Of these, food availability, access and
stability are most pertinent to this review and can be understood as follows.
Food availability: The availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality,
supplied through domestic production or imports (including food aid).
Food access: Access by individuals to adequate resources (entitlements) for acquiring
appropriate foods for a nutritious diet. Entitlements are defined as the set of all
commodity bundles over which a person can establish command given the legal, political,
economic and social arrangements of the community in which they live (including
traditional rights such as access to common resources).
Stability: To be food secure, a population, household or individual must have access to
adequate food at all times. They should not risk losing access to food as a consequence
of sudden shocks (e.g. an economic or climatic crisis) or cyclical events (e.g. seasonal
food insecurity). The concept of stability can therefore refer to both the availability and
access dimensions of food security (FAO, 2006: 1).
Discussions on sustainable livelihoods ran concurrently with the 1996 World Food Summit.
These discussions led by organizations including the Institute for Development Studies at
Sussex University (IDS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Overseas
Development Institute (ODI) and International Institute for Environment and Development
(IIED) (Solesbury, 2003) culminated in the widely used sustainable livelihood approach
(SLA) and related framework published in the late 1990s.
Organizations such as Oxfam and international humanitarian agency CARE applied

sustainable livelihood thinking to their programme strategic analysis and design in the early
to mid-1990s (Solesbury, 2003). Morse, Acholo, and McNamara (2009: 4) defined
livelihoods as follows: A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, resources,
claims and access) and activities required for a means of living; a livelihood is sustainable
which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its
capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next
generation; and which contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global
levels and in the short and long-term.
The SLA can be defined in terms of the ability of a social unit to enhance its assets and
capabilities in the face of shocks and stresses over time (Morse, Acholo, and McNamara,
2009: 3). The sustainable livelihood framework, originating from this approach could be used
to illustrate linkages between:
household assets or capitals (natural, physical, human, social and economic or financial)
the vulnerability context in which they exist (shocks, trends and seasonality)
transformative structures and processes they are exposed to (the institutions,
organizations, policies and legislation that shape livelihoods)
the livelihood strategies they employ (the activities people utilize to reach their livelihood
goals)
the resulting household outcomes (such as increased household income and food
security) (DFID, 1999).
The framework clearly articulated and communicated these connections, encouraging

practitioners to take a broader view of the context in which the target households lived
(including access to and engagement with markets), and the problems they were trying to
8
Utilization: Utilization of food through adequate diet, clean water, sanitation and healthcare to reach a state of nutritional well-being
where all physiological needs are met. This brings out the importance of non-food inputs in food security (FAO, 2006: 1).
address. The SLA provided donors, development and humanitarian practitioners with an
approach and framework that could be applied for conceptual analytical and/ or practical
programme planning. In essence, the SLA enabled the analysis of a situation and facilitated
the identification of programmes (Morse and McNamara, 2013).
From a humanitarian food security perspective, the SLA highlighted the role of a households
livelihoods in achieving food security and the importance of bearing in mind the capacity of a
household to withstand a shock. This has led to the inclusion of livelihood analysis and
programming in post-disaster and preparedness food security interventions. Such
programmes are now the mainstay of many humanitarian agencies. They are used to
increase and improve the immediate food security status of targeted households while
considering longer-term household needs through livelihood programming and
9
understanding household food resilience. The FAO is among the organizations to have
developed resilience tools and frameworks for understanding the most effective combination
of short and long-term programme strategies for lifting families out of poverty and hunger
(FAO, n.d.).
The SLA also underlined the importance of acknowledging and understanding the influence
of the external context on a households food security. In the early millennium years, this
was an area of increasing concern due to the number and scale of conflict-related food
security emergencies being at an all-time high. Since 1995, violent conflict has also started
playing a key role in worsening the impacts of disasters such as droughts on food crises
(Harvey et al., 2005). Additionally, in the context of the post-Rwandan genocide and
atrocities in Somalia, questions related to NGO neutrality, the ability to sufficiently
understand the prevailing political context in which they work and negotiate humanitarian
space was in question (Collinson and Elhawary, 2012). The ensuing result was the
realization of a need for closer collaboration and coherence with political actors, including
western donors and international military actors. An act that has, it is argued, cost NGOS
their neutrality as they are seen as being too closely aligned to the political policies of their
government donors (Ibid.).
The ongoing Syria refugee crisis highlights the importance of understanding the external
implementation context as NGOs strive to implement programmes that are sensitive to the
policies of the hosting governments and the dynamic nature of population movements
(OCHA, 2016). The US agency Mercy Corps has undertaken detailed analysis of the political
affiliation of the business sector they were considering including in their Syria programme
(Mercy Corps, 2016). Collinson and Elhawary (2012: 29) provided the following analysis:
Prioritizing external factors over internal ones or simply focusing on internal technical issues
has led to solutions that do not effectively address the problem.
In line with the SLA and food security definitions, needs assessment approaches and tools
have evolved to consider multiple factors. These include household livelihood activities and
asset ownership, seasonality, market access and understanding food security status. A
plethora of assessment tools and approaches that undertake an analysis of food security
utilizing a livelihood lens have been developed over the years by organizations. These
include WFP, Oxfam, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, ACAPS and Save the Children through, for example, the Food Security Cluster.
However, the need for a better understanding of social and political constructs on food
security still require attention (FAO, 2006).
Questions related to the measurement and classification of household and individual food
security status prevailed. Donors and organizations needed to compare assessment findings
across and within regions and countries in order to allocate resources accordingly.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, research into how to quantify and classify the food
security status of disaster-affected individuals and households was undertaken,
predominantly in rural contexts. Organizations such as the Food Security and Nutrition
Technical Assistance (FANTA) project developed methodologies fit for humanitarian
9
A commonly used definition of resilience is the ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances as a
result of social, political and environmental change (FAO, n.d.:1).
contexts, such as food consumption scores and household dietary diversity scores. These
enabled practitioners to assess and monitor the food security status of individuals and
households and to draw comparisons across countries and regions.
Comparative analysis within and across counties and regions was further supported by the
development of the integrated phase classification (IPC). Originally developed to better
understand the food security situation across Somalia, the IPC tool is a standardized scale
that integrates food security, nutrition and livelihood information into a clear statement about
the severity of a crisis and implications for humanitarian response. Despite the focus on food
security, the severity indicators include water access, market function and health status. The
IPC has been applied globally and through its consultative methodology, enables analysis
and dialogue relating to classification status and responses, prompted by a strategic
response framework that is aligned to severity status (FSNAU, 2009).
The importance of food security to the worlds population has led to countless international
conventions, declarations, compacts and resolutions. According to Shaw (2007), more than
120 have been addressed on various issues relating to the right to food since the League of
Nations was founded in 1948 when the right to food was first recognized. Commitments
made by United Nations member states include but are not limited to the following.
The World Food Summit (WFS), in Rome in 1996, when 182 governments committed to
eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view to reducing the number of
undernourished people to half their present level no later than 2015 (FAO, 2006: 1).
The millennium development goals (MDGs), established in 2000 by United Nations
members, which includes among its targets cutting by half the proportion of people who
suffer from hunger by 2015 (Ibid.).
The zero hunger challenge, launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012.
The SDGs, which build on the work undertaken by the MDGs. SDG 2 wants to end
hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable
agriculture.
However, despite the various commitments and progress made in achieving them, the fact
remains that an estimated 793 million people are undernourished globally. This is a
reduction in 167 million over the last decade, with 216 million fewer people undernourished
than in 1990-92 (FAO, IFAD, and WFP, 2015). Recent surges in food prices have had a
significant impact on food security and child mortality, resulting in a 50 to 200 percent
increase in selected commodity prices, driven 110 million people into poverty and added 44
million more to the undernourished (Nellemann et al., 2009: 6).
2.2.5. From food aid to market support interventions

Humanitarian crises can severely affect food security through market function, food
availability and access and market performance. This impact, including the effects of conflict
and food price rises on food security, is well documented (Nellemann et al., 2009; FAO,
IFAD, and WFP, 2015). Countries in conflict and post-conflict situations tend to be food
insecure (FAO, IFAD and WFP, 2015), more so in countries that are net importers of food,
due to their heavy reliance on the transport of commodities which can be hazardous, and the
disincentives farmers face to invest in agriculture due to the lack of stability (Ibid.).
Following the Second World War, food aid was seen as an answer to food insecurity. At this
point in time, food aid was tied, meaning aid which is, in effect, tied to the procurement of
goods and/or services from the donor country and/or a restricted number of countries
(Jaspars and Leather, 2005). In 2004, the scale of tied food aid was significant with 74
percent of food aid tied, 12 percent were triangular transactions (purchase in neighbouring
countries) and 14 percent were local purchase (Ibid.). Two types of food aid prevailed:
project (distributed to households via programme activities such as food for work, or
whereby commodities are sold or monetized to raise funds for poverty reduction and food
security initiatives) and programme (bilateral: government to government).
Between the 1970s and 1990s literature was published on the disincentive effects of food aid
in a number of case study countries including India and Ethiopia. One such example from
India, a country that received the largest historical share of food aid up to 1971 and highly
studied had as a key finding food aid lowers domestic food prices, does not encourage
adequate agricultural policies and thus, decreases domestic food production (Isenman and
Singer, 1977). In a paper that researched existing empirical evidence on the unintended
consequences of food aid at both a micro and meso-level, Barrett and others (2006)
highlighted the importance of a better understanding of the context in which food aid is
applied. The paper identifies contexts in which more harmful effects are more likely to occur,
relating to timeliness, targeting, and local market integration with factors including national,
regional and global markets (Barrett, 2006).
Organizations such as Oxfam advocated for change in the way food aid was provided,
underlining the importance of appropriate responses utilizing local markets where possible.
Humanitarian food security and livelihood specialists Jaspars and Leather outlined the
problems associated with tied food aid, advocating for change prior to imminent World Trade
10
Organization (WTO) and Food Aid Conventions (FAC) negotiations. According to Jaspars
and Leather (2005), such problems included but were not limited to the following.
Contravening standards: In many cases, tied food aid breached Sphere Standards that
stipulated the importation of food only when there was a country deficit or no practical
possibility of moving available surpluses into the disaster affected area.
Higher costs: Tied direct food aid transfers were on average, 50 percent more expensive
than local purchase, and 33 percent more costly than procurement of food in third
countries.
Market distortion: Evidence indicated the negative impact food aid had on commercial
imports in recipient countries, especially long-term food aid which saw increases in
imports by recipient countries of commodities supplied as food aid.
Monetization and market distortion: Although poorly monitored and evaluated,
monetized tied food aid was seen as incurring market distortion on the basis of it not
being targeted. The scale of monetization was significant; in 2002 about 50 percent of all
project food aid though NGOs was monetized.
Poor timeliness of assistance: With food purchased in the US taking up to 4-5 months
to arrive in the recipient country, there were serious implications for populations
dependent on food aid in the early phases of an emergency. Consequences of such
delays included higher rates of malnutrition, mortality, and the adoption of damaging
coping strategies.
Cultural appropriateness and depletion of entitlement value: The cultural
appropriateness of tied food aid commodities was questionable in some locations. In
some cases it resulted in recipient populations being unable/ unaware of preparation
methods and/or selling or the food to purchase other foods and/or other items or services
(such as milling). This rendered tied food aid an inefficient way of meeting food needs.
Cereal domination: Due to the domination of cereals, food aid rations may be
nutritionally inadequate, as pulses, oil, and blended foods were especially difficult to
resource.
Milling and fortification: Tied food aid was frequently unprocessed or unfortified. This
added logistical and cost implications for recipient households who had to make their own
milling arrangements.
The provision of cash assistance (to enable households to meet their own food needs,
utilizing local markets should they be functioning) and/or local and regional purchase of food
were proposed as alternatives to food aid, context depending (Jaspars and Leather, 2005).
10
At this point, food aid was not subject to tight disciplines under the WTO agreement on agriculture and the FAC had not been effective
in regulating the provision of food aid, lacking a binding enforcement mechanism and dispute settlement body. It was hoped that the
WTO, a widely accepted international legal instrument, could provide an adjudication process restricting the abuses of food aid,
facilitating food aid in legitimate circumstances (Jaspars and Leather, 2005).
The response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami provided organizations with an opportunity
to pilot cash assistance as a humanitarian response tool, predominantly in food security and
livelihoods. A finding from the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition indicated that functioning
markets allowed cash recipient affected populations to meet their own priority needs, rather
than meeting needs envisioned by the humanitarian agency (Cosgrave, 2007). The potential
of cash as a tool to meet humanitarian needs, especially in food security and livelihoods led
to a series of pilot programmes by humanitarian organizations, including WFP.
In October 2005 and January 2006 WFP Sri Lanka undertook an International Food Policy
Research Institute (IFPRI)-evaluated pilot project to assess the potential of cash transfers to
meet household food security in an emergency context. A comparative analysis of
household expenditure and consumption patterns in cash-receiving and food-receiving
households over a three-month period was undertaken. In summary, the findings indicated:
In areas where markets were functioning and accessible, cash transfers were more cost
effective and preferred by beneficiaries. Overall when households did receive cash, they
diversified their diet. They spent more on dairy products, meat, packaged foods, and non-
food essentials such as clothing and footwear, and they bought cereals with a higher market
value than the ones supplied by WFP (Mohiddin, Sharma, and Haller, 2007).
Learning from the tsunami response and subsequent disasters in which cash assistance was
utilized has led to a significant body of learning and evidence related to the contexts in which
cash is an appropriate, efficient assistance tool, especially in the field of food security (Bailey
and Harvey, 2015). This includes a DFID-commissioned publication entitled State of
evidence on humanitarian cash transfers. This document provides a summary of the
evidence base on humanitarian cash transfer programming, outlining the types of evidence
on cash transfers, findings on key issues and gaps. It highlights the role of markets in
contributing to the effectiveness of meeting needs, stating: Markets need to be functioning
or able to recover quickly enough that an injection of cash will prompt traders and
shopkeepers to make goods available (Ibid.: 3). The document also indicates the potentially
positive, but poorly documented, role CTPs can have on markets through multiplier effects.
The document cites a cash intervention in Malawi, which found that for every dollar
transferred, it passed through an average of 2 to 2.45 economic agents or individuals in the
local area before leaving it (Ibid.: 4).
Therefore the actual and potential role of a market actor or service provider playing a more
visible and direct role in achieving programme objectives has been brought to the forefront
by emergency cash programming, especially in food security and livelihoods. Although all
humanitarian programme decisions should include a degree of market analysis, cash
programming has brought this relationship to the forefront (Sivakumaran, 2012). In fact, the
demand for information sharing related to markets in emergencies has resulted in an online
11
discussion group, Markets in Crisis.
This realization has led to the development of numerous market analysis tools specifically for
humanitarian contexts and pertinent to the identification of both cash and in-kind responses.
These tools including the emergency market mapping and analysis toolkit (EMMA) developed
by Oxfam and IRC and the rapid assessment for markets (RAM) developed by the Federation
of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Although these tools can be used for non-food items,
they were developed at a time when humanitarian market analysis was dominated by the
food security and livelihoods sector. Despite the more recent application of market analysis
tools to define water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and shelter programmes, both clusters
are in the process of appraising how market support inventions can be used to cover WASH
and shelter needs. Sector-specific challenges and opportunities regarding the use of market-
based programming have yet to be addressed before these tools can be generalized
(Dewast, 2016; Global Shelter Cluster, 2016; Juillard and Opu, 2015).
Fairly recent innovation in fighting transitory food insecurity has involved applying learning
from social protection programmes that have been critical in fostering progress towards
hunger and poverty targets in a number of developing countries such as Brazil. The Hunger
Safety Net Programme in Kenya provides an example where predictable, targeted short-
11
This group can be found at: https://dgroups.org/dfid/mic.
term cash assistance is provided to meet the transitory food needs of populations. The
predictability of assistance enables better market preparations and pre-positioning of
commodities and services. Innovation continues in the form of humanitarian assistance
piggy backing existing social safety net programmes in disaster-affected countries to
provide vulnerable disaster affected households with assistance, food and non-food. An
example includes WFP and UNICEF linking emergency cash programmes to the national
social protection programme in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) following
typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (Smith, 2015).
2.2.6. The links between markets and food security

With the majority of the worlds population reliant on markets for their food, or for the inputs
to produce food (WFP, 2009; Nellemann et al., 2009), the link between markets and food
security cannot be denied. Markets are essential for achieving food security as they enable
the exchange of goods and services, responding to the demands of their consumers (WFP,
2009). Market systems are critical as they determine food availability and access, playing a
vital role in averting or mitigating hunger by adjusting to shocks and reducing risks (Ibid.). It
makes sense, therefore, to work with markets to alleviate hunger and food insecurity
following a shock.
Figure 2 indicates the complex relationships between household assets and livelihood
activities, markets and external factors. The diagram also illustrates where markets play a
role in influencing key food security determinants. As illustrated, the majority of factors that
influence livelihood strategies and market functioning are linked to the economic,
institutional, political and physical context, which are also a major source of crises, such as
natural and human-induced disasters, ranging from earthquakes, epidemics and conflict to
high food prices (WFP, 2009).
Figure 2: Framework for food security analysis
Source: WFP (2009: 58)
As indicated in Figure 3, the ability of markets to play a positive role in alleviating hunger and
food insecurity can be hindered by emergencies (WFP, 2009). However, the impact of the
crisis on market actors themselves and the key functions of a market such as responding to
demand and supply, price-setting mechanisms and the distribution of goods is often
overlooked by humanitarian organizations (Ibid.).
Figure 3: Emergencies and markets
Source: WFP (2009: 108)
To understand any attribution or linkage between food security, market access and
performance and humanitarian crises, it is fundamental to understand the nature of
household food security and poverty. We need to consider whether households suffer from
chronic poverty/food insecurity (caused by a number of internal and/or external factors) or if
food and economic insecurity is a transitory problem (Diaz-Bonilla, 2013). An understanding
of causal pathways to food and nutrition security and their linkage to market systems is vital
in identifying appropriate responses, creating a set of complementary activities, some of
which may not necessarily be classified as traditional food security or nutrition interventions
(Levine and Chastre, 2011). This reflection represents significant implications for this
research, in which it is assumed that there is a direct relationship between market access
and food security (see Section 3.2 Assumptions for more information).
The provision of complementary activities such as cash assistance to stimulate demand for
food items can result in failure of the overall intervention objectives if households have a more
pressing and immediate need that is not related to food, or if there are unforeseen changes to
the context, such as a deterioration of the security situation. The provision of vouchers (value
and commodity) linked to specific traders is a strategy used to enforce the consumption of
food items of a specific quality or value. However, in cases where voucher contracted shops
are too far or food is not a significant priority, households have been known to exchange
vouchers for cash, or sell voucher to acquire items, as was the case on a WFP programme in
Lebanon (WFP, 2014). Therefore, humanitarian organizations, through their needs
assessments and monitoring, aim to understand affected household needs, priorities and
12
willingness to pay, in the instance that cash assistance be provided (ERC, 2015).
12
Willingness to pay: This is an estimate of future expenditure requirements made up of historic costs, and what people would be
willing to pay given a set amount of cash at their disposal (ERC, 2015:9).
3. THE ANALYTICAL
FRAMEWORK
3.1. MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMING

FRAMEWORK
Markets are a central element to the lives and livelihoods of most of the worlds population,
both as a means to get access to essential commodities and services and to gain an income
through the selling of production or labour. Markets do not necessarily represent a specific
physical space but rather the structure or system, formal or not, in which buyers and sellers
exchange commodities, services or labour in exchange for cash or other goods or services.
A market system is a network of people, trading structures, and rules that determines how a
particular good or service is regulated, produced and accessed. As the EMMA toolkit
suggests, a market system comprises many market actors, buyers and sellers supported by
infrastructures and services, and interacting within a trading environment shaped by
institutions, rules or norms. Market systems are not geographically constrained and can
operate across borders.
Markets are dynamic by nature and so is the market terminology within the humanitarian
sector. As the Oxfam and WFP framework of approaches to market-based programming
(Oxfam and WFP, 2013) is currently being revised, there is no broadly used and accepted
definitions of market support intervention. In addition, there is currently no formal
categorization of market support intervention or of market support activities. This is mostly
because supporting markets as an indirect way to support crisis-affected population is a
relatively new area for humanitarian actors (Oxfam and WFP, 2013).
For the purpose of this evidence synthesis, we have therefore conceptualized and defined
as per Figure 5 the different types of market-based programming. Market-based
programming is the practice of working through and supporting local markets (Oxfam and
WFP, 2013).
Figure 4: Market-based programming
Market sensitive approaches

These are projects that take into consideration the market context in their design and implementation. As all
projects (either delivered in-kind, through cash or vouchers or advocacy-orientated) have an impact on
markets and their wider political and institutional environment, they should all aim at adopting a market
sensitive approach.
Examples of programmes that are solely market sensitive include: the provision to households of cash,
vouchers and in-kind via local procurement. In these cases, market analysis indicates the suitability of the
response without any financial or material support to specific market actors.
Market support interventions Market system approaches

Sectoral or multisectoral in nature, these are Implemented predominantly as development
projects that include activities to support existing programmes, market systems approaches
market systems. This is done by supporting address the underlying causes of poor
specific, targeted market actors, infrastructure, performance in specific markets that matter to
service providers or elements within the prevailing people living in poverty, in order to create lasting
market environment. The primary objective of these changes that have a large-scale impact. It also
market support activities is to enable disaster- includes developing non-existing market systems
affected households to meet their basic needs. or the formalization of the informal ones.
Market support activities are implemented alongside Project examples:
sectoral or multisectoral activities to enable the
achievement of project results. These projects tend Improve the incomes of poor rural
to be implemented during preparedness, relief and households by helping small-scale livestock
recovery timeframes. farmers gain better access to markets,
information, veterinary drugs and services
Project examples:
Developing pro-poor financial markets
CTP combined with activities to support
traders. Value chain development project
In-kind food aid purchased from local Making markets work for the poor
producers receiving support from the project approaches in urban and rural context
Vouchers or cash grants to access water when
there is support to water vendors to increase
water quality
Rehabilitating a road to allow access to a
market place
Source: The authors
Market support interventions are not a humanitarian sector as such; but rather a cross-
cutting approach that consists of supporting market actors, service providers or infrastructure
to improve the situation of a crisis-affected population. Market support interventions can be
included in post-crisis responses as well as in projects aiming at long-term social change.
In humanitarian settings, market support interventions aim to improve the situation of the
crisis-affected population by providing support to critical market systems these people rely
on for essential goods, services or income. After a shock, market support interventions aim
at recovering, strengthening or developing the capacity of market actors, services and
infrastructures critical to meeting and responding to the needs of affected people. Market
support activities are embedded in market support interventions that could look at covering
multiple needs or sector-specific needs be such as food security, livelihoods, WASH and
shelter. This evidence synthesis will only include market support activities embedded in
market support interventions that are aiming to cover food security needs or to cover multiple
needs including food security.
Market support activities are people centric, looking at how communities are using and
accessing markets to cover their needs and supporting those connections. By doing so,
market support activities will not necessarily target the most vulnerable people or those most
acutely affected by the crisis in terms of food insecurity. Market support activities will rather
target the market components that will have the most effect on restoring or improving
affected population pre-crisis situation. Those activities are aimed at having a knock-on
positive outcome for the poor and marginalized.
Market support activities can either target market chain actors or market system services
and infrastructures.
Support to market chain actors across market system(s). The support can be
provided in kind, through financial support, via skills development or can take the form of
services (or even information) delivery for market chain actors. Market chain actors here
should be understood as all who sell and buy the product or the service so it ultimately
become available for the consumer. As such, market chain actors can be: importers,
wholesalers, traders (of all size from large retailer to petty traders).
Activities to support market chain actors include but are not limited to:
distributing grants to market actors to restore, strengthen or develop their businesses
in-kind distribution of commodities to market actors so they can restock
in-kind distribution of materials to market actors so they can rehabilitate their shops
skills development for market actors so they can restore, strengthen or develop their
businesses
sharing information about licensing process with market actors so they can strengthen
or develop their businesses
facilitating access to credit by providing a guarantee of demand through an upcoming
emergency project relying on local markets
offering physical storage place to market actors
rehabilitating a road to allow access to the physical market place for the market actors
offering transportation services to market actors.
Support to market services and infrastructure. Market services and infrastructure
allow the market system to function. They represent entities including financial services,
transportation, roads and storage. The support can be provided in kind, through financial
support or via skills development for those actors who are providing services and
infrastructures to the market system. As several market systems often share common
services and infrastructures such as transportation services or storage facilities, these
type of activities could impact several market systems (Oxfam, 2015).
Market support activities targeting market services and infrastructures include but are not
limited to:
providing grants or in-kind material to the owner of storage places so the storage
capacity can be restored, developed or strengthened
providing grants or in-kind material (including fuel) to transporters so they can restore,
develop or strengthen the transportation services they offer to the market actors
developing the understanding of financial service providers of the need of the market
actors in terms of access to credit
facilitating the circulation of key information to transporters, owner of storage places or
financial service providers so they can restore, develop or strengthen their services
delivery.
These activities can also be implemented in combination with each other, and can be
summarized as above. For the purpose of this review, market support intervention in the
aftermath of a crisis will not include macroeconomic interventions to promote economic
recovery, such as fiscal and monetary policy or trade policies and institutions.
Market support interventions have been implemented across contexts, including in access
and security challenged environments. For example Mercy Corps implemented market
support activities in South Sudan (Juillard, 2016). In those environments, remote
management can be chosen as an implementation model. Remote management relies upon
host-nation personnel to undertake ground-level activities while enabling certain elements of
management, oversight, fundraising and operations to be coordinated from a relatively more
secure location (Zyck, 2012:1). This review will include market support interventions that
have been implemented remotely and those which have not.
The objectives and methodologies applied in humanitarian-orientated market responses are

not the same as those utilized in market development or market systems approaches. The
main differences are in timeframe (these are multi-year programmes aiming for long-term
sustainable change), objective (orientated to addressing the root causes of why markets fail
to meet the needs of the poor) and target groups (the impact of change is orientated to a
wider population group). Such lasting and large-scale change is achieved through
interventions that modify the incentives and behaviour of businesses and other market
players public, private, formal and informal on the basis of careful analysis and an
understanding of a specific value chain or industry (BEAM website).
There is a growing interest in the humanitarian sector to apply approaches and learning from
the markets systems sector. Although this review will not include evidence from the market
systems approaches, it appears that there is a lack of robust evidence of the impact of
market system programmes, with the majority of evidence in the form of case studies (BEAM
website). This is illustrated in the recently developed Building Effective and Accessible
13
Markets (BEAM) evidence map which presents publications that contain evidence of
market systems interventions, categorized by intervention type. In developing the evidence
map, BEAM undertook systematic searches in which several hundred documents were
retrieved and reviewed according to set criteria.
As humanitarian agencies increasingly assess, analyse and reflect on market capacity as

part of their situation and response analysis, they are becoming aware of their role as actors
within market systems. However, it is questionable if agencies have the capacity to fully
understand the implications of their role and humanitarian response actions within market
systems and socio-economic and political contexts (Mosel and Henderson, 2015). This is
14
reflected in a recent series of papers from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a
study by Key Development Services (KDS) in Lebanon reflecting the influence of WFP
interventions on dry and processed food markets (KDS, 2014) and by Oxfam in Jordan
where NGOs have distorted the water system market reducing the negotiating power and
market access of other clients to water trucking services (Wildman, 2013).
Understanding the context within which key market systems and actors operate is vital to
understanding the broader implementation context and identifying appropriate responses. As
a study of humanitarian interventions in South Sudan highlights: The key issues affecting
most traders since the start of the crisis are to do with the broader political economy. These
are issues that few humanitarian actors understand well, or look at in their market analysis
(Mosel and Henderson, 2015: 21).
The implementation of market support interventions could provide an opportunity for

humanitarian actors to better understand their role within this wider context, and attain
greater ground in doing no harm. The Nepalese earthquake in 2015 gave rise to a number
of discussions on the ability of humanitarian agencies to engage more fruitfully with market
development organizations (that have long standing relationships within the private sector) in
designing more durable humanitarian responses utilizing existing relationships (Stewart and
Gurung, 2016).
13
The BEAM website aims to provide A space to share knowledge and learning about the role of market systems in reducing poverty
14
The ODI project, Markets in Crisis and Transitions, is exploring questions related to the intersection of markets, crises and
humanitarian action including: How do markets and businesses adapt during crises, and what determines their ability to function through
crises? How does humanitarian aid affect markets in crises, and what impact does this have on different households?
3.2. THEORY OF CHANGE

The humanitarian sector has started acknowledging the interdependency between local
populations and their markets, especially in terms of providing crisis-affected households
15
access and availability to essential commodities such as food and services. In doing so, the
humanitarian sector has started developing market support interventions, hence incorporating
market support activities within their humanitarian responses (Juillard, 2016:30).
4. The rationale
Market actors play a vital role in enabling crisis-affected households access to the
goods and services they require to ensure their food security.
5. Therefore
By supporting market systems vital to the food security of crisis-affected households,
the food security of households can be improved.
6. However
A number of assumptions are required including household purchasing power and

prioritization of their food security status.
With this in mind, the following theory of change (see Figure 5) includes elements of
causality and logical attribution that will be used to review and synthesize the evidence
behind the causal links and assumptions.
Figure 5: Overarching theory of change of the influence of market support

interventions on food security
Inputs Activities Ouputs Outcomes Impacts

Financial Traders and The number of Needed goods Improved
and material service providers support traders and services household
resources, skills allocated inputs and service related to food security
and services on the basis of providers with food security outcomes
an appraisal of recovered and/ are available
(e.g. road and needs, capacity or re-established in supported Traders and
warehouse and role operational locations service provider
rehabilitation, businesses businesses
transport receive
provision) customers
influencing factors and assumptions

e.g. the type of emergency , strategic cohesion in humanitarian approaches, causal factors behind food insecurity are related
to food availability and access, market system functioning, economic conditions (households have purchasing power/ create
demand), seasonality, reasonable prices, food transportation and supply channels function, non-conflicting needs and
priorities, gender and ethnic elements do not limit negatively market access.
Source: The authors
Market support interventions outlined in Section 3.1 require similar types of inputs and
activities on the basis of a needs analysis ordinarily undertaken by the implementing agency
or partner agencies. It should be noted that the term trader is used to broadly represent a
range of trading market actors including but not limited to: wholesalers, specialist shops and
traders of varying size and locality (local, regional, central rural and urban markets, city
centres, ambulatory and so forth).
15
Evidence for this can be seen in: (a) the number of humanitarian market analysis undertaken as is currently being mapped by the
Cash Learning Partnership on their cash atlas (https://www.cash-atlas.org/login), (b) publications of market assessment guidelines and
tools as listed on the Cash Learning Partnership markets thematic website page (www.cashlearning.org) and, (c) the ODI project
Markets in crisis and transitions, exploring the intersection of markets, crises and humanitarian action.
Inputs and activities to enable humanitarian market support interventions tend to include
the provision of financial, material resources or skills on the basis of a rapid appraisal of
trader needs and capacities. A consideration of the capacity and role of the trader/ service
provider is undertaken to ensure that crisis-affected households are likely to utilize their
services. Humanitarian organizations will target market actors engaged in providing goods
and services related to food security, generally speaking traders.
Outputs of humanitarian market support interventions tend to be reported in the following

manner: The number of traders and/or service providers that have utilized the support
provided and are operational. The ability of traders and service providers to be operational
and open for business following the provision of resources carries a number of assumptions
such as favourable conditions including their security and safety in doing so, and the
reliability of the supply chain for goods.
The outcomes assume household demand for food items of sufficient quality and quantity
required to ensure and maintain household food security. Market actors respond to effective
demand and not a humanitarian organizations understanding of the needs of the affected
population (ERC, 2015, WFP, 2015). Outcomes can include: traders and service provider
businesses have a suitable range of services and goods related to food security available for
purchase by crisis-affected households.
Impacts illustrate the final result of an intervention on household food security, which is the
measure to demonstrate the success of the activity. This theory of change makes a number
of assumptions here, one of the most significant being that households will visit traders and
service providers to access the commodities and services they require in order to meet their
16
food security needs. This assumes purchasing power and effective demand by
households, which in turn assumes a prioritization of food security needs. Market support
interventions will result in the following impact: crisis-affected households report an
improvement in food security status and supported traders and service provider businesses
receive customers.
Status improvement in food security can be measured using methodologies that relate
directly to food consumption, as well as a number of methodologies that take a broader
perspective of household coping strategy activities, access and behaviour. The following list
includes methodologies including, but not limited to, commonly used indicators in
humanitarian contexts:
17
household or individual dietary diversity score
18
food consumption score
19
self-assessed measure of food security
20
coping strategy index (CSI) and related reduced coping strategy index
a common coping strategy in food insecure households is the reduction of meal
frequency, the quantity and quality of food consumed
access to credit and markets (physical and social)
16
Effective demand refers to the willingness and ability of consumers to purchase goods at different prices. It shows the amount of
goods that consumers are actually buying supported by their ability to pay ( www.economicshelp.org).
17
Household food access is defined as the ability to acquire a sufficient quality and quantity of food to meet all household members
nutritional requirements for productive lives. Household dietary diversity, defined as the number of unique foods consumed by
household members over a given period, has been validated to be a useful approach for measuring household food access, particularly
when resources for undertaking such measurement are scarce (FANTA project).
18
The food consumption score (FCS) is a. composite score based on dietary diversity, food frequency, and the relative nutritional
importance of different food groups. The FCS is calculated using the frequency of consumption of different food groups consumed by a
household during the seven days before the survey. Scores are clustered into three groups; the results of the analysis categorize each
household as having either poor, borderline, or acceptable food consumption (SPRING, 2008).
19
Although frequently used, these are household or individual self-assessments of current food security status from within in a recent
recall period that takes into account a change in access or activity over time. Self-assessments tend to be highly subjective in nature
and potentially open to manipulation.
20
The CSI tool measures what people do when they cannot access enough food, asking a series of questions about how households
manage to cope with a shortfall in food for consumption, providing a numeric score. (SPRING, 2003).
proxy indicators that are defined on multiple factors, including specificities of the market
support intervention, livelihoods of the affected population and seasonality. These include
but are not limited to: status of livelihood activity, level and type of non-food item
consumption and purchasing patterns (in terms of purchasing frequency and also
frequented traders/services).
Assumptions
As highlighted in Section 2.2.2 above and illustrated in Figure 2, the dimensions of food
security and their causal factors are complex, dynamic and influenced by a number of
elements including, but not limited to, markets. Therefore, improvements in household food
security can be the result of synergies between different interventions and pre-conditions
beyond the influence of the actual intervention. This means that the wider intervention
21
context including additional humanitarian activities, gender, household priorities,
household purchasing power, availability of appropriate food, market utilization/access and
ethnicity can also have an influence on household food security. In short, attribution of a
positive outcome in household food security (or any other humanitarian outcome) to market
support interventions may be hard to isolate and therefore, prove.
As can be seen in the causal chain above, one of the significant assumptions is that of use
of service; meaning that the crisis-affected households will utilize the supported traders and
service providers to purchase a range of food items and access key services. Additional
associated assumptions therefore relate to household purchasing power and very
importantly, the desire to meet household food needs as opposed to other needs such as
shelter or livelihood requirements.
21
An example being the provision of rental or school fees to households can release household income for other expenses, including
food.
4. METHODS
4.1. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA

The following sections define the populations, interventions, comparisons, outcomes, and
study types (PICOS) in order to specify the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the literature.
4.1.1. Populations
This evidence synthesis focuses on interventions that attempt to benefit the food security of
people affected by humanitarian crises (i.e. crises where actors calling themselves
humanitarians are deployed) and do so by including activities supporting the market. The
geographical scope is global. As mentioned, such crises can have one or several direct
origins: internal or international conflict, ethnic cleansing, genocide, large-scale epidemics,
natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, droughts, economic shocks and
inflation or a mix of several events. The nature of the crisis will not act as an
inclusion/exclusion criteria. The literature covering market support interventions taking
place in locations and/or at a time where no humanitarian actors were present will
hence be excluded from this evidence synthesis.
The populations of interest in the studies we will include are:

the market actors targeted directly by the market support activities
the crisis-affected population indirectly affected by the market support activities.
When mentioned by the studies included, the crisis-affected population will be disaggregated
into characteristics such as:
age
gender
disability
affected by a chronic disease
pregnancy status
specific status according to the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols
(refugees, internally displaced persons)
ethnic and religious belonging if mentioned by the studies and relevant to the type of
context (for example in cases where such groups are politically marginalized by those in
power)
level of income
living distance to the physical market place.
When mentioned by the studies included, the market actors will be disaggregated into
characteristics such as:
age
gender
disability
affected by a chronic disease
literacy
pregnancy status
specific status according to the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols
(refugees, internally displaced persons)
ethnic and religious belonging if mentioned by the studies and relevant to the type of
context (for example in cases where such groups are politically marginalized by those in
power)
volume of trade
type of goods or services offered
type of customers.
The analysis will distinguish the intended beneficiary group and the overall population, in
particular if the studies included display information on economic multipliers for which it is
not possible to determine distribution.
4.1.2. Interventions
Our research will include interventions that are specifically looking to improve the food
security situation of crisis-affected populations and those looking at reducing negative
copying mechanisms. We will not use a restrictive definition of negative copying
mechanisms but will include all interventions that state that they intend to reduce negative
copying mechanisms. An intervention will be included if it features several components
including at least one looking at either improving food security or reducing the copying
mechanism.
The research will include literature about market support interventions designed by any
22
actors (NGOs, UN agencies, Red Cross/ Red Crescent movement, private sector actors
and government actors) in the aftermath of a humanitarian crisis in order to indirectly
benefit affected people. Even if the majority of humanitarian projects have a maximum
duration of 12 months (for instance in alignment with the European Commission funding
regulations) projects that eventually lasted longer will be included. It is indeed common
practice to extend ongoing projects because the situation has not improved or has
deteriorated.
The type of activities included will be:

activities to support market chain actors
distributing grants to market actors to restore, strengthen or develop their businesses
in-kind distribution of commodities to market actors so they can restock
in-kind distribution of materials to market actors so they can rehabilitate their shops
skills development for market actors so they can restore, strengthen or develop their
businesses
sharing information about licensing process with market actors so they can strengthen
or develop their businesses
facilitating access to credit by providing a guarantee of demand through an upcoming
emergency project relying on local markets
offering physical storage place to market actors;
rehabilitating a road to allow access to the physical market place for the market actors
offering transportation services to market actors
22
The private sector here is defined as all for-profit businesses that are not operated by the government, ranging from small community-
based businesses to national and multinational corporations.
activities to support actors providing market services and infrastructures

providing grants or in-kind material to the owner of storage places so the storage
capacity can be restored, developed or strengthened
providing grants or in-kind material (including fuel) to transporters so they can restore,
develop or strengthen the transportation services they offer to the market actors
developing the understanding of financial service providers of the need of the market
actors in terms of access to credit
facilitating the circulation of key information to transporters, owner of storage places or
financial service providers so they can restore, develop or strengthen their services
delivery.
All other activities will be excluded.
Market support interventions can be implemented prior to a shock to strengthen market

systems so they can better serve people if a crisis hits. Pre-crisis interventions could
influence household food security post crisis. Similarly, interventions aimed at long-term
social change may also influence household food security in a post-crisis situation. While not
denying the potential for these interventions, for the sake of a homogeneous final analysis,
studies covering disaster preparedness or long-term social change interventions will
not be included.
4.1.3. Context
Iterative coding will be used and the content of the literature eventually included will dictate
the types of comparisons that can be made. However, we expect the type of context in which
market support interventions are designed, implemented and evaluated to be of significant
importance. We intend to disaggregate evidence according to contextual data such as:
if activities take place in an urban or rural environment
if affected people live inside or outside a camp
the magnitude of physical infrastructures caused by the crisis
the number of market actors existing before the crisis
the type of actor implementing market support interventions: national NGO, international
NGO, UN agency, member of the Red Cross/Crescent movement, private sector actor,
state agency
the chronology of the crisis.
Comparisons of contextual factors will be made as we expect them to have an influence on

market support intervention and ultimately on the crisis-affected population.
4.1.4. Outcomes
Documents that identify any types of outcomes measures will be included. These include
economic, physical, environmental and social outcomes.
Studies analysing how markets function but not evaluating market support interventions will
not be included.
4.1.5. Study types

We will include studies issued from 1990 onwards since there have been no such
interventions conducted before this date. To our knowledge, market aware interventions in
humanitarian crises really started to take place in the aftermath of the 2003 Bam earthquake
in Iran but we do not want to exclude the possibility of some market support activities
happening before this. We chose 1990 because the literature accounting for humanitarian
crises is extremely scarce before this date. The 1990s did indeed see a massive change in
the way humanitarian assistance was implemented, with the creation of United Nations
agencies (such as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)) and with
the development of humanitarian evaluations in the aftermath of the 1994-95 Rwandan
genocide (Borton, 1996).
We will systematically search studies published in English and include studies published in
French if they arise.
Both quantitative and qualitative evidence is eligible for inclusion in the review. For
quantitative research, we will only include studies that apply a research design able to
minimize bias in the attribution of identified effects to the applied intervention. These can
include experimental designs, for example randomized control trials (RCTs), quasi-
experimental designs (e.g. propensity score matching), and project evaluations. The defining
criterion across these designs is the availability of two data points (before and after data).
However, it should be noted that we expect to find very few of those after a first round of
database searches.
For qualitative research, we will favour studies that fulfil the three key criteria below for
inclusion:
transparently report and describe the research design (including research instruments)
transparently report on the empirical data collected
report findings that are based on the collected data with a clear link between reported
data and findings.
This can include, but is not limited to, the following designs: ethnographies, case studies,
qualitative evaluations and community surveys, for example.
Most of the studies we expect to find do not provide information on how data was collected
or analyzed. See for example the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) programme Support to the
Local Tool Market Post-Typhoon Haiyan. Therefore in the absence of sufficient studies
meeting all three aforementioned criteria, other qualitative or mixed methods studies such as
the CRS study will be included. We expect that most of such studies will be project
evaluations (sometimes with only one data point and no comparison group) that collect data
through interviews, questionnaires, surveys and focus group discussions. To be eligible such
studies will have to:
state they are based on data collected from project stakeholders (beneficiaries,
implementing agencies, local authorities etc.)
clearly describe the projects inputs, activities, output and outcomes of the market support
interventions.
Academic articles and grey literature such as published and unpublished works and
research papers by NGOs, international organizations, government agencies and think-tanks
will be included.
Publication types that will be considered ineligible include: personal blogs, commentaries,
diaries, opinion pieces, workshop reports, literature reviews, marketing material such as life
stories of individual shopkeepers, newspapers articles, magazine articles, guidelines and
legal proceedings/court documents.
4.2. SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE
4.2.1. Potential sources

Potential studies will be identified through discussions with key informants, searches of
electronic academic databases (with open and restricted access) using key search terms,
and manual searching of institutional websites and certain academic journals.
Backward citation search: the bibliography of each document rated as fit for inclusion will be
searched for further studies that may have fallen out of the designed search strings.
Forward citation search: search for all studies citing the included evidence using Google
Scholar.
Key informants
Through well-established market platforms such as BEAM exchange, the Small Enterprise
Education and Promotion Network (SEEP), the Market in Crisis and the Cash Learning
Partnership (CaLP) online discussion groups, we have contacted market practitioners
representative of the different humanitarian actors and academics active in the field of
market analysis and market support interventions. These informants will support the
research team with the identification of grey literature that may not be in the public domain
and potentially with the circulation of the final research product.
The market support interventions advisory board
Some of the key informants have been asked to join an unpaid advisory board. This board will
support the research team with the refining of the research question and secondary questions
and will review the documents produced. As at 25 March 2016, the board consists of:
Isabelle Pelly, CaLP technical coordinator. Isabelle is responsible for the overall strategic
technical leadership and technical quality control of CaLP work. Her role also involves
leading the CaLP technical advisory group, which comprises representatives of the CaLP
global community of practice. Isabelle has a technical background in food security and
livelihoods, with specialist skills in market assessment and analysis.
Gregory Matthews, deputy director for Cash Initiatives. Gregory is a food security and
nutrition specialist with more than 10 years of experience in humanitarian response and
coordination. He currently oversees the International Rescue Committees (IRCs) cash
transfer and emergency market analysis efforts, including the promotion and further
development of the EMMA toolkit and pre-crisis market analysis (PCMA).
Nichola Peach, regional programme policy officer specializing in cash-based transfers and
Hien Adjeman, Global Logistics Cluster, will represent WFP.
Academic databases
The following academic databases will be searched using the search terms set out in
appendix 1:
Science Direct
ELDIS (http://www.eldis.org/)
ELLA (http://ella.practicalaction.org/)
PUB Med
SCOPUS
Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (www.base-search.net/Search)
Google scholar: according to Haddaway et al. (2015), it is sufficient to only screen the
first 500 hits on Google Scholar.
List of journals to hand search

Development and change
Third World Quarterly
Disasters
Development in Practice
Journal of International Development
Journal of Refugee Studies
Journal of Development Studies
Manual search of the following websites

Type of actors Name Website
Research Groups ODI http://www.odi.org/projects/2659-markets-

crises-transitions
Governance and Social Development http://www.gsdrc.org/publications/
Resource Centre (GSDRC)
Economics That Really Matters http://www.econthatmatters.com
Food Security Portal by IFPRI http://www.foodsecurityportal.org/category/cate

gory/evidence-based-research
IFPRI http://www.ifpri.org/
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluations

(JPAL)
Innovations for Poverty Action http://www.poverty-action.org/
International Initiative for Impact http://www.3ieimpact.org/

Evaluation (3ie)
International International Federation of the Red http://www.ifrc.org/en/publications-and-reports/
Organizations Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC)
WFP http://www.wfp.org
United Nations High Commissioner for http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c4b2.html

Refugees (UNHCR)
World Health Organization (WHO) http://www.who.int/publications/en/
World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/en/research
International Cash Learning Partnership http://www.cashlearning.org/markets/markets

networks https://dgroups.org/groups/calp/calp-en
Market in Crisis Dgroup https://dgroups.org/dfid/mic
BEAM Exchange https://beamexchange.org/resources/
InterAction led shelter group Personally maintained list
SEEP Network http://www.seepnetwork.org
Microlinks https://www.microlinks.org
Building markets http://buildingmarkets.org
Logistics cluster http://www.logcluster.org/cashandmarkets
ALNAP http://www.alnap.org/resources/results.aspx?ta
g=606
Humanitarian library http://humanitarianlibrary.org/
Practical Action http://policy.practicalaction.org/

Type of actors Name Website
NGOs Action Contre la Faim http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/search/nod

e/market
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
Care International http://www.care.org/
Catholic Relief Services http://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/research-

publications
International Rescue Committee http://www.rescue.org/economic-recovery-
development-technical-unit-erd
http://www.emma-toolkit.org
EMMA toolkit
Mercy Corps http://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources
Oxfam http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications
Save the Children http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.se
Practical Action http://practicalaction.org/markets
Government DFID http://r4d.dfid.gov.uk/

bodies
CIDA http://www.international.gc.ca/development-
developpement/index.aspx?lang=eng
Canadian Food Grain Bank http://foodgrainsbank.ca/resources/
ECHO https://euaidexplorer.ec.europa.eu
USAID https://www.usaid.gov/data
4.2.2. Screening process for eligible studies

The key search terms listed in Appendix 1 are defined in relation to our main research
question as well as the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
We will develop search strings for each database whether academic or institutional on the
basis of these identified key words. We will use Boolean operator OR to link each key
aspect to their synonyms, and operator AND to combine several notions. The search
strings will consist of four main concepts (and their synonyms): market support , crisis,
food security and influence (see Appendix 1 for a list of their synonyms).
For example: (market OR trader* OR business*) AND (disaster* OR humanitarian OR

crisis OR conflict OR emergenc* OR war* OR earthquake* OR flood* OR tsunami* OR
cyclone* OR typhoon* OR drought* OR epidemic*) AND (food* OR calories OR Copying
Strategy Index") AND (review OR outcome* OR impact* OR effect* OR consequence* OR
evaluation* OR assessment* OR lesson*)
Search strings will first be tested with, and adapted to, the specificities of each database.
Marion Pechayre (MP) will run the searches of academic databases requiring institutional
login, and then provide access to titles and abstracts of all articles resulting from the
databases searches to the rest of the review team. Hlne Juillard (HJ) and Lili Mohiddin
(LM) will run all other searches of institutional websites.
All hits will be recorded in Zotero to be able to sort included from excluded hits, record
information about the date and source of the search (name of the database or manual etc.)
We will provide the full search strategy used for each database in the appendices of the final
report.
The source selection process then happens in two steps. The two main reviewers (LM and
HJ) will process steps 1 and 2. They will divide and apply the search hits in two and apply
filters 1 and 2 to titles and abstracts. They will then apply filters 1 and 2 to five percent of the
hits scanned by the other and compare their results, debate any differences in exclusion and
report on how many disagreements there were and how they were resolved. This will
increase rigour in the inclusion/exclusion process and reduce personal bias and
interpretation of the data as much as possible.
Step 1
The first step of the study selection process will screen titles and abstracts, to which filter
1 applies as follows. Filter 1 will exclude the following studies:
Studies published before 1990
Studies not in English (or French)
Studies about activities not implemented in an area where there are humanitarian
actors (i.e. actors who call themselves humanitarian)
Studies about interventions not targeting at all market actors, services or
infrastructures
Studies not reporting on interventions aimed at covering food security needs, multiple
needs (including food security) or aimed at reducing negative copying mechanisms.
Studies not reporting on market support interventions outcome
record data i.e. number of studies excluded and reason for it (date, language, location
or type of intervention)
Delete duplicates: all articles meeting inclusion criteria after filter 1 will be entered in
Zotero (by MP) so that duplicates can be identified automatically.
record data (i.e. number of duplicates and number of remaining studies)
Step 2
The second step of the screening apply filter 2 to full text of studies still included after filter
1. Filter 2 will exclude the following studies:
Studies covering disaster preparedness type of activities
Studies analysing how markets function but not covering market support activities
Studies dealing with macro-economic interventions to promote economic recovery,
such as fiscal and monetary policy or trade policies and institutions
record data (i.e. number of studies excluded and the reason; number of studies
remaining)
Full studies will be downloaded then reviewed by HJ, LM, Rebecca Vince (RV) and Gabrielle
Smith (GS).
4.2.3. Data extraction

Under the guidance of the main reviewer (HJ), the review team will code studies meeting
criteria for inclusion after the processing of filter 2 in order to group and classify them. The
main reviewer will read each study meeting criteria for inclusion and fill in the coding sheet
(see Appendix 3).
To minimize the risk of personal bias or of missing key information, there will be two rounds
of data extraction done by two different reviewers. To ensure continuity in the data extraction
the two main reviewers will screen simultaneously a first set of studies (approximately one
third) and confront their list of data extracted. The rest of the literature will be divided in two
and reviewed first by one of the main reviewers and then by a second reviewer (RV or GS).
The data extraction template will be completed by both reviewers and differences debated
among the whole group of four reviewers in order to reach consensus on the main points of
analysis. If important aspects of some studies remain unclear, the main reviewers could
attempt to contact their authors to seek clarifications. If contacted authors do not respond
within 10 days, these unclear aspects would either be left outside or underlined as unclear in
the final analysis.
Data will be manually entered into a form in MS Excel in order to facilitate comparison and
analysis. Reviewers may insert short quotes in order to illustrate important points. These
quotes can be sentences or simple words that the reviewers would want to cite in extenso
(as opposed to use as their own words). These citations will be crucial for the analysis stage
and they may be used for the final synthesis writing up.
All data extraction will be copied onto one single word document at the end of the data
extraction, so as to be able to use the search word function.
4.2.4. Critical appraisal of included studies

Following the data extraction steps, we will aim to appraise the quality of each single study,
following a mixed-methods critical appraisal tool (in Annex 4) developed by Langer, Stewart,
and Winters (2014). This tool has three modules: one for qualitative studies, one for
quantitative studies and another for mixed-methods studies.
In order to minimize the risk of personal bias, the two main reviewers will independently
complete the critical appraisal tool for all studies included. They will then share, discuss and
agree the assessment of each document against each of the criteria in order to determine an
overall quality score.
There could be two approaches to using the results of the quality appraisal: The first to set
aside those studies that are rated critical (i.e. low quality) and not include their outcome data
in the analysis (Other contextual and process data would still be included). The second to do
the synthesis using the data of all studies included and then discuss the difference in
analysis depending on the quality of the studies.
Depending on the overall quality of the studies, we will decide which of the two approaches
works best once the critical appraisal has finished.
5. DATA SYNTHESIS AND

ANALYSIS
Our review uses a mixed methods approach:
If there is enough quantitative evidence we will extract statistical information, calculate effect
sizes and conduct a meta-analysis following Borenstein et al (2009) (cited in Stewart et al.,
2015). Given our knowledge of the field of market support activities we doubt this will be
possible, but if so the help of a statistician (already identified) will be sought.
Qualitative evidence will be synthesized using a thematic approach following Thomas and
Harden (2008) as detailed below in Section 5.1.
5.1. THEMATIC SYNTHESIS

Since our evidence synthesis aims to answer an empirical rather than a conceptual question,
and also since it uses a theory of change analysis to unpack intervention mechanisms and
context, we will not use a framework synthesis but rather a thematic synthesis.
As demonstrated by Thomas and Harden (2008), thematic synthesis are somewhat close to
meta-ethnographies in their overall approach: both synthesize data from qualitative studies
in an inductive way going beyond the primary studies to generate new knowledge; and both
do so relying on an identification of key concepts from studies and their translation into one
another, i.e. the process of taking concepts from one study and recognizing the same
concepts in another study, though they may not be expressed using identical words
(Thomas and Harden 2008). Yet our review is focused on the influence of interventions as
23
opposed to unpacking a social phenomenon.
Our thematic synthesis will follow three stages:

coding the data of the included studies
organizing these codes into descriptive themes
generating analytical themes.
Stage 1: Coding
One reviewer will code all data extracted following the methods outlined in Section 4.2.3.
These codes will then be entered into an extraction template to enable the translation of
concepts from one study to another. The findings will first be listed independently and
debated with the other main reviewer to test their relevance and complement them if
necessary. The list of codes after stage one will be documented and provided in appendix of
the final evidence synthesis.
Stage 2: Organizing descriptive themes

The two main reviewers will then independently group the codes in order to organize them
into a hierarchical tree structure. At this stage new codes will be created to encompass the
meaning of groups of initial codes. The two reviewers then debate their hierarchical structure
and produce a commonly agreed one around the main descriptive themes. At the end of this
stage, one of the reviewers produce a first draft summary of the findings across the studies
organized by the descriptive themes. The other reviewers will comment on this draft and
agree on a final version.
23
Meta-ethnographies should be used when a body of literature is being explored in and on itself, with broader, or emergent, review
questions (Thomas and Harden, 2008).
Stage 3: Generating analytical themes

At the end of stage two the draft summary of the findings of studies included should be very
close to the original findings of the studies included. Additionally, it should not necessarily
answer the review question depending on whether included studies directly address this
question. During stage three, analytical themes are derived from thematic themes to answer
the research question of our evidence synthesis and go beyond the findings of each
individual study included in the synthesis.
Each of the two main reviewers will independently revisit the content of descriptive themes in
order to infer outcomes of market support interventions for food insecure households
affected by humanitarian crises. They will then discuss their findings in order to reach more
abstract and analytical themes that can explain the identified descriptive themes. The draft
summary is then expanded upon and enriched with an analysis structured around the
analytical themes.
5.2. AN UPDATED THEORY OF CHANGE

The overarching theory of change for market support interventions designed as a hypothesis
in Section 3.2 will be a central element of the synthesis. To update the theory of change the
reviewers will transparently extract information on the theory of change of each included
study and then configure and aggregate this extracted data.
This review will set out to examine the type and quality of the evidence that supports the
theory of change and related assumptions. On the basis of recommendations set out by
White (2009) to strengthen the otherwise weak application of a theory-based approach in
impact evaluation, six principles to enable the successful application of the approach should
be applied, including:
understand context
anticipating heterogeneity
rigorous evaluation of impact using a credible counterfactual
rigorous factual analysis
the use of mixed methods.
As can be seen in this protocol document, the authors have embraced and applied these
recommendations including the consideration of external contextual factors that may have
influenced the outcome of the programme. This includes the following.
Understanding context, i.e. the social, political and economic setting within which the
programme is taking place. As context can influence the impact of a programme (White
2009), the review will take into consideration contextual factors, reducing variations in
contextual diversity by grouping evidence according to context. This could include the
level of development of the country (low and middle income country), location of the
intervention (urban and/or rural) and type of disaster.
Recurrence of the disaster or additional disaster that affected households and trader
behaviour and/or capacity to engage in the implemented programme.
Any recorded changes in household preferences on the basis of external factors.
Recorded assistance provided that could undermine the objectives of the implemented
programme from Government bodies, NGOs and other actors.
5.3. ACCOUNTING FOR HETEROGENEITY

To account for heterogeneity of the data included, we will use the variables listed in Section
4.1 (depending of those that will be specified in the included studies) to create different sub-
24
groups of studies for which we will compare the outcomes against each other .
While synthesizing the final findings the reviewers will check whether these findings are
transferable across different study contexts, or whether they have to be accounted for in
relation to specific variables (where the primary studies had made a specific distinction). As
much as possible if contextual information is provided in the studies included, it will be taken
into account in the final synthesis.
5.4. THE ROBUSTNESS OF THE SYNTHESIS

CONCLUSIONS
In order to assess the quality of the synthesis and included evidence, we will use GRADE
and CerQUAL, where applicable.
24
Should there be a meta-analysis we will conduct a statistical sub-group analysis and meta-regression to assess heterogeneity.
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7. APPENDICES
7.1. APPENDIX 1: KEYWORDS FOR THE SEARCH

Concept 1 Concept 2 Concept 3 Concept 4
Market support Crisis Food Security Influence
activities
market support disaster* food insecurity influence*
market system* humanitarian food security outcome*
market service* Crises food income impact*
market infrastructure* Crisis food diversity effect*
value chain ememergenc* food consumption consequence*
score
trader* conflict* evaluation*
copying strategy index
financial service complex emergenc* assessment*
provider* household dietary
war* lesson*
diversity score
transporter*
referee* result
meals per day
IDP create
calories
displace*
food
migrat*
food frequency
earthquake*
food basket
flood*
food entitlement
tsunami*
Concept 3 Food
cyclone* Security
hurricane* food insecurity
typhoon* food security
storm* food income
drought* food diversity
landslide* food consumption
score
catastroph*
copying strategy index
lenocide
household dietary
epidemic*
diversity score
meals per day
calories
food
7.2. APPENDIX 2: SCREENING GUIDE

Step What is Reviewer Exclusion criteria Action
screened
1 Titles and HJ & LM Studies published before 1990 Record number of
abstracts of Studies not in English (or French) studies excluded
studies and included
Studies about interventions not
collected Note reasons of
implemented in an area where there
during initial exclusion: date,
are humanitarian actors
search and language, location,
collection of Studies about interventions not
type of intervention,
studies targeting at all market actors, services
or duplicate
or infrastructures
Studies not reporting on interventions
aiming at covering food security
needs, multiple needs (including food
security) or aiming at reducing
negative copying mechanisms
Studies not reporting on market
support interventions outcome
Duplicates
2 Full text of HJ & LM Studies designed for more than 12 Record number of
studies months studies excluded
meeting criteria Studies covering disaster and included
of inclusion preparedness activities Note reasons of
after filter 1 exclusion: length of
Studies analysing how markets
function but not covering market project, disaster
support activities preparedness
Studies dealing with macroeconomic
interventions to promote economic
recovery, such as fiscal and monetary
policy or trade policies and institutions
7.3. APPENDIX 3: DATA EXTRACTION TEMPLATE

This tool has been adapted from Langer, Stewart, and Winters (2016)
Code 9. Answer 10. Comments
1. ADMIN CODES
Citation of the study
Region
Domain of the study Academia Grey literature
Type of study Journal article Research report Evaluation report
Conference paper Book/chapter Thesis/Dissertation
M&E report
Research question
Linked studies
Context codes
Where was the intervention LICs || LMIC || UMICs
conducted? State country:
What type of crisis triggered Internal conflict || international conflict || ethnic cleansing
the response? || genocide || large-scale epidemics || earthquakes || floods ||
tsunamis || droughts || economic shocks
|| inflation || a mix of several events
What has been the impact of
the crisis on physical
infrastructures?
At the start of the Less than a month || Less than three months || Less than six
intervention, how long had it months Less than 12 months || More than 12 months
been since the crisis
happened?
How many sites?
Intervention sites?
Experimental sites?
What was the setting? Rural Urban Mixed Camp
How many market actors
were there before the crisis?
Population codes
How many people were
targeted by the market
support activities?
Age Children (3-12) || Youth (12-25) || Adults (25-60) ||
Elderly (>60) || Mixed
Gender Male Female Both
Literacy Literate Semi-literate Illiterate
Specific health-related status Living with disability || Pregnant women || Chronic diseases ||
Other
Status Refugee || Internally displaced person || Host communities ||
Local communities
Volume of trader
Type of goods or service
offered
Type of customers Wholesaler || Large retailer || Petty trader || Individual
customer
How many crisis-affected
people were impacted
indirectly by the market
support activities?
Age Children (3-12) || Youth (12-25) || Adults (25-60) ||
Elderly (>60) || Mixed

Gender Male Female Both
Specific health-related status Living with disability || Pregnant women || Chronic diseases ||
Other
Status Refugee || internally displaced person || Host communities ||
Local communities
Level of income
Living distance to physical Less than a kilometre || Between 1 and 5 km || More than 5 km
market place
Level of income
Intervention codes
What was the sector of the Intervention aiming at covering food security needs
intervention? Intervention aiming at covering multiple needs including food
security
Intervention aiming at reducing copying mechanism
Who initiated the NGOs || UN agencies || Red Cross/ Red Crescent movement ||
intervention? private sector actors || government actors
What was the intervention Less than 12 months || More than 12 months
duration?
What activities were Support to market chain actors across market system(s)
implemented? Support to market services and infrastructure
To whom was the market Importer || wholesalers || large retailers || petty traders
support provided? Financial service providers || transporters || storage place
owner || other
What type of support was CTP support || In kind support || Services (transport, storage or
provided? else) || Skills development || Other
What was the goal of the Restore business || Strengthen business || Develop business ||
activities? Combination
Describe the activities
Outcome codes
Which food security Better diet diversity
outcomes were targeted as Increased food quality
regard to the crisis-affected
population? Appropriate food quantity
Reduced number of negative copying mechanism related to
food consumption (reduction of meal frequency, the quantity
and quality of food consumed.)
Better access markets (physical, social and financial)
No food security outcomes
Other outcomes
What And how were Household or individual dietary Household survey
outcome they diversity score Key informant interview
indicators measured? Food consumption score
were Focus group discussion
used? Self-assessed measure of food security Desk review
Coping strategy index Other
Proxy indicator
Other
When were the outcomes Pre-test:
measured? Post-test:

Which outcomes were Restore business
targeted as regard to the Strengthen business
market support activities?
Develop business
Combination
What And how were Volume of trade Market assessment & monitoring
outcome they Trader reported income Key informant interview
indicators measured?
were Number and diversity of customers Focus group discussion
used? Number and diversity of suppliers Desk review
Other
When were the outcomes Pre-test:
measured? Post-test:
Findings
What findings do they report?
Market support activity is Effect on diet diversity || Effect on food quality || Effect on food
effective to improve the food quantity || Effect on negative copying mechanism related to
security situation of crisis- food consumption || Other
affected population
Market support activity had Failure to have effect on diet diversity || Failure to have effect
no impact on the food on food quality || Failure to have effect on food quantity ||
security situation of crisis- Failure to have effect on reduction of negative food related
affected population copying mechanism
Market support activity had a
negative impact on the food
security situation of crisis-
affected population
(describe)
Market support activity had
another impact on the
humanitarian situation of the
crisis-affected population
(describe)
Were the market support Yes (but if applicable) || No (because)
activities feasible? Lack of political acceptance || Donor reluctance || Non-
functioning market || Non willingness from traders || Lack of
market access
How have the market By trader: Positive || Negative || Mixed || No information
support activities been By the affected population: Positive || Negative || Mixed || No
received? information
Describe the new market situation
Has the number of traders in
the market been affected?
Has the diversity of traders
in the market been affected?
Has the number of market
services available been
affected?
Has the access to market
place been affected?
Has the trader/consumer
interaction been affected?

Special interest
Do market support activities Consider age, gender, socio-economic, urban, distance from
affect market actors market, etc.
differently?
Is the intervention aligned
with national food security
policy?
Is there reference to trickle
down/multiplier effects?
Is there reference to other
interventions replicating the
approach?
NOTE:
RATIONALE:
Describe the underlying case
for why market support
activities were needed?
Theory of change
Hand-written diagram
11.1. APPENDIX 4: MIXED METHODS CRITICAL

APPRAISAL TOOL
(Langer, Stewart, and Winters, 2014)
2. Study
13.type Methodological appraisal criteria 14. Response
Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
1. Qualitative I. RESEARCH IS DEFENSIBLE IN DESIGN
e.g. (providing a research strategy that addresses the question)
(A) Ethnography Appraisal indicators:

(B) Phenomenology Is the research design clearly specified and appropriate for aims and
objectives of the research?
(C) Narrative
Consider whether
(D) Grounded theory
i there is a discussion of the rationale for the study design
(E) Case study
ii the research question is clear, and suited to qualitative inquiry
iii there are convincing arguments for different features of the study
design
iv limitations of the research design and implications for the research
evidence are discussed
Defensible Arguable Critical Not defensible Worth to continue:
II. RESEARCH FEATURES AN APPROPRIATE SAMPLE

(following an adequate strategy for selection of participants)
Appraisal indicators:
Consider whether
i there is a description of study location and how/why it was chosen
ii the researcher has explained how the participants were selected
iii the selected participants were appropriate to collect rich and relevant
data
iv reasons are given why potential participants chose not take part in
study
Appropriate Functional Critical Flawed Worth to continue:
sample sample sample sample
III. RESEARCH IS RIGOROUS IN CONDUCT

(providing a systematic and transparent account of the research process)
Consider whether
i researchers provide a clear account/description of the process by
which data was collected (e.g. for interview method, is there an
indication of how interviews were conducted?/procedures for
collection or recording of data?)
ii researchers demonstrate that data collection targeted depth, detail
and richness of information (e.g. interview/observation schedule)
iii there is evidence of how descriptive analytical categories, classes,
labels, etc. have been generated and used
iv presentation of data distinguishes clearly between the data, the
analytical frame used, and the interpretation
v methods were modified during the study; and if so, has the researcher
explained how and why?
Rigorous Considerate Critical Flawed Worth continuing:
conduct conduct conduct conduct
2. Study
Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS ARE CREDIBLE IN CLAIM/BASED ON
DATA (providing well-founded and plausible arguments based on the
evidence generated)
Consider whether
i there is a clear description of the form of the original data
ii sufficient amount of data are presented to support interpretations and
findings/conclusions
iii the researchers explain how the data presented were selected from
the original sample to feed into the analysis process (i.e. commentary
and cited data relate; there is an analytical context to cited data, not
simply repeated description; is there an account of frequency of
presented data?)
iv there is a clear and transparent link between data, interpretation, and
findings/conclusion
v there is evidence (of attempts) to give attention to negative
cases/outliers etc.
Credible claims Arguable Doubtful Not If findings not credible, can data
claims claims credible still be used?
V. RESEARCH ATTENDS TO CONTEXTS

(describing the contexts and particulars of the study)
Consider whether
i there is an adequate description of the contexts of data sources and
how they are retained and portrayed?
ii participants perspectives/observations are placed in personal
contexts
iii appropriate consideration is given to how findings relate to the
contexts (how findings are influenced by or influence the context)
iv the study makes any claims (implicit or explicit) that infer
generalization (if yes, comment on appropriateness)
Context Context Context No context
central considered mentioned attention
VI. RESEARCH IS REFLEXIVE

(assessing what factors might have shaped the form and output of
research)
Consider whether
i appropriate consideration is given to how findings relate to
researchers influence/own role during analysis and selection of data
for presentation
ii researchers have attempted to validate the credibility of findings (e.g.
triangulation, respondent validation, more than one analyst)
iii researchers explain their reaction to critical events that occurred
during the study
iv researchers discuss ideological perspectives/values/philosophies and
their impact on the methodological or other substantive content of the
research (implicit/explicit)
Reflection Consideration Acknowledge Unreflective NB: Can override previous
ment research exclusion!
OVERALL DECISION EXCLUDE / INCLUDE (study generates new knowledge relevant to the review question and complies with
minimum criteria to ensure reliability and empirical grounding of knowledge)
Sources used in this section (in alphabetical order); Campbell et al (2003); CASP (2006); CRD (2009); Dixon-Woods et al (2004); Dixon-Woods et al
(2006)cited in Gough 2012 ; Greenhalgh & Brown (2014); Harden et al (2004)cited in SCIE & Gough 2012; Harden et al (2009); Harden & Gough
(2012); Mays & Pope (1995); Pluye et al (2011); Spencer et al 2006; Thomas et al (2003); SCIE (2010).
2. Study
Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
2. Quantitative I. Selection bias:
(non-randomized; (Are participants recruited in a way that minimizes selection bias?)
Randomized-
Controlled) Appraisal indicators:
Consider whether
Common non-
random design i there is a clear description of how and why sample was chosen
include: ii there is adequate sample size to allow for representative and/or
(A) Non-randomized statistically significant conclusions
CT
iii participants recruited in the control group were sampled from the
(B) Cohort studies same population as that of the treatment
(C) Case-control iv group allocation process attempted to control for potential risk of bias
(D) Cross-sectional Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of Worth continuing:
analytical studies bias bias bias
Most common ways II. Bias due to baseline confounding:

of controlling for (Is confounding potentially controllable in the context of this study?)
bias due to baseline
confounding: Appraisal indicators:
Matching attempts Consider whether
to emulate i the treatment and control group are comparable at baseline
randomization
ii matching was applied, and in case, featured sufficient criteria
Propensity score
matching and iii the authors conducted an appropriate analysis that controlled for all
methods potential critical confounding domains
Stratification where iv the authors avoided to adjust for post-intervention variables
sub-groups have
been compared Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of Worth to continue:
bias bias bias
Regression
analysis where
covariates are
adjusted for
Randomized IF RANDOMIZED CONTROL TRIAL, SKIP I + II AND START HERE

designs: Bias due to ineffective randomization:
Randomized control (Is allocation of treatment status truly random?)
trial (RCT)
Consider whether
i there is a clear description of the randomization process
ii the unit of randomization and number of participants is clearly stated
(pay special attention to treatment and control locations/ balance )
iii eligibility criteria for study entry are specified
iv characteristics of baseline and endline sample are provided1 Preferable condition,
see 1
Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of If critical risk of bias, treat as
bias bias bias non-random study
2. Study
Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
III. Bias due to departures from intended interventions
(Was the intervention implemented as laid out in the study protocol?)
Consider whether
i the critical co-interventions were balanced across intervention groups
ii treatment switches were low enough to not threaten the validity of the
estimated effect of intervention
iii implementation failure was minor and unlikely to threaten the validity
of the outcome estimate
*whilst challenging in
iv it is possible that intervention was taken by the controls terms of estimating
(contamination and possible crossing-over)* impact, spill-overs might
be an important finding in
itself (e.g. teachers read to
pupils/village/family
members)
**consider only in extreme

v it is possible that knowledge of the intervention group affects how the cases in which preferential
two study groups are treated in course of follow-up by investigators?** treatment is clearly
evident; blinding in
general not expected in
social interventions
Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of Worth to continue:
bias bias bias
IV. Bias due to missing data (attrition) (Are the intervention groups
free of critical differences in participants with missing data?)
Consider whether
i outcome data are reasonably complete (80% or above)
ii If no, are missing data reported?
iii If missing data: are proportion of participants and reasons for missing
data similar across groups?
iv If missing data: Were appropriate statistical methods used to account
for missing data? (e.g. sensitivity analysis)
v If not possible to control for missing data, are outcomes with missing
data excluded from analysis?
Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of Worth continuing:
bias bias bias
V. Outcome reporting bias (Are measurements appropriate, e.g. clear

origin, or validity known?)
Consider whether
***in many social science
i there was an adequate period for follow up*** interventions, follow-up is
not required to coincide
with the start of the
treatment; further, longer
period of follow up are
often required to measure
changes. In the context of
education, the question of
retention in particular
when dealing with short
intervention periods (< 1
month) is of major interest.
ii the outcome measure was clearly defined and objective

iii outcomes were assessed using standardized instruments and
indicators
iv outcome measurements reflect what the experiment set out to
measure
v the methods of outcome assessment were comparable across
experiential groups
Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of Worth continuing:
bias bias bias
2. Study
Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
VII. Bias in selection of results reported (Are the reported outcomes
consistent with the proposed outcomes at the protocol stage?)
Consider whether
i it is unlikely that the reported effect estimate is available primarily
because it was a notable finding among numerous exploratory
analyses
ii it is unlikely that the reported effect estimate is prone to selective
reporting from among multiple outcome measurements within the
outcome domain
iii it is unlikely that the reported effect estimate is prone to selective
reporting from among multiple analyses of the outcome
measurements
iv the analysis includes an intention to treat analysis? (If so, was this ****usually in clinical RCTs,
rare in social science: only
appropriate and were appropriate methods used to account for rate if conducted
missing data?)****
Low risk of Risk of bias High risk of Critical risk of
bias bias bias
OVERALL RISK OF BIAS:
Sources used in this section (in weighted order): Cochrane (2014); Stewart et al (2014); Stewart et al (2012); Higgins et al (2011); Greenhalgh & Brown
(2014); Pluye et al (2011); Gough et al (2007)
Study type Methodological appraisal criteria Response

Yes No Comment /
Confidence
judgment
3. Mixed methods2 I RESEARCH INTEGRATION/SYNTHESIS OF
METHODS (assessing the value-added of the mixed-
Sequential explanatory design
methods approach)
The quantitative component is followed by the
qualitative. The purpose is to explain Applied mixed-methods design:
quantitative results using qualitative findings.
E.g. the quantitative results guide the Sequential explanatory design
selection of qualitative data sources and data Sequential explorative design
collection, and the qualitative findings
contribute to the interpretation of quantitative
Triangulation design
results. Embedded design
Sequential exploratory design Appraisal indicators:
The qualitative component is followed by the Consider whether
quantitative. The purpose is to explore,
develop and test an instrument (or taxonomy), i the rationale for integrating qualitative and quantitative
or a conceptual framework (or theoretical methods to answer the research question is explained
model). E.g. the qualitative findings inform the
quantitative data collection, and the [DEFENSIBLE]
quantitative results allow a generalization of
the qualitative findings. ii the mixed-methods research design is relevant to
Triangulation designs address the qualitative and quantitative research
questions, or the qualitative and quantitative aspects of
The qualitative and quantitative components
are concomitant. The purpose is to examine the mixed methods research question
the same phenomenon by interpreting
qualitative and quantitative results (bringing [DEFENSIBLE]
data analysis together at the interpretation
stage), or by integrating qualitative and iii there is evidence that data gathered by both research
quantitative datasets (e.g. data on same methods was brought together to inform new findings to
cases), or by transforming data (e.g. answer the mixed-methods research question (e.g. form
quantization of qualitative data).
a complete picture, synthesize findings, configuration)
Embedded/convergent design
[CREDIBLE]
The qualitative and quantitative components
are concomitant. The purpose is to support a iv the approach to data integration is transparent and
qualitative study with a quantitative sub-study rigorous in considering all findings from both the
(measures), or to better understand a specific
issue of a quantitative study using a qualitative and quantitative module (danger of cherry-
qualitative sub-study, e.g. the efficacy or the picking)
implementation of an intervention based on
the views of participants. [RIGOROUS]
v appropriate consideration is given to the limitations
associated with this integration, e.g. the divergence of
qualitative and quantitative data (or results)?
[REFLEXIVE]
For mixed methods research studies, each component undergoes its individual critical appraisal first. Since qualitative studies are
either included or excluded, no combined risk of bias assessment is facilitated, and the assigned risk of bias from the quantitative
component similarly holds for the mixed methods research.
The above appraisal indicators only refer to the applied mixed methods design. If this design is not found to comply with each of the
four mixed methods appraisal criteria below, then the quantitative/qualitative components will individually be included in the review:
Mixed methods critical appraisal: Qualitative critical appraisal: Quantitative critical appraisal:
Research is defensible in design Include / Exclude Low risk of bias
Research is rigorous in conduct Risk of bias
Research is credible in claim High risk of bias
Research is reflective Critical risk of bias
Combined appraisal:
Include / Exclude mixed methods findings judged with ____________________________ risk of bias
Section based on Pluye et al. (2011). Further sources consulted (in alphabetical order): Creswell & Clark (2007); Crow (2013); Long
(2005); OCathain et al. (2008); OCathain (2010); Pluye & Hong (2014); Sirriyeh et al. (2011).
1
Two theoretical exceptions to this rule apply:
i An RCT with appropriate randomization procedure can be included without showing baseline data, as both
experimental groups can be assumed to be equal at baseline by design.
ii A sophisticated quasi-experimental design such as propensity score matching or regression discontinuity
design in theory could make the same claim to not require baseline data.
In both cases, the advise of an evaluation specialist will be sought as the researcher does not have the capacity
to make an informed judgment in such specialist cases.
2
The mixed methods critical appraisal is facilitated for studies applying an explicit mixed methods approach. The
component is applied in addition to criteria for the qualitative component (1 to 6), and appropriate criteria for the
quantitative component (1 to 6).
Published by Oxfam GB for Oxfam International under ISBN 978-0-85598-748-0 in July 2016.
Oxfam GB, Oxfam House, John Smith Drive, Cowley, Oxford, OX4 2JY, UK.
OXFAM
Oxfam is an international confederation of 20 organizations networked together in more than 90 countries, as
part of a global movement for change, to build a future free from the injustice of poverty. Please write to any
of the agencies for further information, or visit www.oxfam.org.

The Influence of Market Support Interventions On Household Food Security: An Evidence Synthesis Protocol

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The Influence of Market Support Interventions On Household Food Security: An Evidence Synthesis Protocol

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Humanitarian Evidence Programme

The influence of market support

The authors of this report are:

3. THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK 17

5. DATA SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS 33

Humanitarian organizations have increasingly incorporated market assessments in their

2. AIM AND SCOPE OF THE

2.1. RESEARCH QUESTION

The evidence synthesis aims at answering the following question:

The secondary research questions are:

2.2. SCOPE OF THE EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS

2.2.1. Humanitarian crises

Likewise, we would prefer to avoid categories of humanitarian response phasing relief,

2.2.2. The humanitarian system, ecosystem and arena

Figure 1: The humanitarian ecosystem

Source: Betts and Bloom (2014: 9)

From an anthropological perspective, humanitarian actors evolve in an arena in which they

2.2.3. What do humanitarian responses look like?

2.2.4. The concept of household food security

Organizations such as Oxfam and international humanitarian agency CARE applied

The framework clearly articulated and communicated these connections, encouraging

2.2.5. From food aid to market support interventions

2.2.6. The links between markets and food security

Figure 2: Framework for food security analysis

Source: WFP (2009: 58)

Figure 3: Emergencies and markets

Source: WFP (2009: 108)

3.1. MARKET-BASED PROGRAMMING

Figure 4: Market-based programming

Market sensitive approaches

Market support interventions Market system approaches

Source: The authors

The objectives and methodologies applied in humanitarian-orientated market responses are

As humanitarian agencies increasingly assess, analyse and reflect on market capacity as

The implementation of market support interventions could provide an opportunity for

3.2. THEORY OF CHANGE

A number of assumptions are required including household purchasing power and

Figure 5: Overarching theory of change of the influence of market support

Inputs Activities Ouputs Outcomes Impacts

influencing factors and assumptions

Source: The authors

Outputs of humanitarian market support interventions tend to be reported in the following

4.1. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA

The populations of interest in the studies we will include are:

The type of activities included will be:

activities to support actors providing market services and infrastructures

All other activities will be excluded.

Market support interventions can be implemented prior to a shock to strengthen market

Comparisons of contextual factors will be made as we expect them to have an influence on

4.1.5. Study types

4.2. SEARCH FOR EVIDENCE

4.2.1. Potential sources

The market support interventions advisory board

List of journals to hand search

Manual search of the following websites

Research Groups ODI http://www.odi.org/projects/2659-markets-

Food Security Portal by IFPRI http://www.foodsecurityportal.org/category/cate

Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluations

International Initiative for Impact http://www.3ieimpact.org/

For example: (market OR trader* OR business) AND (disaster OR humanitarian OR