The Household Economy Approach: A guide for programme planners and policy-makers

The Household Economy Approach (HEA) enables planners to predict communities’ vulnerability to crises and shocks like drought or sudden increases in food prices. Focusing on how families make ends meet, it provides a framework to analyse how people get food and non-food goods and services. As well as anticipating food shortages and other emergencies, HEA is a useful tool in designing development programmes and shaping policy.

This guide includes many case examples that will help programme planners and policy-makers understand the methodology, interpret results and translate results into programme and policy recommendations.

Topics covered include:

• the steps of the HEA framework

• using HEA in different contexts

• how HEA information is collected and stored

• making sure information is reliable

• links to other approaches.