Desk Review: Emergency Needs Assessments and the Impact of Food Aid on Local Markets

This report reviews current methods to conduct ENA with the aim of improving them. While
using the WFP ENA as the main case to evaluate, the report seeks to be useful for other
agencies in their assessments after an emergency. The market component in existing ENA
frequently focuses on prices, price changes, and household purchasing power, ignoring the
aspects related to market structure that would identify the potential of the market to meet
needs. There is an underlying assumption that households without effective demand
(purchasing power) will need to receive free food distributions to meet their needs. The
report presents a brief summary of the fundamentals of demand and supply related to food aid
distributions and their potential effects on the prices. The relationships between shocks,
markets, and responses are then drawn.