Comparative Analysis of FEWS NET and IPC food insecurity data in Somalia

This repository contains the preprocessing and analysis code supporting the paper:

Food Insecurity Projections for Anticipatory Action: A Comparative Spatiotemporal Analysis of FEWS NET and the IPC in Somalia

The workflow harmonizes FEWS NET and IPC acute food insecurity classifications, generates comparable time series, aggregates results to admin 2 districts, and performs both descriptive comparison and projection skill assessment.

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Usage

To reproduce all analyses:

1. Open the R project file
   agile2026_food_insecurity_anticipatory_action.Rproj (R version ≥ 4.2.0 is required).

2. Open the script
   scripts/Master_script.R.

3. Run the master script.
   This will:

   • load all required libraries,
   • run the full preprocessing pipeline for FEWS NET and IPC data,
   • execute all comparative analyses and skill assessment,
   • generate all figures, maps, and output files necessary to reproduce results.

All outputs are written to the figs/ and data/outputs/ directories, that are created in the master script. All visualization styles to display output map files like in the paper are saved as a QGIS project in QGIS/.

Repository structure

.
├── agile2026_food_insecurity_anticipatory_action.Rproj
├── README.md
├── data/
│   ├── FEWSNET_lhz/           # FEWS NET livelihood zones
│   ├── IPC_current_API/       # IPC current assessment data
│   ├── IPC_p1_API/            # IPC projection data
│   ├── IPC_website_dl/        # IPC website downloads
│   ├── som_admin2.geojson     # Somalia admin-2 boundaries
│   ├── somalia_fews_all.csv   # FEWS NET data
│   ├── intermediate/          # Intermediate processing outputs
│   └── outputs/               # Final processed datasets
│
├── scripts/
│   ├── Master_script.R
│   ├── FEWSNET_1_geom_join.R
│   ├── FEWSNET_2_ts_building.R
│   ├── FEWSNET_3_adm2_join.R
│   ├── IPC_1_data_merging.R
│   ├── IPC_2_ts_building.R
│   ├── IPC_3_adm2_join.R
│   ├── Analysis_1_comparison.R
│   └── Analysis_2_skillassessment.R
│
├── figs/                      # Generated figures
└── QGIS/                      # QGIS project file

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Script overview

Preprocessing

FEWS NET

• FEWSNET_1_geom_join.R
  Prepares FEWS NET data and links classifications to spatial reference units.
• FEWSNET_2_ts_building.R
  Generates time series on monthly and assessment period level.
• FEWSNET_3_adm2_join.R
  Aggregates FEWS NET time series to admin-2 districts.

IPC

• IPC_1_data_merging.R
  Merges IPC current and projection datasets.
• IPC_2_ts_building.R
  Generates time series on monthly and assessment period level.
• IPC_3_adm2_join.R
  Aggregates IPC time series to admin-2 districts.

Analysis

• Analysis_1_comparison.R
  Comparative analysis of FEWS NET and IPC current assessments and projections over the period 2017-2025.
• Analysis_2_skillassessment.R
  Projection skill assessment, including bias metrics and error timelines.