1. The WFS Plan of Action in its para 20 (a) requested governments, in partnership with all actors of civil society, as appropriate, to develop and periodically update, where necessary, a national food insecurity and vulnerability information and mapping system (FIVIMS), indicating areas and populations, including at local level, affected by or at-risk of hunger and malnutrition, and elements contributing to food insecurity, making maximum use of existing data and other information systems in order to avoid duplication of efforts.

2. The Committee at its twenty-fifth session agreed that the thematic issue for its consideration in 2000 be “who are the food insecure”, noting that this subject would provide aditional information for monitoring the implementation of the World Food Summit Plan of Action and the progress towards the objectives.

3. This paper informs the Committee about the methodology developed and tested in the framework of the FIVIMS initiative by the Secretariat in collaboration with several countries for identifying and characterising who are the food insecure, and it illustrates it with the most advanced results achieved in the case of the country of Benin and the vulnerable group of artisanal fishers in this country.