On the other hand, the United States National Food Security Measure employs a more micro-level approach by looking at the dietary intake, nutritional status and physical well-being of individuals. The measure also assesses the “cognitive and affective components of uncertainty, unacceptability or unsustainability” (Wolfe and Frongillo, 2001, p.6) such as insecurity over future intake. Growth status is also used as an indicator, as well as precursors to food security such as income, total expenditure, and coping strategies. Wolfe and Frongillo (2001), in this regard, suggest that the experience of food insecurity itself is an important measure. Anriquez, et al. (2012) offers a “guideline to construct household specific dietary energy requirements, in a way which is consistent both with the different needs of populations according to their physical constitution, age and gender; and consistent with the way FAO calculates energy requirements”. They suggest that to be able to determine which household or individual is food insecure and to be able to quantify food energy gap, “actual household (individual) calorie intake should be compared with a relevant energy requirement threshold” which quantifies the necessary (minimum) or the recommended (average) energy requirement, to balance the energy expenditures needed to maintain body size and composition, and a level of necessary (minimum) or desirable (average) physical activity that is consistent with good health in the long run (Anriquez, et al., 2012). Sarris and Karfakis (2010) developed a measure of rural household vulnerability which estimates idiosyncratic shocks. The methodology “integrates a major source of covariate shocks, with established techniques for estimating idiosyncratic shocks to estimate vulnerability of rural households in two regions of Tanzania”. The findings suggest that the “major covariate risk relates to weather induced production variations as well as price variations that give rise to agricultural income variations” which make households vulnerable and forces them to adopt strategies such as “income and crop diversification” and “consumption smoothing strategies”. Capaldo, et al. (2010) proposed a vulnerability model to food security that sees vulnerability “result of a recursive process: current socio‐economic characteristics and exposure to risks determine households’ future characteristics and their risk‐management capacity. This framework builds on the framework put forward by Lovendal and Knowles (2006) (see Figure 2). The Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS) is broadly defined to “include any information system – or network of systems – that monitors the situation of people who are poor or vulnerable to transitory and/or chronic food insecurity”. According to Weissman, et al., (2002), the FIVIMS “are networks of systems that assemble, analyse and disseminate information about the problem of food insecurity and vulnerability” which aims to raise awareness about food security issues, improve the quality of food security-related data and analysis, promote donor collaboration on food security information systems at country level, encourage better action programmes on poverty and hunger, and to improve access to information through networking and sharing” (p.278). According to Fresco and Baudoin (2002), “at the international level, FIVIMS implements diverse activities in support of national information systems, to enable them to become part of an international information exchange network” and “at the country level, FIVIMS works with a network of information systems that gather and analyse relevant national and subnational data that measure food insecurity and vulnerability. Building on the FIVIMS, Devereux, et al. (2004) proposes a FIVIMS Integrated Livelihoods Security Information System’ (FILSIS) which supports a “two-track approach to fighting both food insecurity (i.e. dealing with shocks) and underlying household income poverty (i.e. strengthening livelihoods)” and focuses on livelihoods rather than poverty. Devereux, et al. (2004) suggests that a livelihood approach to food security “might provide a practical toolkit for linking the analysis of food insecurity with a multidimensional and people-centred analysis of poverty – looking beyond income and consumption levels to include an assessment of people’s strategies, assets and capabilities”. CBMS-FAO | 11