Topic outline

This course focuses on SDG Indicator 2.1.1, which is one of two indicators that focus on food insecurity. The PoU is an estimate of the proportion of the population facing serious food deprivation, and is derived from official national level information on food supply and consumption, and energy needs. This course has been developed to support countries in analysis and reporting for Indicator 2.1.1.

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The target audience of this course includes:

  • Policy makers or advisors
  • Directors and senior staff of national statistical office
  • Statisticians of national statistical offices
  • FAO regional statisticians

  • Relevant concepts, including hypothetical average individuals, dietary energy requirements and habitual dietary energy consumption (DEC)
  • Potential data sources for the indicator: dietary intake surveys, household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) and food balance sheets (FBS)
  • How the probability based approach uses an aggregated framework to define the parameters of a distribution, and sets a threshold for undernourishment
  • Manipulation of data to obtain the distribution of dietary energy consumption

The course consists of 5 lessons, ranging from approximately 25 to 60 minutes duration each:

  • Lesson 1 – Introduction to the Prevalence of Undernourishment
  • Lesson 2 – The PoU methodology: Key concepts
  • Lesson 3 – The PoU methodology: Parameters
  • Lesson 4 – Processing food consumption data collected in Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys
  • Lesson 5 – Reporting on the Prevalence of Undernourishment

The online version of this course runs on the latest versions of the major browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox.

The downloadable version only runs on Windows PC’s and no additional software is needed.

Digital certification

This course offers certification. You will get your digital badge upon passing a final exam after completing the course and achieving a grade of at least 75%. Please click on the button below to complete the exam, or refer to our Certification section to learn more.

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