A rapidly changing socio economic environment in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) creates a dire need for reliable, regularly updated socio?economic information to gauge changing living condition for Palestinian households. In the current circumstances the Palestinian Authority (PA), International and United Nations (UN) agencies have been forced to rely on macro?level indicators, outdated information, ad?hoc surveys and proxies, insufficient to provide a solid basis for programme and policy interventions.

The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have worked on food security information and analysis since 2003 to improve the availability and detail of information relating to food security in the oPt. Over the past 3 years, improvements have been made with regard to the development of a methodology to measure changes in socioeconomic and food security indicators. After the final revisions undertaken this year, the same methodology will be applied for future surveys to allow for comparison and trends analysis over time.

The present survey report is based on data collected during January and February 2009 in the West Bank. The reference period for many questions on the survey questionnaire covers the last six months before the survey. The survey report therefore largely reflects the socio?economic and food security situation during the second half of 2008. Now that the methodology is finalized and is being institutionalized within the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics’ (PCBS) regular statistical calendar, data analysis of future surveys will be conducted and published within a much shorter timeframe. The SEFSec was initially supposed to be conducted simultaneously in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, at the beginning of 2009. However, the data collection in the Gaza Strip was impeded by the Israeli military operation Cast Lead during 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. The survey (with a slightly altered questionnaire, suitable to the post?conflict situation) was conducted in the Gaza Strip during May and June 2009. It is expected that results for the Gaza Strip will be available for publication in September 2009, after data entry and cleaning is completed.

The time lapse between the data collection and the publication of this report must be taken into consideration when examining the results. While the survey provides the reader with a good picture of the situation resulting from events taking place in the latter part of 2008, several factors have affected the socio?economic and political environment in the months following this period.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) and particularly the food CPI, which had skyrocketed during the initial months of 2008 and continued to increase steadily until October 2008, experienced a downturn since the latter months of 2008 (see figure 4, p. 16). Similarly, PCBS quarterly labour market reports indicate that the unemployment rate decreased consistently across most West Bank governorates during the last quarter of 20081and further during the first quarter of 20092 (see table 2, p. 14). The combination of stabilizing prices and higher aggregate income across the West Bank population suggests a possible increase in purchasing power and thus improved economic access to food during the first half of 2009. It is therefore likely, that the socio?economic and food security situation in the West Bank has improved since the circumstances described in this report.

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