Introducing Food For Thought: A Pause & Reflect Toolkit for Emergency Food Security Programs

This online dissemination event, hosted by IDEAL and Mercy Corps, introduced the “Food for Thought: A Pause & Reflect Toolkit for Emergency Food Security Programs”, which was developed with funds from IDEAL’s Small Grants Program. The toolkit builds on USAID’s current Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) framework and offers guidance, resources, templates, and advice on how to implement a one-day pause and reflect session for emergency food security programs (EFSPs) that can be implemented on an annual basis or at the end of projects lasting 12 months or less. Although targeted at EFSPs, the toolkit can easily be adapted for any context. During this event, participants learned how to use the toolkit and heard reflections from a Mercy Corps Indonesia colleague about their experience piloting the toolkit and had the opportunity to ask questions and exchange experiences.

Watch Recording Access Toolkit View Grant Page

Watch Recording in French

Speaker Bios

Piva Bell is the Program Performance Quality (PAQ) and Indonesia Response Team Manager for Mercy Corps Indonesia. She provides technical assistance for program quality including Program Design, Management, Monitoring, Feedback Mechanism, Learning, and Evaluation, as well as Gender Equity and Social Inclusion. She has been working with Mercy Corps Indonesia for more than 14 years and has experience in multiple fields including Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction, Emergency Response, and WASH. She also manages Mercy Corps Indonesia’s first responder team in responding to various disaster responses in Indonesia.

Meri Ghorkhmazyan is the Senior Director of MEL at Mercy Corps Global. She has 20 years of experience in leading MEL roles in various organizations, working in emergencies and development programs. She provides strategic oversight on MEL strategy, and implementation of the MEL Policy, and promotes the use of MEL best practice tools and resources.  

Conrad Murendo, Ph.D. is a Program Learning Advisor with Mercy Corps. He provides technical support to Mercy Corps programs to strengthen their program learning systems, mechanisms, and practices. He is also the convenor of the organization Global Collaboration Learning and Adaptation Community of Practice. Mr. Murendo is an experienced evaluation, collaboration, learning, and adaptation professional and agricultural economist with over 20 years of experience in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. His experience spans international research, INGOs, public sector, and tertiary education.