In the recent Committee on World Food Security (CFS-43) a collaborative side event under the title “Data for Policy and Investment Decisions: Lessons from recent efforts in data management for improved food security” funded by CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (CGIAR-PIM) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was organized by FAO, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the World Bank (WB) and the Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS). The side event explored new and different types of instruments and tools which are needed to monitor and measure food security and assess the impact of investments and policy decisions on food security at the global, national and household level.
The CFS Chair, Ambassador Amira Gornass set the tone and context of the side-event in her opening remarks. She highlighted the role of monitoring and evaluation within the agreed CFS consensus on a global framework for reaching World food security and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She welcomed the focus of this side-event on innovations in the measuring of evolving indicators and called for increased cooperation among the various monitoring initiatives. On a personal note, she noted her satisfaction with the focus on regional Middle East and North Africa (MENA) databases, a region she knows well and that is going through extremely difficult times.
Gero Carletto (WB) gave an overview of the SDGs umbrella and underlined the role of big data and new technologies to shape the post 2015 SDG agenda. Clemens Breisinger (IFPRI) highlighted three key data challenges for SDG 1 and 2 indicators in the MENA region:
- Some indicators remain vaguely defined.
- Some are simply not available for the majority of countries in the region.
- Discrepancies exist between different data sources for the same indicator.
Adding to this, Carletto raised the question of “Do we have the “right” data?” He argues that there is also a pressing need to address both the quality and the relevance of data. “It’s not only about data but, integrated data” he points, integration of data from different sources is one way to measure the dynamics and the transitions of the complex interactions that need to be analyzed. For example, much of the agricultural data collected is difficult to use and are insufficient for policy decisions that are relevant to food security. Thus, he points that it is important to bring together agriculture to household surveys.
As a step closer to address these challenges, in an interactive panel discussion, IFPRI, FAO and the WB presented their latest collaborative and multi-stakeholder initiatives as new developments in terms of methods and tools to get better food security data.
Carletto presented the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) -Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, which allow for analyzing linkages between household welfare measures and agricultural activities. He also announced that new partnerships are on the way to expand and build on the use of LSMS-ISA through two initiatives: the Center for Development Data (C4D2) and the Global Rural and Agriculture Integrated Surveys (GRAinS).
Similarly, Breisinger launched a new version of Arab Spatial which is a regional database and mapping tool that has been extended to monitor food and nutrition security related SDG indicators as well as access and view information spatially for policy and investment decision-making in the MENA region. Meanwhile, he announced the upcoming innovation – the Arab Investment for Development Analyzer (AIDA) - an online tool to assess the economy-wide impacts of policies and rural investments projects that will be developed in collaboration between IFPRI, IFAD and the CGIAR-PIM.
Carlo Cafiero (FAO) presented the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) which is a new indicator to measure food access as part of SDG 2. FIES concept stems from the perspective of the people who struggle every day to get the food they need and the severity of the condition of a household or individual is treated as a “latent” trait inferred from observable facts.
Presenting the perspective of a national institution, the president of Egypt’s CAPMAS, General Abou Bakr El-Guindy listed the challenges facing the agency at the national level (collection; technology; quality control). However in order to cope with such challenges, CAPMAS went through a series of developments: the agency is currently introducing tablets for collecting population census data involving 50,000+ enumerators for data collection. This enhanced data collection and processing is expected to produce higher quality data that can be utilized by various stakeholders and inform policy. In addition, the agency improved the dissemination of data through analytical reports and social media to reach out to the wider public. As a national agency, CAPMAS also involved in a series of strategic partnerships with international organizations, for example CAPMAS and IFPRI partnered in building a new Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Egypt and worked together on research for the agriculture nutrition links.
While such initiatives are one step closer to bridge the knowledge gaps that are prevalent in the region, the audience also pointed that there is need to have good governance and institutional structures to ensure that high quality data is provided and used to inform and improve policy design and monitor policy impact.
