Data is a renewable resource, created every day by many organizations and individuals © FAO: http://www.fao.org

1. CountrySTAT / FENIX
Overview, Objectives, Implementations
and Approach

2. Why?
• Reduce hunger
• Alleviate poverty
• Promote rural development

3. Introductory Considerations
Global food and agriculture challenges require
fast, informed and
targeted
decisions

4. Introductory Considerations
We need to create the conditions for
evidence-based policies

5. Requirements
• High quality, comparable and timely
data
• Mobilization of the national and
international community

6. Data Issues
Data is a renewable resource, created every
day by many organizations and individuals
There is a gap between the produced data
and its availability

7. Data Issues
• Lack of data and metadata harmonization
• Poor data dissemination
systems/mechanisms
• Restrictive or unclear data policy
• Poor communication and awareness

8. What’s needed
• Avail data as “public good”
• Ensure interoperability between IT systems
• Include expert-knowledge and users’ requirements
in the IT system design
• Strengthen the international, regional and national
institutional networks

9. The 3 Key Dimensions
Institutional Framework
(National/International Stakeholders)
Procedures and tools
Political area
Technical area Data Sharing
Network
(SDMX, DDI)

10. The Data Sharing Network
• Enables data exchange at all levels
• Creates a common technical language across data owners,
statisticians, analysts, academics, journalists, etc.
• Includes methods and tools to interpret and understand the
data, their reliability and their exact meaning (metadata)
• Enables data harmonization and integration within and
across countries and regions
• IT systems will provide the technological infrastructure
supporting the network

12. The FENIX Data Sharing Network
Global
• FAOSTAT
• AMIS Statistics
• AMIS Policy
• ADAM
• FAO-WHO GIFT
• Voices of the Hungry
• Rural Livelihood
Monitoring
• Global Foot & Mouth
Disease Monitoring
• InfoSys for Forestry
Regional
• UEMOA (RegionSTAT)
• UN-ECA
• AfricaFertilizer
• Regional Initiative on
Water Scarcity
National
• CountrySTAT
• 17 countries in
Sub-Saharan
Africa
• UAE
• Bhutan
• Application of mobile
technologies in
• Tanzania for
CountrySTAT
• Nigeria for AMIS
Data Exchange

13. Key features
• Based on Open Source software; no licensing
constraints and full redistribution rights
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
• Data sharing through web services (APIs)
• Diversified data collection/upload methods
• Ability to handle different type of data
• Data discovery system based on metadata
• Advanced analytical capacities with the embedded “R”
statistical package
• Extensible: ability to plug-in new functionalities and
applications

14. Implementation Strategy
Demand-driven approach, supported by a flexible and
modular technology
Adopt the Open Data concept and methods to enhance
information sharing and benefit from the availability of
data from different sources
Broaden the scope of CountrySTAT to support data
collection and management (not just data dissemination)
Ensure relevance of CountrySTAT data and tools for the
organization managing the system (owner)