This document discusses different types of data that can be used to understand drivers of change, including: 1. Official government and census data which provides national coverage but varies in quality and availability. 2. Remotely sensed data from satellites that is increasing and provides multiple data layers at different scales and time points. 3. Research data from projects which examines specific questions but has limited geographic and temporal scope and variability in standards. There is a need to increase long-term access and sharing of research data. An agricultural data platform is proposed to archive and integrate different data sources to better understand drivers of change over long time periods and large scales. This would help target research and policy and increase the value of

1. What data, from where?Presented by Ric Coe (ICRAF/ILRI Research Methods Group, r.coe@cgiar.org) at the Workshop on Dealing with Drivers of Rapid Change in Africa: Integration of Lessons from Long-term Research on INRM, ILRI, Nairobi, June 12-13, 2008

2. What data?Formal, codified knowledge about specific times and places

3. Qualitative or quantitativeThe data systemOfficial (government+ generated) dataSome regularity

4. National coverage, some international standardisation

5. Increasing international coverage and compliance

6. Initiatives to increase integration

7. Paris21

8. Marrakech Action Plan for Stats

9. Initiatives to increase availability of disaggregate data

10. International Household Survey Network

11. Much still of doubtful quality

12. IP culture at national finer scales still rewards data ownership not data supply

13. Coverage patchy

14. Beyond the direct scope of CG2. Remotely Sensed dataRapidly increasing free collections

15. raw and processed layers

16. multiple scales

17. multiple time points

18. standardisation in formats

19. web and open source processing/display tools3. Research DataExample:ICRISAT compiled data for Fakara, Niger

20. 90 data sets compiled

21. meta data available, searchable

22. Protocols

23. Ownership, access rules,…3. Research dataCollected to examine specific questions