The United Nations agricultural agency signed a $15 million agreement with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to boosting the capacity of developing countries to track key agricultural data – information considered essential to good policy-making and that will help track progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
On 1 January 2016, the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September last year – officially came into force.
Goal 2 of the SDGs is centred on ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture.
The USAID donation will cover the first phase of an FAO-led project that will run from 2016 to 2021, starting with pilot efforts in four developing countries – two in sub-Saharan Africa, one in Latin America and one in Asia. A dialogue is under way with eligible countries.
The goal of the project is to design and implement a new and cost-effective approach to agricultural data collection in developing world contexts, known as agricultural integrated surveys (AGRIS).