FAO DIGITAL FOR IMPACT 2022

DIGITAL FOR IMPACT 2022

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN ACTION

Required citation: FAO. 2023. Digital transformation in action – FAO digital for impact 2022 . Rome.

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DIGITAL FOR IMPACT 2022

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN ACTION

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome, 2023

iii

1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 1

1.1.

Delivering on digital platforms

4 9

18 31

1.2.

Influencing the adoption and acceleration of digital agriculture solutions in FAO

33 33 36

1.2.1. Connecting the dots

1.2.2. Creating dialogue in digital agriculture

1.3.

Influencing the adoption and acceleration of digital agriculture solutions in the ecosystem

40 40 43 45

1.3.1. The Digital Public Goods Alliance 1.3.2. United Nations collaboration

1.3.3. Participation in major promotional events: digitalization in the spotlight

New horizons

F i nal words

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Another year in action has passed, marked by exciting new developments paving the way towards more joint consolidated work within and beyond the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). As we reflect on 2022, we can now see the tangible results of digital in action and the further real impact of a strengthened digital FAO as a key accelerator and enabler, acting as an essential catalyst for transformation towards achieving the Organization's four betters and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – leaving no one behind. We are only seven years away from the deadline to achieve the vision of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs and we need to take bold action now to reach the objectives that were originally set. Today, we are in a food access crisis and we could be facing a food availability crisis next season if no appropriate action is taken, as our world is faced by, among others, humanitarian emergencies, war, the impacts of the climate crisis, natural resources degradation and the COVID-19 pandemic, with consequent severe economic shocks and downturns. Agrifood systems are among the first to have been heavily affected by these shocks, bearing the impacts on global food security and nutrition, with 828 million people being affected by hunger in 2021 – an increase of 46 million from 2020 and 150 million from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began. In this challenging context, digital can – and should – be part of the solution. The aim of this publication is to provide an overview of the key achievements related to FAO’s digital for impact through the year and to introduce the Organization’s next stages in the digital journey as we look forward to 2023 and beyond.

©FAO

Dejan Jakovljevic Digitalization and Informatics Division (CSI) Director and Chief Information Officer

“

Digital capabilities can help to meet future demand for safe and nutritious food, better manage natural resources and contribute to high-quality growth in productivity and in the economy.

Digital capabilities can help to meet future demand for safe and nutritious food, better manage natural resources and contribute to high-quality growth in productivity and in the economy. They are already the driving force behind the profound transformation of our agrifood systems and the emergence of a new vision of agriculture. With this vision, digital has been fully embedded in FAO's work: internally as part of the corporate transformation and by introducing new modern ways of working through, and thanks to, the digital workplace; and as part of FAO’s growing leadership role in the digital transformation of agrifood systems, facilitated by the new Programme Priority Area (PPA) for Digital Agriculture, now recognized in the FAO Strategic Framework, as well as by key initiatives that have been scaled up, such as the 1 000 Digital Villages Initiative, Hand-In-Hand (HiH), the digital service portfolio, and with more to come, all supported by the newly introduced digital for impact stream. Digital for impact brings us two main accelerators: the delivery of high-quality impactful digital solutions for FAO and stakeholders and the deep aim to drive, guide, influence and inspire the adoption and use of digital tools and platforms, both internally and externally, towards the broad transformation of agrifood systems.

In 2022, we scaled up efforts in this direction, and these are being recognized internationally, bringing us, for example the prestigious Geospatial World Forum (GWF) 2022 award for the HiH Geospatial Platform as the best collaborative platform towards data-driven agriculture, and more is yet to come. Underpinning these success stories, significant efforts have been made towards greater inclusion for all: in terms of gender, firstly, with the launch of the new campaign "Girls in ICT", aimed at promoting the role of girls and women in the technology sector, and secondly, to enhance digital accessibility overall as several areas ‑ including the HiH Geospatial Platform website, in order to meet World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accessibility standards for web development and web content, ensuring that FAO platforms can also be accessed by visually impaired users, and ultimately increasing their usability and accessibility. To conclude, 2022 was another exceptional and promising year of digital transformation in action, further accelerated by the strong momentum and with strong organizational support. I am looking forward to continuing the digital journey in 2023 and beyond.

Dejan Jakovljevic

Highlights Digital transformation in action

FAO Digital Portfolio

2022

©FAO

million layers 2

distinct software products 428

training events 65

210 users

90 orgs

Catalog portal metadata/ geospatial platform data

IT solutions

datasets (43/week) 5 400+

HIH initiative analysis

Geospatial Platform HIH  Hand-in-Hand 

100s of maps published

awards for excellence 3

36 countries

Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems

Digital transformation in action

©CIAT / CC BY-SA

“We are strongly committed to digital transformation, with considerable potential towards eradicating hunger poverty and bridge us towards sustainable development goals.” Dejan Jakovljevic

Focus on Impact

Digital technologies are now recognized as a game changer in agrifood systems. Their influence is being felt in many areas, including enhanced efficiency in the use of resources in food production, improved access to information and markets for farmers, new innovative financial services, the traceability of food, digitized e-voucher and cash-based transfer schemes, and the exploitation of geospatial and big data technologies to gain an ever more detailed and accurate understanding of the world around us.

FAO has recognized this transformational change and digital has been incorporated into the new strategic framework, most significantly in the Programme Priority Area for Digital Agriculture and on the ground with the flagship Digital Village Initiative. To align with this Organizational Priority, FAO has created a dedicated digital for impact stream, which has the mission of providing leadership, inspiration and support to accelerate the Organization’s drive to digitally transform agrifood systems. The digital for impact stream has two broad objectives. First, the delivery of high-quality impactful digital solutions for FAO. This includes major corporate platforms such as the HiH

“FAO has created a dedicated digital for

impact stream, which has the mission of providing leadership, inspiration and support to accelerate the Organization’s drive to digitally transform agrifood systems.”

Geospatial Platform, and the myriad of systems built by technical units and field offices. Critical focus was put in maximizing the Organisation’s use of data through supporting better standards, integration and the dashboarding of FAO datasets, as well as leading partnerships with external organizations that can help to extend those capabilities. The second objective of the digital for impact stream is to drive, guide, influence and inspire the adoption and use of digital tools and platforms, both internally and externally, towards the transformation of agrifood systems. Within FAO, this means including an awareness of core digital concepts and capabilities, and making digital capabilities and information widely available through relevant knowledge products. Outside FAO, it means working in collaboration with external organizations to enhance and amplify the impact of our digital products and to fully utilize FAO’s own digital achievements. Through these two objectives, digital for impact aims to position FAO as a leader in the digital transformation of the agrifood sector.

Digital transformation in action

1.1. Delivering on digital platforms

“It is our priority to leverage the capabilities of digital and data as accelerators to support agricultural digital transformation.”

Zhongxin Chen

The development, continuous improvement and scaling up of digital platforms to provide actionable data for sustainable agriculture are an integral part of FAO’s work. They are essential to FAO’s work in allowing the delivery of appropriate information, in relevant time, for more evidence-based decision-making, for accurate natural resource management and improved production, among many other actions for impact. Within this perspective, a number of improvements have been made on the flagship FAO HiH Geospatial Platform, as well as the development of new collaborations within and outside FAO, on other FAO major applications and corporate platforms in and for the field and with external partnerships. 1.1.1. HiH Geospatial Platform: bringing together geospatial and statistical data for more targeted agricultural interventions

Turning data into actionable information for sustainable agriculture

“Geospatial technologies and agricultural data represent an opportunity to find new ways of reducing hunger and poverty through more accessible and integrated data-driven solutions.”

Dejan Jakovljevic

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 5

VIDEO Introducing FAO Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform: to build a better future for all

What?

Geospatial information – especially aerial and satellite images captured remotely by sensors – is increasingly used to monitor natural resources and risk areas. From pest management without the overuse of pesticides to reducing the effects of locust swarms, data and technology have become essential enabling tools for the efficient and sustainable use of our Earth’s natural resources. The responsible collection, use and integration of different kinds of data from diverse domains unlocks a whole world of information that can be applied to sustainable development interventions, early warning systems and natural resource management. The HiH Geospatial Platform, launched in 2020, is one of FAO’s flagship digital public goods. It helps to analyse and compare data on food and agriculture so that interventions can be better targeted to reduce poverty and hunger and increase economic development.

How?

The platform unlocks over 2 million data layers from different domains and sources to serve as a key enabling tool for FAO's HiH Initiative and to help digital agriculture experts, economists, governmental and non-governmental agencies and other stakeholders working in the food and agriculture sector. As open data policies for free and timely data-sharing in agriculture are fundamental, the HiH Geospatial Platform promotes federated open data access with a standard-driven and interoperable data approach.

Training

Training has been a fundamental building block of the HiH Initiative and HiH Geospatial Platform in order to enable users across diverse domains and disciplines to navigate the platform independently and apply it to their work. The aim of scaling up training efforts is to increase the knowledge of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the value of applying data and data-driven technologies to agricultural decisions and interventions. Since the launch of the platform, over 60 training workshops have been held and a new section of the HiH Geospatial Platform website has been launched to share training materials, including technical documentation and videos.

Digital transformation in action

Cabo Verde One of the first HiH Geospatial Platform virtual training events was organized with the country offices in Cabo Verde and Sao Tome and Principe and national ministries. Participants included FAO personnel involved in the use of the platform, from management to data owners and data engineers, as well as national ministries responsible for food and agriculture, fisheries, aquaculture and socioeconomic development. The next steps will include surveying data usage, needs and plans and understanding user levels to propose customized training on data publishing and collaboration.

VIDEO Hand in Hand Workshop for Cabo Verde: Sao Tome and Principe

Latin America and the Caribbean Beginning in 2021, the Geospatial Knowledge, Innovation, and Technology (GeoKIT), an initiative from the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, has organized yearly training on the use of the HiH Geospatial Platform to improve project impact through better project planning and communications by means of geospatial analysis. Successful technical sessions were organized, aimed at FAO GIS specialists throughout the region, training them in new platform features and the use of back-end tools to enrich the analytical capabilities of the HiH platform by adding new datasets. Scaling up the knowledge shared in 2021, a training event organized in November 2022 reflected the new developments launched on the HiH Geospatial Platform, aimed at keeping capacities and knowledge-sharing up to date with the latest standards. United Republic of Tanzania An HiH Geospatial Platform training event was planned for 2023 in the United Republic of Tanzania, and an HiH entry point for the country was nominated, based on a meeting between FAO and the designated task team members from the Ministry of Agriculture. Focus areas (territories) are Ruvuma for soya bean value chain investment and Manyara for wheat and sunflower value chain investment. A baseline survey is being conducted to better understand these value chains in the identified territories through ground proofing in order to assist in the development of the investment plans.

New training material

To complement the guidelines published in the resources section of the HiH Geospatial Platform website, FAO has started a process to produce more HiH workshop materials, primarily videos. The main goal is to reduce the number of training events held while providing thorough knowledge on HiH to various audiences.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 7

Topics are the following: getting started with HiH Geospatial Platform, how to use time function, how to give feedback, how to do analysis, tables, how to do a story, the ABCs of application programming interface (API), how to add tabular data, Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN) metadata publishing workflow, CKAN region mapping, styling data on CKAN, GeoNetwork metadata publishing workflow, how to publish vector data, how to publish raster cubes, GIS analysis using Google MyMaps and Earth Engine, GIS analysis using Desktop GIS (ESRI, QGIS), ESRI ArcGIS Online.

HiH GIS Analysis

The FAO GIS analysis team has prepared agricultural typologies and multicriteria decision analysis, developing procedures for various value chains including crop storage, livestock (dairy and slaughterhouse), freshwater fish farming and offshore aquaculture (several hundred maps for 36 countries). Future work includes the development of fisheries typologies and processes for additional value chains/systems, irrigation suitability/potential, a child labour risk map and blockchain potential. While undertaking the analysis, the United Nations Second Level Administrative Boundaries (SLAB) methodology was used to document and assemble the most up-to-date, government-approved sub- national boundaries compliant with UN country boundaries. Support for these boundaries, as well as for alternative administrative boundaries (Database of Global Administrative Areas, Humanitarian Data Exchange) and hydrological basins and fishing areas, have been added to the HiH Platform. Future work includes greater collaboration with partners working within administrative boundaries, including the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).

New developments of the platform

FAO worked throughout 2022 to continuously improve the HiH Geospatial Platform to better serve users and provide the latest data, in the most relevant way, with new features and datasets incorporated.

New welcome feature, tour guide for first users, focus and supporting shape files features These were among the first features developed to enhance user experience, also including a new focus feature and conducted development work to support shape files.

VIDEO Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform: tech highlights from 2022

The HiH Platform now has a new remote sensing tab for highlighting new available datasets, to find Minimum Greenness Onset data on the first and second growing cycle from 2013 to 2020.

Digital transformation in action

Time flattening Time flattening allows us to change the viewpoint of datasets on the fly. The time flattening feature temporarily disables the time column and shows all points on the map. This feature is useful because it allows us to visualize the data in more than one way. It is a great way to gain an overall view. Projections Support was added for geographic projection in 2D Map. Currently, some selected installations, such as AquaMaps and Water Accounting portals, have projections enabled. Data catalog consolidation The CKAN underpins the HiH Geospatial Platform, storing and documenting data and providing an easy and straightforward way to organize and style data. FAO CountryStat official national statistics from local sources were made available through the data catalog.

Mobile broadband coverage (global – 1 km) 2022 release

The World Mobile Broadband coverage is a 1 km resolution raster grid (1/0) representation of cellular mobile wireless internet access. The grid is derived from Collins Bartholomew’s Global System for Mobile Communication (GSMA) Mobile Coverage Explorer database and was computed using both operators’ submissions to GSMA and OpenCell ID cell tower database.

Suitability for solar irrigation in West Africa, Sahel

This year, maps prepared by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) on suitability for solar irrigation available at various groundwater depths and surface water distance, considering surface water, groundwater and a combination of groundwater and surface water resources, were published.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 9

1.1.2. Collaborations on FAO major corporate platforms

“Timely, reliable, accurate and comparable data from many partners and across the Organization are needed to identify opportunities, design interventions, monitoring progress, early warning and evaluate impact of activities in food and agriculture.”

Karl Morteo

In 2022, FAO developed and/or improved several datasets, platforms and applications across different programme areas.

Aquastat, WaPOR, Climate Info Tool, Aquamaps and Water Accounting

• The AQUAMAPS platform supports global and regional assessments related to water and agriculture and is the global spatial database that complements AQUASTAT statistical data, giving access to internationally recognized global and regional spatial datasets on water resources and agriculture water management, including hydrological basins, rivers, dams, irrigation areas, soil moisture, aridity, precipitation, evapotranspiration, weather for agriculture and more. The Water Accounting portal supports water accounting in river basins and water productivity measurement in irrigation projects. The Asian Development Bank, IHE Delft Institute and IWMI have worked together to integrate spatially disaggregated data and trends in water availability, consumption and productivity in key selected areas in the world. FAO is responsible for the further integration and publication of the data online, through the AQUAMAPS Water Accounting portal.

• The Climate Information Tool (CIT) is an interactive tool to query long-term mean monthly climate data.

The CIT dataset covers the global land surface at a 10-minute spatial resolution for the period 1961–1990.

The tool displays the latitude, longitude and elevation of the chosen location and several climate variables per month (average over the period 1961–1990) related to: precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, sunshine, wind speed and reference evapotranspiration.

Digital transformation in action

HiH Geospatial Platform story map featuring WaPOR data to monitor groundwater in Jordan

Climate Tool Risk Box (CTRB)

VIDEO The Climate Risk Toolbox on the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform

A key element in sustainable and transformative development in agriculture is ensuring that investments are designed on the basis of robust evidence about both past and future climate variability, seasonality and extremes. The CRTB has been developed to promote the identification of climate risk hotspots around the world and to support the "climate-proofing" of FAO programmes and projects. The CRTB includes a series of guiding questions, each of them associated with a geospatial layer, that automatically identifies baseline and future climate-related hazards in the chosen area. An automatic report of the climate risk screening can be generated, along with tailored climate-resilient measures that can be integrated into agricultural investment projects. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Nationally Determined Contributions Agriculture and Transparency Assessment navigator development was also supported.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 11

Locust Pesticide Management System (Locust-PMS)

“To approach the design of a field data collection system, we must see it as an expression of a physical, real-world process. In our opinion, there is no fit-for-all solution to approach this, instead we believe in tailored and customized solutions that fit the specific needs of the users.“

Eduardo Machado

The Locust-PMS is a global system designed for the management of pesticides, spray, survey and safety equipment used for the control of desert locust and other locust species in Africa, Caucasus and Central Asia, Near East and southwest Asia. The system is digital, from data collection in the field to data analysis and reporting in the cloud, and covers the pesticide life cycle used in locust control, including registered pesticide products and the periodic inventory and management of useable pesticides, spray, survey and safety equipment; the usage of pesticides and the disposal of obsolete pesticides and empty containers; and the remediation of contaminated soil. This year, in collaboration with the Georgia National Food Agency, the implementation of an initial pilot was completed in Georgia, with the finalization of the full inventory of stock locust pesticide at the national level and an environmental risks analysis of the stores. The same project was developed in Morocco and Yemen, with additional countries already planned for 2023. The work is ongoing and will continue throughout 2023.

FAO Global Animal Disease Information System

The EMPRES-i is a web-based application designed to support veterinary services by facilitating regional and global disease information. It aims to clarify disease events worldwide using data that FAO receives from different sources: country or regional project reports, field mission reports, partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs), cooperating institutions, ministries of agriculture and health, FAO Country Representations or other United Nations agencies.

©FAO

Digital transformation in action

At the beginning of 2020, FAO kicked off an initiative to modernize EMPRES-i, aiming to redevelop the system based on updated technologies and enhanced capabilities, with a strong emphasis on improving the data analytic capabilities provided in order to perform risk assessments, and epidemiological and trend analysis with integrated contextual information (livestock carrying capacity, climate data and environmental data). The first public version of the portal was launched in 2021 and is now powered by the HiH Geospatial Platform. The Event Mobile Application (EMA-i) was launched in Iraq in 2022, which was the first time the version was translated into Arabic and that an end-to-end reporting process was introduced for field veterinarians.

Food and Agriculture Microdata (FAM) catalog

©FAO

The FAM Catalog provides an inventory of datasets collected through farm and household surveys that contain information related to agriculture, food security and nutrition. Its aim is to be a one-stop shop containing metadata on all agricultural censuses and surveys that are publicly available, as well as providing direct access and/or links to the microdata. The system was upgraded during the summer of 2022, which also meant an upgrade of the underlying World Bank Nada platform on which the system is based, and has led to performance improvements, bug fixes and an enhanced interface.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 13

Global Information Exchange System (GIES)

This year, the new version of the GIES Global Records System fighting illegal fishing was released. The GIES enables parties to cooperate and exchange information on port denials and inspection results, and to flag state actions with relevant states, FAO, other international organizations and regional fisheries management organizations.

International FAO Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring (InFARM) data platform

The InFARM platform was released for pilot testing at the end of 2022. This platform is envisioned to support Members in the collection, collation, analysis and reporting of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and use (AMU) data in food and agriculture (i.e. AMR in food producing animals and food,

AMR and AMU in plants and AMU in animals at the farm level as a responsibility shared with the World Organisation for Animal Health [WOAH]). This will introduce a governance structure and provide countries with analytical and reporting capacities to make use of their data to inform their AMR actions/policies.

Livestock Sector Investment and Policy Toolkit (LSIPT)

The LSIPT is a toolkit designed to assess and improve technical and/or financial livestock sector situations in a certain area with the aim to give an overview of the economic status of the area itself by calculating and simulating financial aggregations at various levels: household, value chain, up to Gross Domestic Product. The principal motivation behind the development of this software is that, until now, livestock specialized teams had worked on a series of Microsoft Excel files on their own computers: this implied unlinked results in a local environment, with users obliged to pass Excel sheets back and forth in order to collaborate. With the new web version of the LSIPT software, FAO tried to overcome this issue, granting users the ability to collaborate and to link calculation results. Users can also have a history of the project to know how the project is advancing. A workshop was held in Tunis, Tunisia to train a group of experts from several resource centres on the new tool in October 2022.

Digital transformation in action

Rift Valley Fever Early Warning Decision Support Tool (RVF DST)

To strengthen countries’ capacity to anticipate the risk of RVF introduction and outbreaks, FAO, in collaboration with the departments of veterinary services in Kenya, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, developed a web-based RVF-Decision Support Tool (RVF-DST) that allows the respective chief veterinary offiers to take (in real time) targeted and strategic pre-emptive actions to mitigate the potential risk of RVF outbreaks, thus minimizing the impacts of the disease on public health and livelihoods.

©FAO

In September 2022 in Bagamoyo, the United Republic of Tanzania, FAO worked to build capacity in RVF monitoring and forecasting to enhance prevention and control in the United Republic of Tanzania, using a One Health approach.

Rinderpest mobile application

The WOAH developed a game that aims to maintain a level of awareness and vigilance related to clinical signs of rinderpest, to help to ensure that our world remains free of this eradicated disease by keeping the memory of it alive. This game is directed towards key players in animal health, such as veterinary students and practitioners, laboratory practitioners, veterinary paraprofessionals and community animal health workers, enabling their full awareness of the role that they must continue to play in the rinderpest post-eradication era. The release of the mobile applicated was planned for the end of 2022.

Rural Invest

The RuralInvest toolkit helps to prepare and evaluate small- and medium-sized agricultural and rural investment projects. It is a free multilingual methodology for preparing sustainable agricultural and rural investment projects and business plans. The participatory, interactive and bottom-up toolkit is designed to

©FAO

be used with communities, entrepreneurs, government field technicians, project staff and local financing institutions. It comprises a tried-and-tested methodology, user manuals, online and in-country training, and the RuralInvest computer software programme.

The cloud-based version is planned for release and is currently being tested in different counties.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 15

South–South Cooperation (SSC) and Triangular Cooperation Gateway

Both Cooperation have proven effective in creating jobs, building infrastructure and promoting trade in countries across the global South. They seek to boost a broad framework for collaboration among developing countries SSC and Tr ia ngular and offer a complementary model to the traditional relationship between donors and recipients. A new website was created with an outside third-party contractor in 2022 to create a highly interactive portal for users across the globe. The design was completed, with the content from the current site having already been uploaded and the final testing is currently under way.

Statistical Working System (SWS)

Since 2012 and in line with recommendations from an independent evaluation, FAO took the initiative to develop an internal Statistical Working System (SWS) for the throughput process and a Statistical Data Warehouse (SDW) for output. The overall goal was to significantly improve the efficiency of corporate statistical processes and the quality of statistical outputs, as well as to establish an integrated and harmonized system of data dissemination across all divisions, enabling internal and external users to query, analyse, compare and link statistics across various statistical domains. This year, the SWS left the FAO intranet to become accessible from anywhere, at any time, with a complete redesign of the system's user interface and creation of additional modules, including a campaign manager for statisticians and focal points in contributing organizations/countries.

Food Price and Monitoring Activity (FPMA) tool

The FPMA tool is a major component of FPMA. It provides an advanced technical solution for the dissemination and analysis of price information. The tool was developed in 2010 as part of FAO’s initiatives to address soaring food prices. In 2022, new components were developed for the customization of local questionnaires, and work is currently being done on the first application for the data collection process.

Digital transformation in action

Water for Irrigation (WaFIRR) mobile application for irrigation management and scheduling in Jordan (iOS and Android) Powered by the 1 000 Digital Villages Initiative, the WaFIRR application for Jordan will be based on both the weather station in the Jordan Valley and Water Productivity Open-access Portal (WaPOR) to support farmers’ daily decisions on water management, assisting them to achieve efficient and productive irrigation management. It considers water quality, irrigation system and planting date when suggesting irrigation scheduling and will be integrated with the Jordan Integrated Agricultural Management Information System (JIAMIS) Farmer Registry and the National Agriculture Research Center (NARC) E-Lab, Jordan. The framework of the application and data for weather, crops and equations will be provided by NARC experts. Remote sensing data will be available through an open access data portal (WaPOR).

Two types of data will be collected to design and develop WaFIRR:

• data collected from the user – information about farms, crops and irrigation systems in order to estimate the daily water requirement for each crop; and • data collected from either the weather station or through the remotely sensed data portal (WaPOR). The application will process all data and send the results back to users as a notification with a daily crop water requirement and the irrigated hours required (daily or scheduled), based on their irrigation system.

Gridded Livestock of the World v4 (GLW 4)

The most up-to-date version of GLW 4 for the reference year 2015, calculated as head/km² for cattle s , sheep s , goats, buffaloes, horses, pigs, chicken s and ducks, with global extent, approximate resolution 10 km, was published and integrated with several applications this year.

©kailash kumar

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 17

Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Model (GLEAM)

FAO has developed a suite of tools, models and data, to assess the impact of livestock on the environment, called GLEAM. Using a GIS framework to simulate bio-physical processes and activities along livestock supply chains using a life cycle assessment approach, the aim of GLEAM is to quantify production and the use of natural resources in the livestock sector and to identify the environmental impacts of livestock in order to contribute to the assessment of adaptation and mitigation scenarios to move towards a more sustainable livestock sector.

This year, a subsite was also published that includes GLEAM and GLW.

Digital transformation in action

1.1.3. Collaboration with the field

"The Digital Services Portfolio is meant to be a flexible platform for opportunities, reflecting the evolving nature of trends and needs in a fast- paced world where digitalization has become key, unleashing tremendous potential for development in the agricultural field and beyond.”

Dioguen Zaridze

©FAO/Fall

The Digital Services Portfolio (DSP): developing rural digital inclusion on the ground

What?

The DSP is another digital capability that promotes the shift towards digitalization and modernization in agriculture, including data on environment and climate, through an efficient use of digital tools and technology. It aims at creating capacity for inclusive digital transformation in a country through digital agriculture advisory capability. It does so by delivering text and other multi-media messages directly to the mobile devices of consumers, farmers and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture sector.

How?

The DSP focuses on the development of four main themes that help to improve agricultural services and the availability of local content: weather and crop calendar, livestock, AgriMarketPlace and e-Nutrifood. The goal is to enable countries to add their own themes, tailored to their specific needs, to provide specific information and tools to decision-makers and farmers in the field, leveraging digital capabilities for better results in the food and agriculture sector. Originally launched in Rwanda and Senegal, it has expanded to many other countries and contexts. For example, in 2020, Egypt developed a specific digital application of food safety in response to COVID-19 and beyond.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 19

VIDEO Digital application of: food safety in response to COVID-19 and beyond

Country updates

The project was completed in October 2022 in Iraq, where the app was configured/customized, and content is now ready to be launched with three themes: AgriMarketPlace, plant production, livestock and the

farmer´s forum. The application is called “El Rafidain for Agriculture Extension” and is presented in three languages: Arabic, English and Kurdish. Bangladesh has been using the DSP framework to develop an app for fresh markets, adding new capabilities, replicating the behaviour of Google Maps. In October, a new project in two countries – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – was initiated to deliver messages to livestock farmers on meat production and dairy production.

A new capability has also been developed to deliver particular themes in specific areas of the country of the roll out, for example to Zanzibar in the United Republic of Tanzania. Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia: an important meeting for the introduction of DSP was organized and preparatory steps for a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia to introduce the DSP app and start the development process of the app are ongoing.

Digital transformation in action

Senegal “Digital platforms in Senegal will constitute a bridge linking new technologies with the rural production environment to improve productivity, facilitate market access and strengthen value chains.”

Amadou Thiendella Fall

In November 2016, FAO launched the Agricultural Services and Digital Inclusion in Africa (SAIDA) initiative in French, with corresponding pilot phases in Rulindo, Rwanda and Tambacounda, Senegal. The initial four apps are now five with the recently added COVID-19 app. The digitalization of agriculture in Senegal between 2019 and 2022 demonstrated the strong focus of agricultural technological developments in Africa. Digitalization initiatives include the e-advisory services SAIDA, promoted by FAO, the e-commerce platform Senlouma, produced by the National Consulting Agency Agricultural and Rural (ANCAR) with FAO support, and the GIS-driven e-Tolbi platform, created by Senegalese Presidential Award winner start-up Tolbi, specifically aimed at creating jobs for young people and women. These initiatives implemented by ANCAR allow real-time access to silvipastoral production information adapted to climate change with SAIDA, satellite imagery and artificial intelligence-driven advice with e-Tolbi and a virtual market facilitating the purchase of inputs and the sale of production with Senlouma. The ongoing popularization of these platforms in the Senegalese agricultural world will favour job creation for young people, who will be better equipped with a knowledge of digital media and therefore more able to take charge of the training of producers. All platforms also target a minimum of 30 percent women among beneficiaries.

VIDEO 1 000 Digital Villages Initiative Senegal

Partnerships, including institutions

The FAO country office in Senegal relied on ANCAR for the implementation of SAIDA, and ANCAR has worked with the following structures: • Afrikinnovations (an African company working in the development of rural areas); • Tolbi (an African company working in the digitalization of African agriculture); • Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie ( National Agency for Civil Aviation and Meteorology ) ; and • Agency Regulation of Public Markets (ARMP).

Projects & Results

955 technical advice messages text (web and SMS) and audio (web) format

6 1 000

Digital Villages Initiative chose Senegal as a pilot area in 2021

local languages (Bassari, Diola, Mandingue, Poular, Serer, Wolof) + FR & EN

Outlook

The FAO country office in Senegal aims to facilitate investments in agricultural digitalization with the following targets:

Direct beneciaries

300 000

500 000

farmer beneficiaries of climate-smart advisory services

farmers

in the seven main agricultural production zones of the country covered by more than 3000 1000 extension agents villages registered in more than

10 000

farmers trained

200 11 national and rural

local producers organizations/cooperatives

public institutions

Indirect beneciaries

500 000 Additional farmers

Communities in targeted villages

Young digital entrepreneurs

Total beneciaries

+1000000 farmers

Digital transformation in action

Rwanda

Rwanda national leaders are investing heavily in IT infrastructure, especially in the agriculture sector. The FAO country office in Rwanda works in a conducive environment to bring agriculture services as close as possible to rural farmers by using the DSP.

VIDEO Digital technologies are empowering Rwandan youth to transform farming

“In Africa, digitalization is crucial for

Rwanda was among the first pilot countries to launch the DSP implementation to improve productivity and efficiency in 2017. It contributed to the implementation of the National Information and Communication Technology Strategy for Rwanda Agriculture (ICT4RAgric 2016–2020) and the Smart Rwanda Master Plan (2015–2020) on accelerating agricultural transformation from subsistence-based to market-oriented agriculture, using ICT as an enabler in this process. In July 2020, it launched the COVID-19 app. Implementation is ongoing, with training of trainers (ToT) and several capacity-building exercises in pilot areas. The DSP journey has been very promising and encouraging, as per the feedback received from the young Rwandan farmers who are benefiting from FAO’s four digital applications for information on markets, treating and feeding their livestock, the production, conservation, and consumption of nutritious food and the weather and crop calendar.

development, and we aim at getting agriculture services as close as possible

to rural farmers by using digital technologies.”

Coumba Sow

Even though some challenges still need to be tackled, such as a significant number of farmers without smart phones who can only benefit in part from the DSP, a low digital literacy rate and internet costs that are still high, FAO invites different partners to help farmers to turn these challenges around. For example, in a project in Rwanda funded by the Rwanda One UN Fund, FAO is playing a catalytic role in peacebuilding in Great Lakes by supporting the economic empowerment of women and youth in cross-border communities. Rwandan women farmers who are in agribusiness, selling food commodities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, were given pre-installed DSP smart phones and six‑month internet bundles to facilitate their cross-border trade by adopting e-commerce practices and accessing information and knowledge available in the DSP for better production and market information. In addition, FAO Rwanda regularly supports the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources to develop strategies of ICT in agriculture. Generally, all applications, databases and platforms developed by FAO are increasing access to useful data, information, knowledge, maps and statistics that are vital for agricultural transformation.

1.1. Digital for impact: digital capabilities as accelerators to support the transformation of agrifood systems 23

Egypt

“More and more users are downloading the app, new users’ numbers in 2021 increased by 69 percent, and it is expected to reach the same level of increase in 2022.”

Adel Zekaizak

VIDEO FAO digital app El-Mufeed in Food and Agriculture

The FAO digital app El-Mufeed in Food and Agriculture was launched in 2019 and built on a participatory approach, with inputs from the farmers and rural women who took part in an inception workshop divided into five thematic groups. Local leaders and local NGOs also played an important role to ensure that the chosen contents fit the targeted audiences. A successful promotional campaign was launched to expand the use of the app in the country and was recommended for replication in other countries. This included social media (Facebook) and the FAO Twitter account, which were added to the contents of El-Mufeed to keep users updated with the latest news of FAO activities in Egypt. A 2- day training course was introduced in May 2022 on the digital contents of El-Mufeed on citrus to 18 extension agents from the Delta, followed by a 2- day training course in June 2022 on the digital contents of El-Mufeed on date palm to 18 extension agents from Upper Egypt. Additionally, 64 awareness-raising sessions were conducted in July 2022 on the digital contents of El-Mufeed to citrus and date palm growers in eight governorates in the Delta and Upper Egypt.

A success story

A ToT course on "Digital Skills" was delivered to 25 extension agents in January 2022 as one of the activities for the provision of training courses and awareness-raising sessions in Egypt under the 1 000 Digital Villages Initiative. One of the trained extension agents delivered this course by herself in the extension centre of Damas village in Dakahlia Governorate. Many stories of positive outcomes came from the women who attended this course, including the creation of a YouTube channel, sales through Facebook and the application of several recommendations picked from the themes of

healthy nutrition and household poultry production in the El-Mufeed app. This course is currently being rolled out in the region, where the initial version of the Letter of Agreement for the provision of a ToT course on digital skills for trainers in Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) has been prepared, and the implementation procedures for the delivery of this course through one of the FAO projects in the Sudan is being discussed.

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