
Building our food resilience with help from the Stars
I recently helped organized the Data for Development in Africa two day meeting that sought to better understand the data needs, potential resources for leverage and building alliances across the continent and the world of use of data for decision making and action.
As a founding member of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, this moment a vindication that #datamatters and especially @DataforAfrica, where the majority of the world’s poor reside.
There are a few takeaways that I believe were the cornerstone of the meeting:
Largest high level gathering on data for development: The meeting was by far the largest gathering of high level decision makers to curve out concrete solutions on the developmental challenges using data. The meeting had the participation of a Vice President, over ten ministers, sixty three ambassadors, CEOs of local and global technology companies just to mention afew. While metrics are great, the important thing to note is that multiple commitments were made, from financing to capacity and collaboration on the critical sectors of health and Agriculture.
Africa got the world to talk about data: The two days set the internet abuzz on data for development in Africa, including a tweetchat on #datamatters where a global influencial embarked on a candid conversation on why data matters, ways to bridge data gaps and foster business unusual collaboratives between innovators, private sector, governments and academia.
Collaboration collaboration and collaboration: There was an unprecedented acknowledgement that the challenges of development means all hands on deck. The data ecosystem has grown over the last five years, where Government, Civil Society and Private Sector collectively acknowledge that no one can do this alone: for Governments, scale means building partnerships, for private sector: it makes good business sense; for civil society: advocacy also means seating at the table and contributing through expertise of reaching the masses; for academia: Evidence has become such a premium in real time development needs that their research and knowledge production has to be relevant; for innovators: opportunities for business that at the same time solves old problems with new tools; and for citizens: no longer thinking that Government is omnipresent, and requires their voices if development has to be responsive.
My final takeaway was the notion that many of the aspects that were raised and the possible solutions lied on earth observation data. Multiple conversations, especially relating to food security, nutrition and logistics was deemed as a potential catalyst that will enable small scale farmers meet the challenges of hunger, where agriculture continues to suffer the ravages of climate. For instance, farmers in Kenya buy weather data, that is so critical to the entire agricultural value chain: break down earth observation data in real time, in formats that are accessible to small holder farmers, wherever they are will be the game-changer on food security.
It was therefore a breath of fresh air when NASA committed to work with Governments to make such access a reality.
There is hope definitely in looking up to the stars, but the stars must also begin to speak in a language familiar to farmers, if we are to meet our food demands.
