Posts categorized Explainer

Healthy Farming, Healthy Planet: The Environmental Case Against Tobacco Farming

While all agriculture has an environmental impact, tobacco is unique in that every stage of the tobacco lifecycle–from the production and consumption of tobacco to farming and disposal of the final product–wreaks havoc on the environment. In this piece, we’ll introduce the lifecycle of producing and using tobacco and explore the requisite environmental impact.

September 6, 2024 Agriculture, Health
Explainer
Fertilizer Technical Working Groups Provide Key Insights into Africa’s Fertilizer Sector

From June 2021 to September 2022, Development Gateway: An IREX Venture’s (DG’s) Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program convened 12 Fertilizer Technical Working Groups in 14 countries which have yielded essential information on Africa’s fertilizer sector, including insights on how geopolitical events have impacted the fertilizer sector and what is needed to mitigate resulting threats to food security throughout Africa.

May 4, 2023 Agriculture
Explainer, Program
The Cashew-IN Platform: An Assessment of the Cashew Sectors in Five Countries (Part 2)

In the first part of this blog series, we discussed the CALM assessment of the cashew data ecosystem, key findings from the assessment, and how DG is using the findings as well as partner and stakeholder feedback to guide the development of the Cashew-IN platform, a website that will facilitate access to and use of data to improve decision-making for policymakers, farmers, and the private sector. In this blog, we will look at the indicators on the Cashew-IN platform and what the data is telling us about the cashew sector more broadly.

April 27, 2023 Agriculture
Explainer, Program
The Cashew-IN Platform: A Deep Dive on Designing to Meet Stakeholder Needs (Part 1)

The Cashew-IN program, which DG started in partnership with Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture in 2020, conducted a landscape assessment of the data in the cashew sectors of five countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria. The assessment findings will inform the Cashew-IN platform, a website that the program is developing to facilitate use of data in order to improve decision-making for policymakers, farmers, and the private sector. In this blog (part 1 of 2), we explore the assessment process, findings, and how stakeholders plan to use the platform.

April 25, 2023 Agriculture
Explainer, Program
Nigeria’s Changing NPK Market (Part 2)

In their second blog exploring Nigeria’s changing fertilizer market, Vinisha Bhatia-Murdach and Scott Wallace dive deep into the details of the NPK fertilizer market and explore how Nigeria became a leader in this space. They also discuss why the VIFAA Nigeria dashboard is an important part of ensuring access to information at each point in fertilizer supply chain.

October 4, 2022 Agriculture
Data Use, Explainer
Thinking of Investing in a Data Ecosystem for Sustainable Development?

Many factors must be considered before investing in a data ecosystem for sustainable development, including the objective of the assessment, the focus level, and specific goals for data outputs. IREX’s Jesus Melendez Vicente and DG’s Carmen Cañas would like to share a few insights and questions to help you get started, including a curated list of tools for data ecosystem assessments.

September 27, 2022
Data Use, Explainer, IREX
Exploring Digital Transformation & Emerging Technology

Our final episode of "Data… for What!?" about our strategic plan Josh Powell speaks with Fernando Ferrayra and Annie Kilroy about digital transformation, ways to center the user, and our approach to emerging technologies.

September 20, 2022 Process & Tools
Explainer
Improving Land and Crop Use Data in Nigeria – The VIFAA Innovation Fund

Our Visualizing Insights for Fertilizer in African Agriculture (VIFAA) Program launched an Innovation Fund to address data shortages relating to total crop production. Building on its track record of mapping land cover, Quantitative Engineering Design (QED) was selected to tackle the challenge of mapping Nigeria’s croplands. Through the Innovation Fund, DG and partners will use the resulting data and maps to answer two questions: (a) what is the total cropland under production in Nigeria and (b) what is the cropland under production by crop type.

September 14, 2022 Agriculture
Data Use, Explainer
Photo by Markus Winkler via Unsplash
Nigeria’s Changing Fertilizer Sector (Part 1)

In the past decade, there has been over $7 billion worth of private-sector investments into Nigeria’s agriculture sector. Why, and what is the impact of these investments? What does it mean for Nigerian farmers? In this blog, we explore these and other changes happening in the Nigerian fertilizer market.

September 7, 2022 Agriculture
Data Use, Explainer
Geography: Expanding & Deepening DG’s Regional Footprint

In Episode 3 of "Data… for What?!", Development Gateway’s new podcast, we explore how we are prioritizing our geographical focus in the coming years. Conversations with Vanessa Baudin Sanchez, Carmen Cañas, and Charlene Migwe-Kagume highlighted the opportunities and challenges of expanding our portfolio in Central America and deepening our work and partnerships in West, East, and Southern Africa.

August 23, 2022
Data Use, Explainer