Posts focused on Agriculture

In developing the VIFAA Kenya Dashboard, we worked in partnership with Africafertilizer.org (AFO) and the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) to understand the cycle of demand, supply, and use of Kenya’s fertilizer data. Grace Chilande of AFO and IDFC provides more information on why the dashboard is needed and how it will be used.

We are thrilled to announce that the Visualizing Insights for African Agriculture (VIFAA) Kenya Fertilizer Dashboard is now live! From fertilizer price to consumption, this dashboard makes Kenya’s fertilizer data easier to access, use, and share for national and county level decision making

In advance of the first VIFAA country dashboard launch next week, we will explore the importance and source of accurate and reliable data for each of the indicators. This is a crucial step in making data available in a way that stakeholders can use to inform their decisions. 

Finding reliable agriculture data in sub-Saharan Africa is often difficult. If available at all, data is usually fragmented and tucked away in silos within government ministries or closely held by private companies. It is also significantly delayed or in a format that makes analysis difficult. For stakeholders who need information for decision making, a lack of reliable data is a significant barrier. The Visualizing Insights on Fertilizer for African Agriculture (VIFAA) program is working towards making fertilizer-related data, a key subset of agriculture data, more accessible to stakeholders for decision making.

The COVID-19 Africa Fertilizer Watch Dashboard, covering 28 countries across sub-Saharan Africa was launched today. This dashboard uses 11 indicators to track COVID-19 country-specific mitigation measures on the delivery & use of fertilizers to identify impacts on productivity & food security across the continent. The goal of this dashboard is to support efficient and effective responses to the evolving global health emergency, and ensure that sufficient and appropriate fertilizers reach farmers. 

The timely availability of high-quality, affordable seeds is critical to improving food security, resilience, and livelihoods for smallholder farmers in Africa. In partnership with TASAI, Inc., DG is proud to announce the launch of the TASAI VISTA program.

The Government of Malawi’s National Agriculture Investment Plan and existing M&E framework outlines priority areas for measuring results – however, currently there is no system for measuring progress against these goals. Without the ability to measure progress, how can we evaluate policy effectiveness? In Malawi, the government has recognized that an M&E management information system

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population has grown by 11 million people a year for the past 60 years – for a total of about 670 million people since 1950. Mortality rates have declined, fertility rates have risen – but what does a shifting demographic dividend mean for keeping up with food security? Though fertilizer consumption in Sub-Saharan Africa makes

In late September, in preparation for the release of USAID’s new Development Data Library (DDL), Development Gateway (DG) and the USAID Data Services Team visited USAID staff and implementing partners in Nepal and Cambodia. During their visit, the Data Services Team and DG hosted a workshop to introduce partners to the new DDL platform through

Development actors, ourselves included, talk a lot about the importance of opening up datasets and building interoperability in order to leverage the power of collective data – but often without clarity on what meaningful collaboration and sharing actually requires in practice. For example, what can a livestock project in Nepal and a rice project in Cambodia learn from each