NAIROBI, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- A Joint initiative aimed at ending hunger in 50 countries globally by the year 2030 through use of data generation has been launched, a Senior World Bank official announced.
The initiative by a coalition of donors and low income countries is aimed at boosting the productivity and livelihoods of the world's 500 million small-holder farmers in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
"The effort will drive a new era of targeted solutions to food production by smallholder farmers and end extreme poverty and progress toward zero hunger in the face of climate change and population growth," Laura Tuck, Vice President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank said in a statement issued in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Tuck said that the initiative is an ambitious effort to conduct regular surveys of farming households in 50 low and lower-middle-income countries by 2030.
"We're witnessing today a fundamental transformation of food systems in developing countries, with rising incomes, changing consumption patterns and the emergence of more business-oriented small- and medium-scale farmers," said Tuck.
She observed that by making agricultural data more readily available in 50 low-income countries, the initiative stands to help accelerate this transformation, to boost sustainable food production and allow farmers to thrive.
"Kenya welcomes the cooperation shown today, to work with 50 countries in supporting millions of smallholder farmers," said William Ruto, Kenya's Deputy President.
Ruto said that through President Kenyatta's Big 4 Agenda, the country is committed to achieving food security and job creation through agriculture.
He said that this goal will be realized with the incorporation of better data as a key to driving Kenya's transformation and growth.
The initiative comes in the wake of new alarming numbers that hunger levels have risen for three consecutive years, and send a signal that the development community is committed to ensuring its interventions lead to results.
It seeks to make data, combined with other information sources, widely available to guide governments to make evidence-based decisions to increase agricultural productivity.
It will include 30 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 10 from Asia, and 10 from Latin America and the Caribbean.
"Accurate data is key to helping these countries take the lead in their own agricultural growth and development progress," said the World Bank statement.
The statement said that basic agricultural data, such as the different crop varieties farmers are planting, how much they are harvesting, and their access to inputs and financing, are often missing in developing countries.
It noted that donors are contributing to the initial data collection efforts, but the 50 countries will co-finance the initiative over time.
Recent assessments of available agriculture data show that, in SSA in particular, basic statistics from the farm sector are often incomplete or unreliable. Only two out of 44 countries in the region are deemed to have high-quality agriculture data.
The Integrated Surveys on Agriculture that is part of the World Bank's Living Standards and Measurement Study and the AGRISurvey from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will provide the foundation for the initiative's data collection efforts.
Experts from the World Bank and FAO will supervise much of the technical work.
The World Bank, FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are amongst the key partners of the new initiative.
