CountrySTAT: monitoring trends and making better policies starts here

If you are a researcher, student, journalist or policy maker looking for country-specific data, FAO provides many resources offering exactly this. One of these resources is CountrySTAT, an online database of food and agriculture statistics at regional, national and subnational levels. CountrySTAT allows users to access data in various formats such as maps, tables and charts that can be inserted directly into reports.

National institutions can sometimes find it challenging to regularly disseminate official statistics concerning food and agriculture. CountrySTAT strengthens the ability of national statisticians to harmonize data coming from various local sources by providing a common methodology and international classification and coding systems. It also assists countries in integrating and organizing their national statistics to make them internationally comparable.

With the overall goal of helping countries monitor food and agriculture trends in an effort to implement better policies, CountrySTAT can:

• Reduce the burden of questionnaires by facilitating electronic data collection;
• Assist institutions in data management by reinforcing national statistical capacities;
• Support data analysis and evidence-based decision making.

CountrySTAT uses open source, state-of-the-art technologies and is supported by technical experts in FAO. National teams manage their system through an easy-to-use Content Management System that offers a customizable user interface.

For more information about the data included in CountrySTAT or to inquire on how CountrySTAT has supported so far  national and/or regional data management and dissemination needs, you can visit their website at http://www.fao.org/in-action/countrystat/en/