SAMIS project closing event
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, has organized the Closing event of the GEF project “Strengthening agro-climatic monitoring and information systems to adaptation to climate change and food security in Lao PDR”, which we also known as the SAMIS project. The event took place in Vientiane Province and at the Don Palace Hotel on December 5 and 6, 2022.
SAMIS is a crucial part of FAO’s work in Lao PDR. It directly contributes to the FAO Country Programming Framework as well as to the 9th National Socio-Economic Development Plan. The project includes the famous apps Lao Climate Services for Farmers – or LaCSA for short – which is available as a website as well as an Android and Apple app with over 100.000 users. The project has also developed the Land Resource Information Management Systems or LRMIS, which now includes an Android application, facilitates data-sharing and decision making. The pyAEZ software financed through SAMIS allows to produce advanced modelling of crop “potential futures”. In addition, the first Climate and Agro-Climate Atlas of Lao PDR, and the Atlas of Farmers Livelihood and Climate Risk have been developed
The event lasted two days and included a field visit to the Feung District where the project has been working for the last few years. In addition, during the event the Standard Operating Procedures for Agro-Meteorology have been signed. The SOP is an important regulation that states roles and responsibilities related to LaCSA data, input and information distribution, and training for all MAF and MONRE departments responsible for the tool.
Entities such as CIAT, AIT, CCAFS, the University of Utrecht, and the FAO HQ GIS section participated to the regional broadcasting of the event. Invitations to the event have been distributed to over 20 countries.
Finally, our meeting today is also an important opportunity to reflect on challenges and solutions to ensure that apps continue to operate successfully beyond its closure. A new project titled “Scaling up climate-responsive planning and decision making for resilient agriculture and livelihoods in Lao PDR”, will have a financing budget of 16 million dollars and will be financed by the GCF, is scheduled to begin in 2024.
Vice-Minister Mr. Chanthanet Bualapha, representing MONRE at the meeting,explained that is important to develop easy to use tool om meteorology and agrometeorology for the benefit of farmers.
Vice-Minister Mr. Thongphat Vongmany, representing MONRE at the meeting,explained that the uses of the tools of SAMIS have the potential to contribute further to the attaining of the targets of the 9th NSEPD
Mr. Nasar Hayat, FAO Representative, highlighted during the conference that the purpose of the workshop is to maximize discussions and cooperation for the accomplishment of national agricultural sector development goals.
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Information about SAMIS are available here: http://www.fao.org/in-action/samis
LaCSA is available at: https://www.lacsa.net/
LRMIS is available at: https://lrims-dalam.net/