Agricultural Information Management System - AIMS
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat organized on 1st and 2nd September 2020 a Virtual Regional Validation Workshop for the SADC Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS) Strategy. With the validation of the Strategy, SADC Member States have taken a big step forward not only to improve timely reporting of official statistics, but to also address the data demand for monitoring National Development Plans, global and regional policies including SADC Regional Agricultural Policy (RAP), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).
The validation workshop on SADC AIMS Strategy was attended by a total number of 92 participants of whom 13 from International Organizations and 79 from SADC Member States, represented by 50 Experts from Ministries of Agriculture (MA) and 29 National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This Strategy intends not only to ease the flow of agricultural information, but to also strengthen the existing governance structure within the SADC Statistical System as well as SADC Agricultural Statistical System.
The establishment of a governance structure is essential to ensure effective coordination and cooperation among all relevant stakeholders, including the SADC Secretariat, different government departments and non-governmental actors, at all and between all levels. In that regard, the coordination will follow two governance structures working together in synergy, namely one at regional level and another at national level.
At national level, the governance structure consists of the National AIMS Technical Committee, AIMS Working Group and six specialized working groups. The first five groups cover the main identified subsectors, namely crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry and natural resources, while the sixth working group will deal with cross-cutting data and statistics. Each working group will be led by a focal person.
At regional level, the governance structure consists exclusively of the Regional AIMS Technical Committee headed by the SADC Secretariat with the support of some representatives from Member States. All the Committees and working groups listed above and part of the governance structure will be governed by specific guidelines and terms of reference. The National AIMS Technical Committees shall report to the National Statistical Committee, while the Regional AIMS Technical Committee will report to both: the SADC Statistical Committee and SADC Ministerial Committee in charge of agriculture issue. This governance structure will make far easier speeding up the flow of data and agricultural information from collection to their use for decision making.
