Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF), National Director for Food Security and Cooperation (DNSAC) of MAF, Catalpa International officials and FAO Timor-Leste representatives have gathered for the hand-over ceremony of the Suco Level food security Monitoring System (SLMS) database and application held on the 7^th of May in Dili.

The SLMS is an online web application used by MAF for the collection of monthly food security information across all Timor-Leste’s 423 rural Sucos. The platform is designed to provide reliable, timely and updated food security information to decision makers so that appropriate mitigating and coordinated actions can be taken to improve the food and nutrition security of the local population. This will contribute to food security through more effective agriculture and rural development policies and programs.

The SLMS server and application was developed with the support of Catalpa, a local service provider, and is designed to be capable of responding to the Ministry of Agriculture need for other data management such as M&E or specific surveys. MAF and FAO are currently using the SLMS platform for its ‘Pro-Resilience’ project impact evaluation survey, using tablets for field data collection.

MAF Director General, Dr. Maria Odete do Céu Guterres, highlighted the importance of timely food security information for decision makers and said that ‘MAF is therefore committed to operate and maintain the SLMS system across all its rural Suco. At the ceremony, MAF signed a 3 years agreement with Catalpa International for the on-line registration and maintenance of the SLMS server and application.

Assistant FAO Representative, Ms. Paula Lopes da Cruz presented her appreciation to the European Union representative for their support. She highlighted that the sustainability of the SLMS system will depend on the demand from users, saying that, ‘the role of KONSSANTIL is essential in this process to ensure the food security bulletins produced using SLMS data are effectively used by decision makers’. She underlined the importance for the Ministry to maximize the use of the application capabilities to support the data management requirements of other Directorates.