Pietro Aldobrandini
| Organization | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) |
|---|---|
| Organization type | International Organization |
| Organization role |
Knowledge Management Specialist
|
| Country | Italy |
| Area of Expertise |
Knowledge Management Specialist
|
I am a Knowledge Management Specialist consultant in the Office for Partnerships and Communications at FAO. More specifically, I work for the e-Agriculture community of practice. I successfully completed postgraduate studies in Marketing and Communications and graduate studies in History and Sociology. I speak Spanish, English, French and Italian. I have a large experience with international NGOs and FAO, working at headquarters as well as in field locations, in particular in French-speaking West African countries.
Recently, I have worked for five months for the FAO Family Farming Knowledge Platform team for which I conducted a research to identify the main trends on Laws & Policies related to family farming.
This member participated in the following Forums
Forum Experience capitalization and good or promising practices on the use of ICTS for Agriculture
Preguntas y respuestas - En Español
Forum Forum ICTs for Resilience
Do you have concrete examples of successful use of ICTs in resilience? (November 30th)
Dear all, to answer the second question of the forum on ICTs for Resilience, "Do you have concrete examples of successful use of ICTs in resilience?" I am going to present the SWALIM SMS-based warning system based in Somalia. I think this is a good example of how ICTs can help overcome challenges such as civil insecurity and help build resilience against natural hazards.
Somalia is located in the Horn of Africa, has a land area of 62 734 000 Ha (hectares); the country has been in conflict for over 25 years, experiences ongoing civil insecurity and faces recurrent localized drought and flood conditions. Due to decades of civil strife, many parts of Somalia are not easily accessible and the natural resources of the country have largely been unmanaged and unprotected - and are thus being diminished and degraded.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) initiated the Somalia Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM) programme that serves Somali government institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), development agencies and UN bodies engaged in assisting Somali communities whose lives and livelihoods depend directly on water and land resources. The programme aims to provide high-quality water and land information, crucial to relief, rehabilitation and development initiatives in Somalia. The use of ICTs to accelerate, improve and multiply the effects of this work has been a hallmark of the programme since the beginning in the early years of this century and remains a key component.
In anticipation of the effects of heavy El Niño rains in late 2015, predicted to be one of the strongest and most destructive in history, SWALIM developed an SMS-based mobile phone application to capture information about impending flood situations and to warn vulnerable communities along the Juba and Shabelle rivers. This system, known as FRISC/Digniin, was also used to alert fishing vessels and coastal communities when two cyclones swept across the northern coast of Puntland in December 2015, saving lives and averting severe property damage.
The first climate data sent to FRISC was on Wednesday, October 14th 2015. SWALIM collects data sent by SMS on a daily basis to collect climate data from weather stations in Somalia. The system will be in use for as long as the data collected from those manual stations is needed. It will eventually be transferred to the Somalia government, together with other SWALIM systems.
The FRISC/Digniin system is a good example of how development projects can overcome constraints brought on through war and insecurity by leveraging technology. The complex security situation in Somalia led the SWALIM team to think of a way to monitor rainfall and river levels and inform the population on El Niño threats remotely. Through a technology as simple as SMS (combined with a web-based server and a team of experts), a project like this can contribute to saving thousands of lives, as well as water and land resources.
The FRISC/Digniin system is now being adapted and expanded to gather rainfall data throughout Somaliland and Puntland, as well as in the central and southern areas of the country where it is already established.
SWALIM website: www.faoswalim.org
What is resilience and how can ICTs help resilience programmes or projects? (28 th november)
Thank you Mr Ahmed and Mrs Alice for opening the debate. While economic resilience in agriculture is the ability to return to growth after a sudden and / or sustained downturn, it is clear that the use of ICTs in some agricultural areas plays a major role in the resilience of this sector. Indeed, if we take the example of the accessibility of agricultural inputs at the level of farmers in African countries (to speak only of what I think I know), the use of ICTs in the use of Electronic vouchers or electronic reading, provides access to quality inputs to the private sector distribution network without causing market distortion and ensuring the traceability of commercial transactions. As such, one can speak of resilience to the extent that many state programs of "promotion of agricultural inputs" have failed and to the extent that the lack of traceability and "price truth" turn the farmers towards a decline in their profitability. On the other hand, in accessibility and subsidy programs for inputs using ICTs such as electronic vouchers and computerized traceability platforms, farmers were able to significantly improve their incomes through the use of quality inputs, at the right price, available at the right time while having access to agricultural advice (state or private) in order to make the best use of them. They have therefore resumed the path of growth after years and years of stagnation, see economic regression.