From Building Foundations to Sustaining Impact
Over the past decade, food crises, climate change, and market volatility have highlighted the urgent need for reliable, timely, and comparable agricultural and rural statistics. Many developing countries continue to face structural gaps in their statistical systems, constraining their ability to design, implement, and monitor effective policies for food security, livelihoods, and sustainable development.
The Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS) was established to respond to these challenges. It helps countries build resilient, sustainable, and policy-relevant agricultural statistical systems that support both national planning and global development frameworks.
Phase 1 (2012–2018) laid the foundation for modern agricultural statistics by developing internationally endorsed methodologies, training materials, and technical-assistance packages.
Phase 2 (2021–2024) shifted from research to practice. It aimed to translate the investments of Phase 1 into strengthened institutional capacity to produce and use data at country level. It also addressed the need to report against international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), and played a pivotal role in preparing participating countries for the 50×2030 Initiative to Close the Agricultural Data Gap.
Phase 3 (2024–2027), GSARS3, builds directly on these results. It expands technical assistance and capacity development to additional countries in Africa and introduces support for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, in collaboration with the FAO Sub-Regional Office, Pacific Community (SPC) and other regional partners.
GSARS3 focuses on capacity development, data use, and dissemination, ensuring that the progress achieved in previous phases leads to self-sustaining national statistical systems capable of delivering high-quality data for evidence-based decision-making.
