Strengthening Agro-climatic Monitoring and Information System (SAMIS)

Overview

The project builds on the National Adaptation Plan for Action (NAPA) to address the urgent needs for climate change adaptation in the Lao PDR agricultural sector. For this, is supported by the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) of the Global Environment Fund (GEF).

The project is implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the relevant Ministries. The Department of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH) of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) is the lead national entity and the Department of Agricultural Land Management (DALaM) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forest (MAF) is responsible for Component 2.

More specifically, the project framework consists of three components

  1. Strengthening agro-climatic monitoring, analysis, communication and use of data and information
    for decision making in agriculture and food security.
  2. Strengthening institutional and technical capacity for monitoring and analysis of agriculture production systems including food security vulnerability and development of Land Resources Information Management Systems (LRIMS) and Agro-Ecological Zoning (AEZ).
  3. Knowledge management and dissemination of information and lessons learned for planning, monitoring and evaluation.

The main barriers the project will address include:

  • Lack of quality and high resolution data on climate change impact on agriculture resources (land, soils, water and crops) under different scenarios.
  • Limited socio-economic vulnerability and risk information to support CC adaptation options appraisal.
  • Requirements for customised information management, hardware, software and capacity development to support frameworks for environmental and social vulnerability scenarios.
  • Lack of integrated information to support decision-making processes, trade-offs and options appraisal to support decisions at all levels to support interventions, planning and policy development.