The Regional Office for the Near East of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will organize in collaboration with The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (Food Security Information Centre FSIC) a regional workshop on the “Establishment of Pilot Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information Mapping System (FIVIMS)” on 16 December 2009 at 9 a.m at Ramsis Hilton Hotel (Ramsis Hall). 

The regional workshop will be attended by officials from different ministries, organizations and private sector. 

The objective of the workshop is to demonstrate the achievement of the FIVIMS project in which FAO and FSIC collaborate in the area of food security. FAO assisted FSIC by technical support in installing workstation, created website for FSIC, supplied equipment and training program support. 

The workstation is a web-based, independent and integrated data management system designed to support the analytical capacity of national institutions in terms of food security policy formulation and emergency interventions. All the workstations installed at key institutions in different governorates form a network across which information can be shared directly. 

Different training programs have been conducted during the course of the project. Such training programs are data collection for male extension; household food security for female extensions working at rural extension; operation of the workstation. 

It is worth to note that FAO and FSIC had so far conducted three workshops in the area of food security.