Regional Workshop: Piloting new approaches for long-term sustainability of ASTI (Accra, Ghana)

From 25 to 28 November, the Statistics Division (ESS) and the Office of Innovation (OIN) of FAO will organize a workshop in Accra, Ghana to start discussing the regional implementation and preparation of the upcoming ASTI pilots in Sub-Saharan Africa.  

As the agency responsible for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology Indicators (ASTI), a global leading programme in compiling and analyzing agricultural research data, FAO is conducting a series of workshops in selected countries where FAO and ASTI partners will start the ASTI implementation phase. The outcomes of the pilot will serve as a critical input to designing the ASTI survey for the global roll out in 2025.

The workshop will convene key regional and national stakeholders to introduce them to the ASTI methodology and procedures as well as initiate dialogues between national agricultural research institutes (NARIs) and the national statistical office (NSO). These dialogues aim to unveil and present the new data collection approach while deliberating on and exploring strategies for effective integration of ASTI into National Statistical System (NSS) mechanisms, a crucial step for providing collecting agencies with a clear mandate, ensuring quality, and official validation of the data.

Objectives:

The specific objectives of the workshop are to:

• Introduce the ASTI program and its new operational mechanisms. 
• Discuss strategies to enhance the institutionalization of ASTI and to maximize policy uptake of ASTI outputs at the national level. 
• Present and discuss key findings and the lessons learnt from ASTI country pilots, as well as recommendations for the global rollout. 
• Initiate and promote dialogue among country and regional stakeholders with a view to build a common understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the new approaches and in global data reporting as of 2025. 
• Train participants on the ASTI methodology, data processing and visualizations. 
• Discuss and agree on the work plan for implementing the ASTI data collection in each country, including a series of activities to be carried out during the in-country data collection. 

The workshop will be co-organized by FAO and the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), partnering with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA).