Statistical Capacity Development
One of the key missions of FAO is to support member countries develop the capacity of their statistical systems and enable them to collect, analyze, disseminate and use relevant, reliable and timely data. By strengthening countries’ capacity in this area, FAO contributes to make available key analytical and decision-making support tools for national, regional and global evidence-based actions.
How can national governments request capacity development assistance?
National governments should discuss on an ongoing basis their statistical capacity development needs and priorities directly with their FAO country office. These needs and priorities will usually be reflected in the Country programming framework (CPF) and support will be planned in consultation with the relevant technical units and regional or sub-regional statisticians. If assistance requests are raised, the FAO country office will contact the relevant technical divisions and regional or sub-regional statisticians to analyze how the support can be provided.
FAO statistical capacity development activities are funded through:
- Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP)
- Regular programme funds allocated to technical divisions
- Extra-budgetary programmes that support statistical development.
For specific information and inquiries on FAO capacity development programmes, national governments are also encouraged to contact these programmes directly.
Statistical capacity development programmes
Food Balance Sheets
FAO provides technical assistance to countries for the compilation and analysis of their national Supply Utilization Accounts (SUAs) and Food Balances (FBS), including the calculation of the related country’s DES (Dietary Energy Supply) and macronutrient availability.
The technical assistance is based on an application tool which incorporates the new revised methodology for the compilation, imputation and validation of the Food Balance Sheets (FBS) recently developed by the FAO Statistics Division.
Support can be provided through regional and national-level capacity development activities and includes:
- Assessment of the FBS national capacity and data availability;
- Establishment of a Technical Working Group (TWG) composed of key national data providers and users/analysts;
- Highlighting of the links between some FBS variables and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e. SDG 2.1.1 on Prevalence of Undernourishment; SDG 12.3.1 on Global Food Loss Index; SDG 3.5.2 on healthy consumption;
- Technical training on the FAO FBS methodology, overview of the newly developed FBS modules and imputation methodologies;
- Practical exercises on the computation of the SUA/FBS;
- Design and compilation of the national SUA/FBS using the new FBS country compilation tool (R based Shiny app);
- Review and analysis of the finalized national SUA/FBS and of the main results;
- Calculation of some key indicators, such as the import dependency ratio and the self-sufficiency ratio, and draft of a final report.
Related capacity development resources
- Food balance sheets website – Methodology
- Food balance sheets website – Capacity development
- Guidelines for countries for the compilation of Food Balance Sheets (in cooperation with the Global Strategy to improve agricultural and rural statistics) (also available in French)