New web-based monitoring system for the agriculture sector
The Government of Ethiopia is committed to scaling up the system nationwide
A web-based monitoring system, a collaborative partnership project between the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the Government of Ethiopia to strengthen the planning, monitoring and evaluation programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources has been found instrumental to improve the data management system of the agriculture sector.
The web-based monitoring system transforms the planning, monitoring and reporting practice into an improved technology-supported system for the agriculture sector, said Amadou Allahoury Diallo, FAO Representative in Ethiopia. The quality and accessibility of agriculture related information and data gathering, storage, retrieval and sharing would improve, and the accuracy and speed of data collection and sharing for monitoring and decision making would also be ensured, he added.
The experience of data collection from lower level hierarchies of agriculture offices upward to regional and federal levels was not in a structured, coherent and systematized manner. Dependable, accountable and reliable information gathering system was not in place and FAO initiated an implementation of a new web-based e-monitoring system for the agriculture sector The Government of Ethiopia is committed to scaling up the system nationwide information generation and sharing were inconsistent, and difficult to retrieve and access.
The project implementation that targets to address these impediments was initially piloted in 12 weredas (districts) of four major regions selected in consultation with the regions’ Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The Government of Ethiopia, inspired by the successes of the pilot project, and with the financial and technical support from FAO has expanded the web-based e-monitoring system phase by phase to seventy-five woredas in the major regions including Oromia, Amhara, SNNP and Tigray Regional States in 2015. The plan is to cover all regions and weredas within the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) period, a national development plan that coves a period of 2016 – 2020.
When fully implemented in the entire regions, the web-based system will transform the country’s data management system for planning, achievement recording, generating reports, storage, analysis and sharing. This strengthens systematic data sharing from the prescribed sources using up-to-date technologies information and the vertical and horizontal linkages among the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Regional Bureaus of Agriculture and Natural Resources and other relevant institutions. It further strengthens the role and functions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in agriculture data management system and support regions to help them to improve the quality of the data generation, storage and sharing system.
The Web-based system covers five major agriculture sector programmes including agriculture development, livestock development, natural resources management, disaster risk management and food security, and cross programme issues. Specifically, the system captures annual target plan and report including quarterly and monthly, location-specific progress reports, time growth trend analytical reports, plan revision and achievement recording and verification.
The software design and development was completed by Safal IT Solutions, an Indian Company. The well-functioning of the webbased software was tested by local IT experts for online, timely generating of reports by entering agricultural data from its source at the lowest government administration structure. Relevant government staffs at the Ministry of Agriculture and regional bureaus were given training on how to operate the software and manage the system. In turn, the trainers at the region trained more than 300 experts at the zone and wereda levels. Safal IT Solutions transferred knowledge in relation to the developed agriculture webbased e-monitoring system.
The introduction of web-based system for agricultural data management, ensured acquisition of accurate and quality data from defined sources at wereda, zone and regional levels, and improved data processing, storage, analysis, and the generation of quality of reports in a systematized way using information technologies, said Shawel Moreda, FAO Programme and Project Planning Specialist for capacity development and web-based monitoring system project. He added, the government is committed to expanding the system nationwide and have accepted the system’s functionality and already designed an expansion strategy which commenced in 2015.