Making it count: Evaluating FAO's statistical activities
Sound and timely statistics are key to inform decisions, policies and investments that tackle issues related to food and agriculture, from hunger and malnutrition to rural poverty, from food systems productivity to the sustainable use of natural resources or to climate change.
FAO is dedicated to collecting, analysing, interpreting and disseminating food and agriculture statistics that are relevant for decision-making. It is for this reason that developing and implementing methodologies and standards to assist countries in generating sound data and information is at the core of FAO’s statistical work.
FAO also supports member countries in the collection, dissemination and uptake of data to formulate policies and plans or to better orient investments.
⦿ The evaluation of FAO's statistical work found that statistics remain core to FAO’s overall work. Members demand for data to support SDG indicator implementation and the use of statistics in policy-making has increased. FAO’s profile has been raised through its methodological work on the SDG indicators and outreach work on national standards.
⦿ The final evaluation of the project 'Cross-cutting: Targeted support for agricultural statistical innovation at FAO' found that the project design successfully identified and addressed relevant issues concerned with the production, availability and use of agricultural and food security statistics, and with investment in the sector and that all four components of the project largely achieved their objectives. The report also makes a number of recommendations intended to inform the design and implementation of similar projects in the future.
⦿ The evaluation of the Global Strategy to Improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (GSARS) found the involvement of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific brought about various benefits such as enhancing the linkages between the programme activities and FAO normative work, and tailoring the global knowledge in the local context. For the second phase, the evaluation recommended a strategic shift from data generation to data use, especially by policymakers; and from narrowly-defined agriculture to the nexus between agriculture and rural development.