Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Re: Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition - Online consultation on the V0 Draft of the Report proposed by the HLPE Steering Committee and the Project Team

Feedback of SEWA

In the global south, the family farmers who are small and marginal farmers have larger contribution but do not have access to technology or infrastructure and therefore can’t afford access to the technologies. As a result, informal sector relevant data collection, dissemination and usage framework needs to be developed.

Feedback and suggestions by SEWA from the perspective of informal sector women worker’s contribution in the food supply chain.

  1. The table of conceptual framework on page 16 needs to cover member-based organisations and farmers organisations under the translate and disseminate field and use findings to make decision field.
  2. The example of a conceptual framework table for vegetable / grain / pulses may need to be included to better understand the system. This shall also cover all sources of food supply and not only specific government schemes where the data gathering sources are specific.
  3. Informal sector workers and their organisations need to be included both in urban and rural areas to bring out their contribution in the food supply chain and their consumption patterns as consumers in the entire framework including data dissemination and decision making.
  4. Gender disaggregated data needs to be collected at each stage of the supply chain. The data transmission should also reach to informal sector workers in their understandable language which can help them make information-based decisions.
  5. The new technologies producing and processing data relevant to FSN needs to be informal sector and women user friendly. This means it needs to be accessible to small and marginal farmers. The small and marginal farmers shall afford it and be able to actively use it in their small fields and informal sector in entire food supply chain.
  6. To access new technology, infrastructure needs be created in rural areas of developing countries which can map the smallest individual villages for weather information, pest information, irrigation status and crop loss data gathering for insurance which are part of the food supply chain. The infrastructure will cover the electricity, sensing stations, mapping availability of affordable accessible local population friendly tools and equipment and capacity building institutes.
  7. To make these tools inclusive, infrastructure investments need be allocated specifically in rural areas.
  8. To ensure that the framework and tools are used by the supply chain actors of the informal sector to gather data, the ownership and knowledge of usage is important and thus local rural and urban women and youth from informal sector need to be included in the process of creation of such facility and need to be given tasks through their member-based organisation to create such database and infrastructure e.g. in mapping of villages, installing infrastructure, data hubs, using of new technology.
  9. Skill building programmes need to be designed for informal sector workers in the food supply chain who can use such technology and gather authentic and relevant data and information and can benefit from data driven infrastructure investment.
  10. The system shall bring out the contribution of women in the food supply chain, remove the digital and gender divide which can help to make policies for bringing equal status, accessibility and ownership to women workers of food supply chain.
  11. The new framework shall fill in the digital gap and divide to ensure the accessibility affordability and ownership to get authentic and relevant data. Women have a larger contribution in the informal sector and thus women friendly (affordable, access and infrastructure) needs to be considered in the framework.