FAO Drought Finance Tracker – Consultation meeting

 

Background

FAO is implementing the “Enabling Activities for Implementing UNCCD COP Drought Decisions” project, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and jointly executed with UNCCD. The objective of the project is to enable the UNCCD Parties to implement relevant decisions on drought and support the countries in implementing national drought plans for enhanced preparedness. 

Enhancing countries’ capacities to monitor drought finance is a crucial approach to strengthen drought preparedness at the country level. Improving the understanding of global financial flows enables more effective allocation of resources, targeted interventions, and informed decision-making, ultimately enhancing resilience and supporting a paradigm shift from reactive to proactive drought management. 

Aware of this, FAO developed the "Drought Finance Tracker" a global tool for monitoring and assessing drought finance flows. Based on the climate-related development finance dataset assembled by OECD covering the years 2000-2020, the Drought Finance Tracker encompasses a drought-specific mapping of projects and provides aggregate numeric and visual analyses of them. The filtering of the dataset to include only records pertinent to drought-related projects was a key challenge encountered during the tool's development. This step is essential to ensure the accuracy of the statistics and visualizations generated by the Tracker. 

Towards this objective, artificial intelligence-based algorithms and automating information mining processes are being employed, under the collaboration with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME). 

Objectives

The consultation meeting aims to discuss the progress in the development of the tool. The consultation will gather experts from the technical partner and relevant FAO units to present the employed approach and gain feedback on the application of AI-based algorithms and automated information mining processes. The discussion will provide valuable insights to enhance the tool's application for the analysis of data and evidence in the agriculture and food security domains. 

The consultation meeting will take place towards the following objectives: 

• raise awareness on the importance of effectively monitoring and assessing drought finance flows for informed decision-making and policy formulation in tackling drought-related challenges;
• collect feedback on the usability, functionality, and potential enhancements of the Drought Finance Tracker;
• foster partnerships for further data refinement and continuous improvement. 

Full agenda

WEDNESDAY 29 MAY 2024

• 09:00-09:10: Welcoming remarks   Maher Salman
• 09:10-09:15: Tour de table
• 09:15-09:30: Introduction of the drought project (Phase 1) and collaboration with BME – Ms Eva Pek, NSL (FAO)
• 09:30–09:45: The Drought Finance Tracker: the development approach – Ms Camilla Simongini and Mr Kornel Kalman, NSL (FAO)
• 09:45-10:00: The Drought Finance Tracker: live demonstration – Ms Camilla Simongini and Mr Kornel Kalman, NSL (FAO)
• 10:00-10:30: Q&A
• 10:30-11:00: Break
• 11:00-11:20: Mapping drought-related projects: Identification of drought-related projects using machine learning techniques  – BME
• 11:20-11:40: Mapping drought-related projects: establishment of the database – BME
• 11:40-12:15: Q&A   
• 12:15–13:15: Lunch
• 13:15–13:35: Building a knowledge base: extracting insights from drought projects – BME
• 13:35-13:45: Q&A
• 13:45-14:05: From data to action: generating case studies based on information processing – BME
• 14:05-14:30: Q&A
• 14:30-15:00: Break
• 15:00:15:20: Establishing a roadmap for scalable information extraction from future drought projects – BME
• 15:20-15:30: Q&A
• 15:30-15:45: Insight exchange: sharing learning from the day
• 15:45-16:00: Conclusion of the day – Mr Maher Salman, NSL (FAO)

THURSDAY 30 MAY 2024

• 09:00-09:10: Introduction of the drought project (Phase 2) – NSL (FAO)
• 09:10-09:30: Incorporating the developed methodology with the Drought Finance Tracker – Open discussion
• 09:30-09:45: Insights recap and takeaways – Open discussion
• 09:45–10:05: Fostering collaboration for impact: challenges in stakeholder engagement – Open discussion
• 10:05-10:20: Insights recap and takeaways – Open discussion
• 10:20-10:45: Break
• 10:45-11:15: Advancing the development of the tool – BME & NSL, FAO
• 11:15-12:00: Further steps for the collaboration – BME & NSL, FAO
• 12:00-12:15: Way forward and conclusions – Mr Maher Salman, NSL (FAO)