Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today called for an acceleration in producing better food and agricultural data to ensure progress towards the targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals in the world’s biggest region – Asia and the Pacific.

As the clock ticks towards 2030, the year when the world’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must be achieved, countries are working to improve their systems of statistic-gathering and analyses for better planning in crop, livestock, fisheries and forestry sectors and to better monitor and improve food security.

However, the capacity to adequately monitor and analyse agricultural statistics varies dramatically country-by-country, and no where in the world is that variance more prevalant than in the Asia-Pacific region.

Pietro Gennari, Chief Statistician of FAO, noted the “lack of relevant data is one of the key factors why the world is currently not on track to meet the SDGs, in general, and the SDG targets related to food and agriculture, in particular.”  He acknowledged that the current problems, compounded by the pandemic, paint a daunting picture. However, solutions exist.  “We have to leverage new methods and alternative data sources to complement traditional statistics and generate disaggregated data that ensures we leave no one behind.  We have to scale up investment in statistics and convince decision-makers and donors to stop treating statistics like an afterthought, ” said Gennari.

Special Commission convenes in Ulaanbaatar to address the gaps

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations today opened the 29^th Session of the Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS), in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The Commission Session runs from 22-25 November and is being held as a virtual session, for the first time in history, to address pandemid related cross-border restrictions. It is hosted by the Government of Mongolia with around 200 participants from some 30 countries and 10 international and regional organizations attending.

Focusing on the specific needs of food and agricultural statistics of Asia-Pacific, this biennial meeting of agricultural statisticians and experts reviews and support the region’s preparedness to produce adequate statistics to monitor progress towards the 2030 SDG targets.

What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done: The urgency for statistics in the progress to end hunger

Food insecurity plays an important role as a determinant of many different forms of hunger and malnutrition. The majority of the world’s hungry, and children affected by stunting, live in Asia. Hunger has increased in many of its countries. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed that the world was not on track to meet many of the SDG targets, in part due to conflicts, climate change and socio-economic equalities. The pandemic has put the world even further behind, with over half the world’s undernourished – 418 million people- found in Asia in 2020

Vinod Ahuja, FAO Representative to Mongolia, stated, “FAO estimates that between 729 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – around 118 million more than in 2019. This increase is more than the populations of Bhutan, Fiji, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand and Timor Leste combined. And the pandemic is a key driver of this increase.”

The APCAS meeting provides a platform for Asia Pacific countries to directly engage in drawing attention to their unique challenges in development of food and agricultural statistics such as geographical remoteness, changing cropping patterns and livestock rearing due to climate change and transboundary diseases, and limited statistical infrastructure and resources.

“Already one-third of the way into the 15 year Agenda 2030, there are nearly half a billion hungry people in the world, signficant global supply chain disruptions including in the food supply chain, record public debt, and ongoing challenges in containing the pandemic,”   said Sangita Dubey, FAO’s Regional Statistician for Asia and the Pacific.  “We must strengthen partnerships among governments, international organizations and the private sector to produce better data to inform decisions and policies that adress these critical issues.”

The pandemic saw better data and technology used to target effective decisions and policies

FAO pointed out that the pandemic has induced innovations to produce real time data and analytics using new technologies. Real-time and internationally comparable data on COVID-19 cases and fatalities led to effective and targeted measures, identifying what containment policies worked in different situations, and identifying high-risk and vulnerable groups for priority vaccinations and income supports.

In agriculture and food statistics, The APCAS session will review new approaches to developing an integrated system of Agricultural Census and Surveys, and the use of technology-driven data sources, such as satellite data and internet-scraped food prices. “These new data sources provide a way to produce better statistics – more timely, relevant, disaggregated and cost-effective – while respecting COVID-19 containment constraints,” said Sangita Dubey, FAO Regional Statistician and Secretary of the Commission.

The recommendations of APCAS will serve as a guide and lay down priorities for FAO for the next two years in its effort towards building capacity of countries to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Background:

The Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics is a statutory body of FAO with a mandate to review the state of food and agricultural statistics in the region and advise member countries on their development and standardization within the general framework of FAO’s statistics work.

Membership
As per the Statute of the Commission, Membership of the Commission is open to all Member Nations of FAO and Associate Members whose territories are situated wholly or partly in the Asia and Pacific Region or who are responsible for the international relations of any non-self-governing territories in the Region. Current members include: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, People’s Republic of China, Fiji, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russian Federation, Samoa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tonga, United Kingdom, United States and Viet Nam.

For more information on APCAS, please visit:http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-events/ess-apcas and 29th session : http://www.apcas29.com

Media Contacts:

1. FAO – Tselmeg Chuluunbaatar, Communication and visibility coordinator 
2. FAO – Allan Dow, Regional Communication Officer
3. National Statistics Office of Mongolia – Khulan Batkhuyga, Principal advisor