By Juliana Agbo

As part of her core mandate in strengthening the statistical systems of member countries, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), took its step down training on data generation and analysis to Lagos State.

Participants of the training were drawn from Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) in the state.

The five-day training in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, was held at Dover Hotel, Ikeja from June 21st to 25th 2021.

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The Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) titled: ”Strengthening institutional capacity for improved data and information systems for policy planning and tracking the SDGs in Nigeria”, is aimed at reinforcing the competences of the national MDAs and similar institutions in the selected three states of Cross River, Kano, Lagos States including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on data generation.

Among the expected outputs of the project include training of personnel involved in the duty of data collection and management on general practices of data generation and survey management including open data sources kit technology, provision of relevant tools or Apps to aid actual data collection, management and capacity building on data analysis using cost free data analytical software.

The FAO Country Representative, Fred Kafeero said the stepdown training is coming after two phases of Training of Trainers (ToT) workshops which ensured that competent master trainers emerged for cascading such trainings to other stakeholders from time to time.

Kafeero, who was represented by the project focal point for FAO, Alphonsus Onwuemeka said the goal of the training is to ensure consistent and systematic data generation for improved planning and tracking of the implementation of SDGs.

“Data and statistics play major roles in providing clear objective and numerical evidence on the level of achievement of the programmes and flow of data and information is constantly evolving in the global information society”, he said.