The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) has already certified four FAO digital public goods, including the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform and the FAO Digital Services Portfolio, developed and scaled up the Digitalization and Informatics Division’s AgroInformatics team.
Digital public goods (DPGs) are open-source software, open data, open artificial intelligence (AI) models, open standards, and open content that help attain the SDGs.The DPGA is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the SDGs by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods.
“This membership marks a step further in FAO’s commitment to unleashing the potential of digital agriculture by ensuring inclusivity and narrowing the digital divide between different countries and regions through affordable access to digital technologies, digital literacy and digital public goods,” FAO Chief Economist Máximo Torero said.
The objective is to bring much-needed attention to digital public goods to help open more datasets, assist in the discovery of existing open datasets, and build confidence in utilizing
WSIS Forum 2022: FAO Chief Information Technology Officer (CIO) and Director of the Digitalization and Informatics Division speaks about how FAO is harnessing digital for impact
Dejan Jakovljevic, CIO and Director, Digitalization and Informatics Division, joined a High-Level Breakfast Meeting with the leaders from the United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS). Key points included the role of digital technologies towards accelerating impact and how this is reflected in FAO's Strategic Framework, underpinned by innovation, data, technology, and regulatory and policy complements. In particular, improved data-driven technologies and digital public goods are needed to formulate targeted interventions to improve livelihoods for the approximately 193 million people experiencing acute hunger in 2021, which has seen an increase of nearly 40 million people compared to 2020.
“Digital technologies provide solutions towards better production, better nutrition, better environment, and better life. They provide transformational opportunities , and in particular for the benefit of smallholder farmers and rural communities,” Chief Information Technology Officer (CIO) and Director, Digitalization and Informatics Division, Dejan Jakovljevic, said.
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum 2022 represents the world's largest annual gathering of the ICT for development community. The closing week of the WSIS Forum 2022 took place 30 May-June 2022 at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, under the theme of ICTs for Well-Being, Inclusion and Resilience: WSIS Cooperation for Accelerating Progress on the SDGs.
Jakovljevic also chaired the panel discussion on ICTs for Well-Being, inclusion and resilience with a focus on digital skills for youth and women in agriculture. Panel members discussed the needs and challenges to improving digital literacy and digital skills and the impacts of these efforts to digital inclusion in the agriculture sector, as well as other potential opportunities for investment in digital agriculture.
Panelists included FAO expert such as Beth Crawford - Officer-in-Charge, Director FAO Office of Innovation, Lauren Phillips - Deputy Director of the Inclusive Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division - Carla Licciardello - ITU Senior Digital Inclusion Coordinator Marzia Pafumi, as well as other experts in the sector.
Digital Public Goods for Climate Change Adaptation: HiH Geospatial Platform and Digital Services Portfolio
Bringing together digital technologies, remotely-sensed data and rural advisory services can transform the way countries can address critical climate change adaptation needs.
Yet, it is clear that limitation in the availability and dissemination of high-quality data is a hindrance for making informed decisions and developing targeted interventions. FAO’s Climate and AgroInformatics teams regularly collaborate to develop new digital solutions and improve existing flagship products to better address climate change adaptation challenges.
WSIS Forum 2022 session “Digital Public Goods and Climate Change Adaptation” highlighted the importance of digital public goods and included a presentation from FAO IT expert Karl Morteo on the use of open data, such as in the FAO’s Digital Services Portfolio which includes the Weather and Crop Calendar mobile applications – a service which offers reliable weather forecasts, combined with an alert system that allows users to adjust their schedule and production activities based on meteorological data.
The session also included interventions from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) presenting the State of the Climate in 2021, the DPGA presenting the need for relevant datasets as digital public goods, and the ITU presenting the critical role of data in identifying connectivity gaps to help first responders in times of disasters.
Source: FAO
