FAOs Asia-Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics said it would help Pacific Island countries in monitoring their progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
"Monitoring the SDG agenda is a challenge for most statistical systems, but the current data and capacity gaps are particularly severe in the Pacific region. FAO is offering a comprehensive package of capacity development initiatives to help countries produce their own data and become visible in global databases and monitoring reports," said Pietro Gennari, FAO’s Chief Statistician.
The organization opened the 27th Session of the Asia and Pacific Commission on Agricultural Statistics (APCAS) to focus on needs of food and agricultural statistics of the Pacific Island countries and other Asia-Pacific countries.
During the session, a 10-year plan was launched to develop agricultural, fisheries and rural statistics in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to help meet the SDGs.
"If we are to meet the 2030 SDG targets, we need reliable statistics on almost a real-time basis, which can be achieved only by establishing technically sound systems for collection of statistics while taking advantage of modern technologies. For the countries in the Pacific, that means a special focus on crops and fisheries,” said Kundhavi Kadiresan, FAO assistant director-general and regional representative for Asia and the Pacific.
The FAO in collaboration with United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is organizing a workshop following APCAS on capacity building in Fiji, Nuie, Papua New Guinea and Samoa to help with planning their agricultural census.
