FAO trains experts on data generation in Lagos
The Lagos State Government has commended the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations for reinforcing the competencies and building the capacity of targeted ministries, departments and agencies in data management.
The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Hakeem Adeniji, stated this on Monday at the opening of a five-day Stepdown Training workshop for Data Generation and Analysis.
The workshop was organised by FAO under the project on “Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Improved Data and Information System for Policy Planning and Tracking the SDGs in Nigeria.”
Participants at the training were drawn from three states of Lagos, Kano, Cross River and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The permanent secretary, represented by the Director of Fishery in the ministry, Mrs Olatokunbo Emokpae, said the training would help the MDAs to generate, analyse, store and disseminate credible and timely data and information.
He said the training would translate to strategic technical value addition which result into key outcomes of zero hunger, no poverty, health and wellness, decent jobs and economic growth to mention but a few.
He commended the FAO for organising the workshop and counting Lagos State worthy of being among the participating states in Nigeria.
He said that the project was in no doubt, in alignment with state’s development agenda of enhancing technology and making Lagos a 21st century economy through a planned food security system.
“In fact, I must say that our recent efforts at formulating our new Lagos State Food and Agriculture Systems Roadmap was hinged on the bedrock of statistical data.
“I am particularly excited that the training will not only be beneficial directly in agriculture and food production, but will enable gainful employment preparing today’s youth for the future of work.
“It will build up the skills gap among young professionals in the emerging field of data science, machine learning, programming and data analytics.
“Undoubtedly, one of the most engaging and increasingly important areas of discussion since the dawn of the 21st century has been on statistics and getting data right.
“Today we talk of open data, big data, and the right data. We hear debates about whether African data is poor or whether there is a statistical tragedy or renaissance in Africa,” he said.
Adeniji said that the attention to the quality of data has increased globally.
He said that there were questions being raised about the quality of data, errors in data, wrong use of data and polarisation of data even in more developed societies.
“Around us, we observe the quantum leap in the type, size and scale of data that is being driven by rapid advances in the world of computing.
“Considering the vast amount of data being produced daily and its importance in providing information useful for decision-making as individuals, business, economy or country, the question that faces us in Lagos State today, therefore, becomes:
“How can we take such data and convert it into actionable knowledge to move our lives, businesses and economy forward,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the programme would reinforce the competencies and build the capacity to generate, analyse, store and disseminate credible and timely data and information.
In his opening remarks, the Country Representative of FAO in Nigeria, Mr Fred Kafeero, said the stepdown training was in continuation of the Training of Trainers (ToT) held in November 2020 in Abuja.
Kafeero said that 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 constantly evolving in the global information society.
Kafeero was represented by Mr Alphonsus Onwuemeka, the Project Focal Point, Strengthening Institutional Capacity for Improved Data and Information System For Policy Planning and Tracking the SDGs in Nigeria.
He noted that the participants would be exposed to the use of Open Data Sources Kit (ODK) technology as well as cost free ‘R’ package and python software for data generation and analysis.
According to him, FAO Nigeria has come up with a Technical Committee Programme project as part of its core mandate of helping to strengthen the statistical systems of member countries.
“It is my believe that participants nominated for this are those directly involved in data and statistics functions and who are ICT compliant to cope with the technical aspects of the training,” he said.
He urged participants to be very serious to ensure that more, timely and reliable data would be made more accessible for policy and planning purposes in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that participants were drawn from Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, Bureau of Statistic and other agencies for the data generation and analysis training. (NAN)
