EAC States create joint data pool

Nairobi; Kenya: The East African Community (EAC) has launched a data resource that enables member states share important data on agriculture and food security in a bid to fight poverty and food insecurity.

The online portal will contain up to date data sets generated from the member States’ respective national statistics offices and will be free to access and download to government agencies, development partners, regional bodies, scholars, and the public.

Speaking at yesterday's launch, Kenya’s Principal Secretary to the EAC, John Konchellah said the sharing of data was another milestone in the journey towards regional integration.
“The EAC region is frequently affected by food shortages despite the fact that the region as a whole has a huge potential and capacity to produce enough food for regional consumption and surplus for export,” he said.
“One of the most critical factors that leads to this imbalance is inadequate food exchange/trade between times and/or places of abundant harvest on one hand, and those with deficit on the other.”

Mr Konchella further said the new portal will not only allow a centralised data centre for research and economic planning, but will also shape future policy interventions within the EAC.

“Having such a resource in place will encourage partner states to adopt schemes for rationalisation of agricultural production with a focus to provide specialised and sustainable national agriculture productions programmes in order to ensure a common agricultural policy and food sufficiency within the community,” he said.

The EAC has partnered with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), to develop and execute the RegionSTAT database which is available at www.countrystat.org.