The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Programme Leader, Dr Suresh Babu, told participants in Dar es Salaam today that recent studies in developing countries and Latin America had indicated policy makers and leaders lack sufficient information to gauge the likely effects of global food crises in their countries.
"A lack of sufficient information has always failed the policy makers and leaders to correctly assess, identify, design and implement policies and programmes that can best avoid risks and take advantage of opportunities on food security matters in their respective areas," said Dr Babu.
Dr Babu, who has a vast experience in research related to food security related matters in Africa and Latin America, said the most important sources of data missing in those countries included the national representative household surveys, food process series from important commodity marketplaces in a country and trade statistics, just to mention a few.
He said that a wealth of information on the world food situation and its shifts may be available but not everywhere, quickly, or at the needed level of desegregation. "In some contexts, even when information is available, access to it is not assured for all stakeholders and frequently, government leaders and their analysts, civil society and business actors are not sufficiently informed for sound decision making," he stressed.
The Assistant Director of the Disaster Management Department, Prime Minister’s Office, Joseph Shiyo, expressed same concern as saying: "Even here in Tanzania there has been scatted and confusing information whereby you hear certain authority declaring surpluses of food, and then after a short period of time you get information on food shortage.
"And this is an indication that the figures presented are not reliable, not coordinated and sometimes completely misleading," he remarked. A coordinator, Tanzania/Japan Food Aid Counterpart Fund which is under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Co-operatives, Dr Wilbald Lorri, said countries like Tanzania need to have a well coordinated and harmonized mechanism on food security matters.
He said that all key stakeholders such as National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Tanzania Bureau of Statistics (TBS) and International agencies such as FAO and World food Programme (WFP), should ensure the information gathered in the field is relevant, reliable, consistent and useful.
The participants thus proposed for a joint effort at both local and national levels among all key stakeholders to provide reliable, appropriate information and decision-support tools to enable national policymakers to respond quickly to changes in world food prices. The International Food Policy Research Institute was established in 1975 and it has been highly involved in research activities on food security issues in various parts of the world, particularly in developing countries and Latin America. The meeting was organized by the Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF). It was attended by representatives from the government ministries, departments and agencies, and United Nations.
Daily News (Tanzania)
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