Rice Data Systems for Sub-Saharan Africa: Contribution to the Japan-AfricaRice Emergency Rice Project

The rice data system for sub-Saharan Africa, which is a contribution to the Japan-AfricaRice Emergency Rice Initiative, is funded by the government of Japan. The project was coordinated at the regional level by Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and implemented at national levels by the national focal points. Throughout the course of the project implementation, the country focal points have made substantial and active contributions to ensure a smooth coordination of the project in-country activities. The national focal points are from the national agricultural research systems (NARS) and the national agricultural statistical services (NASS) of the countries that are members of the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD). To ensure an effective communication between the project coordination unit and the countries, an intensive networking was established, which included sending of quarterly progress reports by the countries.Overall, the implementation of the project activities went well and it demonstrated the feasibility of building long-term collaborative working relationships between several national stakeholders to sustainably develop a multipurpose rice data systems. The surveys helped the countries develop well-structured rice statistical databases. Overall, the project activities went well and the national surveys were successfully conducted in the majority of the countries leading to the development ofup-to-date and accessible rice data and information. In fact, as future project activities, the country teams will work to conduct in-depth analysis of the data collected in this project to update the national rice development strategies (NRDS), conduct rice research priority setting exercises and publish papers and policy briefs. AfricaRice discussed with the main donor in Japan who accepted that in-depth analysis of the data collected can continue after 30 April 2010, to publish the data in Google Map and transform the country reports into final and more comprehensive reports.