Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars are invested and critical decisions are made in agriculture, often without good evidence to inform those investments and decisions. The scarcity of high-quality, timely agricultural data is a key constraint for low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) to effectively plan, finance, and implement agricultural development strategies as they strive to realize their full potential.
To help solve this issue, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and donor partners have worked to create an ‘agricultural data architecture’ of key partners and systems around bridging the agriculture data gap in 50 countries by 2030. This data architecture is designed not just to provide technical assistance to governments in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, but is working to create a more sustainable and holistic approach to the development of country data systems.
The 50×2030 Initiative brings together the strongest partners and the best agricultural survey tools to solve the problem of the agricultural data gap. Through an unprecedented delivery model, the Initiative integrates and scales the experience and tools from three main organizations:
- The World Bank’s Development Data Group, which is focused on developing tools and methods
- FAO, which is responsible for data production and is bringing together their Agricultural and Rural Integrated Survey (AGRIS) and the World Bank Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA
- IFAD, which is responsible for data usage by countries.
Our role
Our evaluation of the 50×2030 initiative will focus on and learn from a systems analysis of the structures, processes, institutional collaboration, power dynamics, incentives, accountability and efficiency in the financing, governance and communications systems.
We will assess whether the partnerships and country engagement approaches are working as envisioned in the Governance and Operations Framework (GoF) and/or whether the structures and processes envisioned therein are the most beneficial and appropriate for achieving the goals of the Initiative.
