The Sub-National Food Systems Dashboard, which will update the Presidency on policy measures and track the food system transformation agenda for national development, was launched by the Federal Government on Thursday.
According to The Times, the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Sen. Sabi Aliyu-Abdullahi, made this announcement at the Abuja inauguration.
He continued by saying that the dashboard would make it easier for each state in Nigeria to reform its food system.
The policy dashboard, according to Aliyu-Abdullahi, will give stakeholders insights and list the most important things to do.
The dashboard is intended to assist Nigerian officials and enterprises at both the national and subnational levels, making it more than merely a data repository.
“This will ensure that decisions are well-informed, improve our food systems, and enable civic society to hold different actors accountable.
“The dashboard will also give researchers inside and outside of Nigeria a unified database to perform more research that will increase the evidence required for upcoming decision making.
Additionally, it will act as a platform for encouraging cooperation and synergy between the various parts of the food system.
The global food system dashboard is linked to the Nigerian agricultural minister’s dashboard, which evaluates data for both public and commercial sectors both domestically and internationally.
According to him, the dashboard will have 99 indicators that have been carefully selected and reviewed to provide a thorough analysis of Nigeria’s food system at all levels.
The Minister also disclosed that the Federal Government has already created a profile of the food system for some states, which he claimed would be useful in advocacy efforts to involve important decision-makers in the transformation of Nigeria’s food system.
According to the Country Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition in Nigeria, Dr. Micheal Ojo, the dashboard would offer the necessary data to support “critical evidence-based policy” that would allow researchers, academics, and students to easily access extensive data to find and analyze new trends in Nigeria’s food system.
“Business executives and entrepreneurs can pinpoint investment opportunities, see beyond technological breakthroughs in the business world, and enhance finance systems.
“For government, policy analysts, statistics agencies, and support partners, the dashboard will offer data for baseline research and reports. It will assist decision-makers in identifying and prioritizing the interventions needed to reform the nation’s food systems with the desired level of impact without impairing market dynamics of markets in Nigeria.”
