MOGADISHU, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Food Programme (WFP) on Monday signed a data-sharing agreement to improve humanitarian assistance in Somalia.
The agreement will enable the two UN agencies to deliver assistance more effectively and transparently to the people who need it most by strengthening strategic and operational coordination. "By sharing data, we can also be more efficient with our resources and move faster to support communities in crisis," Etienne Peterschmitt, FAO representative to Somalia, said in a joint statement issued in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
Peterschmitt said this agreement is a major milestone in their efforts to improve food security in Somalia and provide a pathway from humanitarian assistance toward economic resilience.
Each of these UN agencies serves millions of vulnerable people in Somalia through programs that are designed, targeted, and evaluated based on extensive data that they collect on the ground, the statement said. The new deal paves the way for both agencies to collectively leverage all of the data-sharing information so that they can coordinate more efficiently to ensure the right assistance reaches the right people at the right time and quantify its impact.
El-Khidir Daloum, WFP representative and country director for Somalia, said digitization of assistance and secure data sharing will allow the two UN agencies to deliver life-saving and life-changing programs to communities across Somalia more effectively.
According to the statement, the UN agencies will also work together to protect vulnerable people from hunger, improve the resilience of communities to shocks and stresses, and enable the people and institutions of Somalia to develop more sustainable, climate-adaptive food systems. ■
