The subject of data to end hunger drew a large crowd at a meeting held during the United Nations General Assembly on Monday 24 September 2018. At a fringe event, the Bill & Malinda Gates Foundation announced the launch of a new $12 million initiative.

It aims to harness the power of data to boost the productivity and livelihoods of the world’s 500 million small-holder farmers and includes a coalition of donors and low-income countries. The plan is to build the reliability and access to agriculture statistics across 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America by 2030.

GODAN’s 800 partners represent organisations, companies and governments, who play their part in sharing and increasing the value of open data, as they strive to find practical ways to work together, building the means to gain the greatest potential from open data, making it more widely accessible to governments, researchers and agriculturalists.

USAID, BMZ Germany, DFAT Australia, World Bank, FAO, IFAD, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have joined together to support the new “50 x 2030” to produce the largest-ever collection of data for agricultural development by 2030.

Two of GODAN’s country partners, Ghana and Kenya, offered key note speeches during the Data to End Hunger event, held in the Trusteeship Council Chamber at the UN Headquarters in New York. Both countries are leading the development of open data in support of agriculture and nutrition.

Last year 15 African governments gathered in Nairobi, including Kenya, South Africa, Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Ghana, to agree a declaration for comprehensive open data collaboration in the nutrition and agriculture sectors, aimed at combating the global food security crisis. GODAN has supported the preparation of establishment of the Nairobi Declaration and it is the principle joint regional agreement that is set to strengthen the effective use of open data within countries and across borders.

Movingly, and effectively the event kicked off with influential African storytellers expressing how agriculture and good nutrition are so important for their countries and communities and how open data is beginning to play a greater role in improving agriculture which can bring stability to millions of families across the continent.

To find out more about the event visit: http://www.data4sdgs.org/news/press-release-donors-announce-major-push-generate-funding-data-end-hunger-500-million