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FAO Country Profiles

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FAO Country Profiles
Developer(s)Knowledge Exchange Facilitation Branch (KCEW) at FAO of the United Nations
TypeKnowledge Representation, Ontology Editor
WebsiteFAO Country Profiles

The FAO Country Profiles is a multilingual[1] web portal which repackages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) vast archive of information on its global activities in agriculture and food security in a single area and catalogues it exclusively by country and thematic area.

The system's purpose is to offer decision-makers, researchers and project formulators around the world a fast and reliable way to access country-specific information on national food security situations without the need to search individual databases and systems. It gives added-value to FAO's wealth of information by providing an easy-to-use interface containing interactive maps and charts.[2]

Background

FAO has always highlighted information and knowledge sharing as priority areas in fighting hunger and achieving food security.[3] In this context, FAO identified that countries could improve their national programmes on agriculture and food security if they could access FAO's information through a cross-sectoral (or interdisciplinary) country-based approach.[4][5] However, despite the existence of a large number of country-based information systems in FAO, the information managed by the various systems lacked integration. Information tended to be generated and used in a circumscribed manner and tailored to a specific system, department or sector.

The FAO Country Profiles system, initially called FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System, was launched in 2002 responding to the Organization’s need to provide to FAO web site’ users with easy to use mechanism to find FAO country-specific information without the need to search individual FAO web sites, databases or systems. The system was designed to integrate analytical and multilingual information with thematic databases and digital map repositories and to facilitate access to information on multiple factors contributing to national food insecurity.

Since its launch, the system has been growing by incorporating more and more data sources. This was achieved thanks to a corporate effort to reduce information silos and the adoption of international standards for country-based information management throughout the Organization.

Country Profiles

The methodology behind the FAO Country Profiles is rather simple: it links, reuses and repackages data and information from most relevant already existing FAO databases and systems.

The FAO Country Profiles covers current FAO's Members and Associated Nations [6]. Once a country is selected, the portal presents to the user documents, news feeds, statistical data, project details and maps from most relevant FAO databases and systems for the selected country and categorized according to thematic areas.

The thematic areas are grouped in two categories:

Data sources

Country pages provide access to or integrate the following thematic profiles and systems.[8]

FAO data sources

  • FAO Corporate Document Repository: The FAO Corporate Document Repository houses FAO documents and publications, as well as selected non-FAO publications, in electronic format.
  • FAO Terminology - Names of Countries: In order to standardize and harmonize the vast quantity of terms used in FAO documents and publications, the Organization developed the terminology database FAOTERM. The Corporate NAMES OF COUNTRIES database also aims at facilitating the consultation and harmonization of country names throughout the Organization.
  • Fisheries and Aquaculture Country Profiles: FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Department prepares and publishes Fishery and Aquaculture Country Profiles. Each profile summarizes the Department's assessment of activities and trends in fisheries and aquaculture for the country concerned. Economic and demographic data are based on UN or World Bank sources; data on fisheries are generally those published by the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.
  • FAO-GeoNetwork: FAO-GeoNetwork is a web based Geographic Data and Information Management System. It enables easy access to local and distributed geospatial information catalogues and makes available data, graphics, documents for immediate download. FAO-GeoNetwork holds approximately 5000 standardized metadata records for digital and paper maps, most of them at the global, continent and national level.
  • Livestock Sector Briefs: The purpose of the Livestock Sector Briefs is to provide a concise overview of livestock production in the selected countries through tables, maps and graphs.

Partnerships data sources

AgriFeeds: AgriFeeds is a service that allows users to search and filter news and events from several agricultural information sources. It harvests, stores and re-aggregates news and events from feeds published by agricultural organizations and information services.

International Portal on Food Safety, Animal & Plant Health (IPFSAPH): IPFSAPH facilitates trade in food and agriculture by providing a single access point to authorized official international and national information across the sectors of food safety, animal and plant health. It has been developed by FAO in association with the organizations responsible for international standard setting in sanitary and phytosanitary matters.

Non-FAO data sources

Earthtrends, World Resources Institute: EarthTrends is a comprehensive online database, maintained by the World Resources Institute, that focuses on the environmental, social, and economic trends that shape the world. The Earthtrends country profiles present environmental information about key variables for different topic areas.

Standards

Geopolitical information section in the FAO Country Profiles.

There are various international standards and coding systems to manage country information. Historically, systems dealing with different types of data used different coding systems that were tailored to specific data type requirements. For example, statistical systems in the United Nations commonly use the M-49 classification[9] (also known as UN code) or the FAOSTAT area classification[10]; mapping systems could use geographic coordinates or GAUL codes; textual systems (document repositories or web sites) could use ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 or AGROVOC keywords; etc.

The FAO Country Profiles provide access to systems managing statistics, documents, maps, news feeds, etc, therefore one of its key aspects to succeed was the mapping of all these country coding systems.

For this purpose a geopolitical ontology was developed[11]. This ontology, among other features, maps (ISO2, ISO3, AGROVOC, FAOSTAT, FAOTERM, GAUL, UN, and UNDP codes for all countries.

Global Resources

Besides the profiles for each country the portal also provides access to other important global resources, such as:

Low-Income Food Deficit Countries (LIFDC)

The FAO Country Profiles keeps updated for the public the list of LIFDC countries. This list is revised every year according to the methodology explained below.

The list of the LIFDC[12], as of May 2009, stands at 77 countries, five less than those in the 2008 LIFDC list. These five are: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde and Tonga. All five graduated from the list having completed the "transitional phase", exceeding the World Bank income threshold for three consecutive years.

LIFDC methodology

The classification of a country as low-income food-deficit used for analytical purposes by FAO is traditionally determined by three criteria:

  1. A country should have a per capita income below the "historical" ceiling used by the World Bank[13] to determine eligibility for IDA assistance and for 20-year IBRD terms, applied to countries included in the World Bank categories I and II.[14] For instance, the historical ceiling of per capita gross national income (GNI) for 2006, based on the World Bank Atlas method,[15] was USD 1,735, i.e. higher than the level established for 2005 (USD 1,675).
  2. The net food trade[16] position of a country averaged over the preceding three years for which statistics are available, in this case from 2003 to 2005. Trade volumes for a broad basket of basic foodstuffs (cereals, roots and tubers, pulses, oilseeds and oils other than tree crop oils, meat and dairy products) are converted and aggregated by the calorie content of individual commodities.
  3. A self-exclusion criterion is applied when countries that meet the above two criteria specifically request FAO to be excluded from the LIFDC category.

In order to avoid countries changing their LIFDC status too frequently - typically due to short-term, exogenous shocks - an additional factor was introduced in 2001. This factor, called "persistence of position", would postpone the "exit" of a LIFDC from the list, despite the country not meeting the LIFDC income criterion or the food-deficit criterion, until the change in its status is verified for three consecutive years.[17]

FAO Member Countries and Flags

The FAO Country Profiles is FAO's source for dissemination of FAO's Member Nations and Associated Nations[18] official flags[19]. The update of any country flag is coordinated with the other United Nations agencies.

All flags are made available in an standardized manner which also aims to help web site owners to ensure that they always display the official country flag.

The standard URL for any given country flag would be composed by: the generic URL: "http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/flags/" to which the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 code for the country is added, plus the image format suffix ".gif".

For instance, the URL for the Argentina flag would be: http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/flags/AR.gif, with AR being the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of Argentina.[20]

Criticism

Early criticism of the FAO Country Profiles was that, in its inception phase, it only contained very few resources. Since 2002, the number of available resources has increased to cover country-based information and data, directly linked from FAO's web pages or FAO's digital repositories[21]. Over the last years, another identified area for improvement was the simplicity of the system methodology, being the resources only linked from country pages and thus, lacking real integration. This need was addressed by starting to integrate additional data, such as, the fisheries charts or the news and events items taken from Agrifeeds. In addition, in order to provide more complete country profiles, the system started to link or integrate non-FAO resources.

See also

References

  1. ^ Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish are the languages of the Organization. See FAO's Basic texts http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/k1713e/k1713e02b.htm#47. The FAO Country Profiles system provides information in Arabic, Chinese, English, French and Spanish. Russian is in preparation.
  2. ^ For reviews of the FAO Country profiles initiatives, please see the Sharing Earth and Observations Resources portal, Science Central, SciNet Science & Technology Search, News, Articles, etc.
  3. ^ See ARTICLE I of FAO Constitution: The Organization shall collect, analyze, interpret, and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture. http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5584E/x5584e0i.htm
  4. ^ Programme of Work and Budget 2002-2003: http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/003/y1194e/y1194e06b.htm#P11324_311453
  5. ^ Programme of Work and Budget 2004-2005: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/MEETING/006/y9859e/Y9859e07a.htm#P10820_371793
  6. ^ FAO membership as the 17 November 2007: http://www.fao.org/Legal/member-e.htm
  7. ^ For a list of FAO departments and divisions, please see http://www.fao.org/about/depart/en/
  8. ^ Inventory of data sources used in the FAO country profiles
  9. ^ Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49.htm
  10. ^ FAOSTAT standardized list of country/territories and groupings: http://faostat.fao.org/site/441/default.aspx
  11. ^ For linking country-based heterogeneous data at FAO, please see:Integrating Country-based heterogeneous data at the United Nations: FAO's geopolitical ontology and services.
  12. ^ For an updated list of Low-Income Food Deficit Countries, please check this page: http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/lifdc.asp?lang=en
  13. ^ For operational and analytical purposes, the World Bank’s main criterion for classifying economies is gross national income (GNI) per capita. Classifications are set each year on 1 July. These official analytical classifications are fixed during the World Bank's fiscal year (ending on 30 June), thus countries remain in the categories in which they are classified irrespective of any revisions to their per capita income data. (Source: The World Bank)
  14. ^ Several important distinctions among member countries are commonly used at the Bank Group. Countries choose whether they are part of Part I or Part II primarily on the basis of their economic standing. Part I are almost all industrial countries and donors to IDA and they pay their contributions in freely convertible currency. Part II countries are almost all developing countries, some of which are donors to IDA. Part II countries are entitled to pay most of their contribution to IDA in local currency. Please see: "A Guide to the World Bank Group", The World Bank, 2003
  15. ^ Please see: The World Bank Atlas Method
  16. ^ Net food trade refers to the gross imports less gross exports of food
  17. ^ For a list of countries and economies sorted by their gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita, please see List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
  18. ^ The list of FAO member countries and date of entry is available at: http://www.fao.org/Legal/member-e.htm
  19. ^ The list of FAO member countries and flags is available at http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/flags.asp
  20. ^ One of several international coding systems (some of the others being: ISO2, ISO3, AGROVOC, FAOSTAT, FAOTERM, GAUL, UN, and UNDP) for territories and groups.
  21. ^ see http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/inventory.asp for the list of resources available within the country profiles pages.
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