GIS and Data

Lead Organization:

TerraGIS

Community of Practice:

East & Southern Africa, West Africa

Countries:

Kenya Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique Tanzania Malawi, Mali, and Burkina Faso Niger

Duration:

12/2015—12/2017

Overview:

The CCRP program works towards strengthening the capacities of smallholder farmers, research institutes, and development organizations. One of the skills needed in CCRP’s work is spatial or geographical analysis.  Geographical Information Systems have been used by organizations and researchers involved in the program with varying intensity. The three African regions – which are the focus of this grant – are working with (or are being taught in our efforts to use) Open Source Geospatial Software such as QGIS, GeoServer and PostGIS.  Building on recent efforts, work under the renewal phase will build a more consistent technical infrastructure that will make spatial data more readily available and more easily accessible. Capacity building efforts have involved multiple workshops / work meetings.  It is anticipated that GIS training and capacity building will increase the quality and efficiency of work conducted in the CCRP.

Grant Aims:

Spatial analysis is important in many aspects of agricultural research.  CCRP’s strategies and plans at the program, regional and project levels should be informed by an understanding of geographic patterns affecting social and biophysical realities that affect farming and the institutions that influence it.  Information about where our projects operate can facilitate collaboration within CoPs. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related methods are vital tools for many CCRP projects, but teams often need help to use the technology effectively. The proposed grant will continue to strengthen spatial methods support at the program, CoP and project levels by supporting the contributions of GIS specialists who work with a wide range of open-source and commercial GIS tools and methods.

Outputs and Outcomes:

The first goal of this grant is to support the CCRP program and the projects in the 4 CCRP regions in using GIS, spatial data and related technologies in order to make their work more effective. The GIS support will target multiple levels / scales of the program: 1.) the CCRP program as a whole (for example “Where we work” maps) , 2.) the four regions, and 3.) the individual projects within the regions. Each of these three program levels has different needs and requirements regarding CCRP program and research data that might need to be identified, stored, or presented, and that may be used and analyzed for manifold purposes. These data and related derived analysis results can consequently positively impact the projects’ work and increase their overall efficiency and desired impact.