The Ministry of Agriculture and Waterways, in collaboration with the EU-funded TA-SRL Programme, recently conducted a three-day training to enhance the Ministry staff's capacity to use agriculture data for effective decision-making.

While addressing the participants, the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture and Waterways, Dr Andrew Tukana, emphasized the importance of continuously acquainting ourselves with changes and updates of National and Sectoral priorities, strategic policies, processes, budget, and performances, and how they can effectively contribute to service delivery.

Dr. Tukana stated the Ministry is implementing the 2019-2023 Strategic Development Plan (SDP) and preparing for the new 2024-2028 SDP, following the Coalition Government's manifesto.

“The SDP mid-term review report produced by the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the Ministry outlined achievements, challenges, limitations, lessons learned and recommendations that will need to be considered to ensure swift transition and successful implementation of the upcoming 2024-2028 SDP,” said Dr Tukana.

He said the common underlying issues identified in the report were limited access to agriculture information by the staff, gaps in planning and implementation of agriculture strategies, and lack of awareness and understanding of existing policies, priorities, agriculture trade, budget processes and monitoring systems by field officers.

“There was also limited know-how on data analysis tools, data interpretation, and a lack of understanding of the value of agriculture data.”

He mentioned that the three days training will ensure the highlighted issues are addressed and officers are better equipped with basic information on National priorities, Agriculture SDP, policies, Acts and Legislations, Memorandum of Agreements (MoA) and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP), budget, Agriculture statistics and tools for data collection and analysis that will enhance staff capacities and improve the overall service delivery of the sector.

Dr Tukana also reminded the staff of their significant roles in maintaining food security during and after disasters as Fiji is approaching the 2023-2024 cyclone season.

“The three-day training program incorporated a refresher session on disaster risk management processes, damage assessment data collection tools, an update on the Anticipatory Action Framework, and community awareness in the evening session,” he said.

He said the staff have refreshed their knowledge and learned new techniques for agriculture data analysis using Microsoft Excel over these three days.

“This will help enhance your capacity to support your decision-making processes and ensure that projects and activities, which will be funded and implemented, bring the utmost welfare and achieve a substantial development impact on our farmers, community, and the nation,” said Dr Tukana.

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