A special double-issue of the journal Food Policy presents nine studies on the geographic dimensions of poverty and food security in developing countries. The initiative, led by the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), is part of broader efforts by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to target research and development on the most vulnerable of the poor and food insecure. The studies demonstrate the integration of environmental, economic, and spatial information using geographic information science and technology.

Researchers employed environmental measures such as soil quality, water availability, and topographic conditions in their assessments. They used spatial information, including measures of accessibility, distance to resources and facilities, and market integration. These measures were combined with estimates of household expenditure and numbers of people below the poverty line. The analyses revealed the importance of including environmental and spatial factors in poverty and food security assessments. The digital maps from the studies are available for download in formats compatible with geographic information systems (GIS) software (see http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/povertymapping/).

The studies were carried out in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) initiative, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the CGIAR Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI). The governments of Norway, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland funded the research. The World Bank and the government of the United States provided funding to the CGIAR researchers to share the results and data related to this initiative. For more information on poverty and food security mapping, see http://www.povertymap.net

Contact: Glenn Hyman

Workshop on Mapping Poverty and Food Security

To develop strategies for reducing poverty and hunger we must know where the poor are and how food insecurity is distributed. These are best seen on poverty maps, which spatially represent poverty assessments. The maps help us improve our understanding of patterns and processes related to poverty and food security. Hence, they help us target research and development resources more efficiently towards the people who need them most. Such maps are thus valuable tools in our search to reduce poverty.

For the last 3 years, CIAT has led an initiative to develop country case studies of mapping poverty and food security. The initiative is part of a joint effort by CGIAR, FAO, and UNEP to advance geographic information science and technology in the field of poverty mapping. This effort ended its first phase in August 2004 with a workshop on "Poverty Mapping: Spatial Analysis for Poverty Reduction", organized by CIAT.

The workshop was held in conjunction with the Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI) annual user conference in San Diego, California. The Event included:

• 17 papers on research projects to map poverty and food security (see map)
  
• A gallery of maps on poverty and food security presented by CGIAR and partners
  
• A panel of sustainable development experts who will discuss future needs and opportunities in the mapping of poverty and food security
  
• A planning session to develop strategies to disseminate results and advance mapping of poverty and food security

For more information on the workshop, visit the PovertyMap.net Web site or contact Glenn Hyman, Workshop Coordinator.

Latin America and Caribbean Population Database

The population of Latin America and the Caribbean nearly tripled during the last half-century, rising from 175 million people in 1950 to more than 515 million today. CIAT's population database is an information resource for analyzing the spatial dimensions of population change in Latin America and Caribbean. This year CIAT scientists expanded the database to include 2000-round census data for most of the region and data for over 16,000 administrative districts.

For further details on this information resource and links to interactive maps, metadata and data download, see our Latin America and the Caribbean Population Project Web Site.

The Center Commissioned External Review (CCER) visits Our Project

From 20 to 29 November, the Land Use Project was submitted to an exhaustive review by an international group of scientists composing the Center Commissioned External Review (CCER): Robin Matthews, Cranfield University, United Kingdom; Colin Chartres, CSIRO Land and Water, Australia; and Tom Veldkamp, Wageningen Agricultural University, The Netherlands.

The purpose of this review was to answer 3 basic questions:

1. Is the research direction clear and appropiate?
2. Are research activities suitable, given opportunities and constraints?
3. Are activities being implemented effectively?
   

For more information about presentations, see our presentations web page

Bogotá, 14 November 2003
The CIAT/MADR Agreement

A robust package of methodologies and tools to help rural communities plan the future of their municipalities and make decisions for the sustainable management of natural resources was made available to Colombians on Friday, 14 November.

The package comprises products developed by experts at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) within the framework of the Agreement for Technical and Scientific Cooperation with the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR).

CIAT's Rural Planning team supported the Municipality of Port López, Department of Meta, in developing the Basic Ordinance Plan for 2000-2009 and of the development plan for 2001-2004. This experience permitted the development and fine-tuning of land planning tools. Training through meetings, workshops, and seminars was given to functionaries from different regions of Colombia, who were interested in applying to their respective municipalities the lessons learned from the successful experiment carried out in Port López.

The products making up the package are grouped as follows:

• Methodologies (participatory planning and teledetection to identify degraded pastures)
• Tools for decision making (systematization; evaluation and monitoring of land planning processes; database for crops in Colombia; georeferencing system of indicators for soil quality and decision trees for land use planning in Orinoquia)
• Geographic information systems (MapMaker and Spring programs)
• Land planning tools
• Web site <http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/planificacion_rural> and rural planning network
• The book "Los Bosques de Galería: Guía para su Identificación y Apreciación" [Gallery forests: a guide to their identification and valuation].

The celebratory act to launch this package took place at 10 in the morning, Friday, 14 November, in the principal salon of the Bogotá Executives Club.

Challenge Program on Water and Food
Theme 2: Water and People in catchments
Enabling efficient and equitable water use

CGIAR Challenge program on Water and Food interlocking goals are to allow more food to be produced with the same amount of water that is used in agriculture today, as populations expand over the coming 20 years and, do this in a way that decreases malnourishment and rural poverty, improves people's health and maintains environmental sustainability from a research perspective.

The program is composed by five interrelated research themes and nine benchmark basin where the water problems and issues converge, especially in the developing world. The program involves national agricultural research centres, advanced research institutes and non-governmental organizations, giving priority to the local needs and linking them with the research at the CGIAR International Centres.

The five centres leaders of the thematic groups are: CIAT, IRRI, ICLARM, IWMI and IFPRI. The thematic groups will orientate the research work along with the benchmark basin coordinators and synthesize the results from the various countries and regions, and bring out generic conclusions from the overall research program.

The International Center of Tropical Agriculture CIAT leads the Theme 2: Water and People in catchments
Enabling efficient and equitable water use since November 2002. The theme objective is to improve sustainable livelihoods for people who live in, and downstream of upper catchments through significant, unambiguous improvements of water productivity and conservancy. You can know more about the Theme by visiting its web page at Theme 2 Web Site.

Contact: Martha Fabiola Otero

Workshop on Territory and Sustainable Development

An international workshop aimed at identifying best practices for rural planning in Latin America will be held at CIAT headquarters in Cali, Colombia, on 17-20 June 2003. Participants will evaluate a wide range of participatory approaches to territorial planning, based on their effectiveness in promoting sustainable, equitable development.

The event, organized by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), France's Institute of Research for Development (IRD), and CIAT, represents an important step toward the formation of an action research network dealing with "Territory and sustainable Development."

For more information, see the event's Web site.

New Risk Assessment Tool

CIAT has published version 1 of MarkSimTM: A Computer Tool That Generates Simulated Weather Data for Crop Modeling and Risk Assessment. Available on CD-ROM, this new climate database tool has resulted from more than 20 years of work on simulating site-specific daily weather, based on data collected by thousands of weather stations around the world. In an exciting and timely application of MarkSim, researchers are using it in combination with other models to predict the effects of global climate change on staple crops at specific locations in the developing world (see the article Tracking the Impact of Global Warming in our annual report, CIAT in Perspective).

To order a copy, see our product catalog.

On the 29th of August 2002, the official presentation of the Rural Atlas of Nicaragua, in printed and CD form, was made to a group of donors, international organizations, and institutions in Nicaragua. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAGFOR), the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA), the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), the Nicaraguan Institute of Territorial Studies (INETER), and CIAT carried out the work. Financial support came from the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC), the Information for Development Project of the World Bank (InfoDev), and the Central American Project of Geographic Information (PROCIG) of CIAT's Land Use Project.

The atlas structure is based on digital databases of information, provided by the institutions involved, and it contains systematized statistical and mapping information of the rural sector of Nicaragua. It has been designed as a support tool for decision taking in the areas of environmental and socioeconomic development through the relevant information that it brings together on natural resources, and physical, social, and socioeconomic aspects at different levels.

The Rural Atlas of Nicaragua is principally directed at persons and institutions involved in studies and research on natural resources, rural development, and poverty alleviation. It is hoped that, with this tool, geographic information professionals of Central America will be able to make use of the experiences, lessons learned, and interchange of information to improve team work and communication at regional level and between countries.

Additional information: PROCIG; Comunnities and Watersheds - CIAT

Contact: Communications-GIS, Jorge Beltrán

National Spatial Data Infrastructures in the Making

Central American Project Provides Framework for Geographic Information
by Kate Trinka Lance, Central American Geographic Information Project Coordinator

New census data is creating an unprecedented opportunity for progress in applying information to development in Central America. GIS specialists in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have been working together to integrate data from their respective agencies. These specialists come from the national statistics institutes, national geographic institutes, the ministries of enviroment, and the ministries of agriculture - 28 institutions in total. These are the primary goverment data producers. With technical training and support from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), each country identified a data product that it could put together as a group and make available to the user community on compact disk or via the Internet.

For more information see the complete article.