FAO wins prize for geospatial project in Zimbabwe

Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was recently awarded for its sustained effort to help Zimbabwe use satellite-tracked evidence to improve its crop production data.
FAO, on Wednesday won the SDG Custodian Agency Prize at the seventh annual GEO SDG Awards, which recognises the productivity, innovation, novelty and exemplary efforts in the use of Earth observations to support sustainable development.

The prizes were organised by Earth Observations for the Sustainable Development Goals (an EO4SDG Initiative under the auspices of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a partnership of more than 100 national governments and even more participating organizations, representing researchers, data providers and businesses.
GEO coordinates a “system of systems” that includes more than 400 million open-data resources from an array of providers including NASA and the European Space Agency as well as commercial actors.

In an update, FAO said it has helped the Government of Zimbabwe establish an Earth Observation-assisted national crop monitoring system for production of official national agricultural statistics on acreage and yield as well as drought and flood modelling.

“This multi-faceted initiative is a model for sustainable EO integration into national statistical systems, contributing directly to SDG indicators and to the resilience of Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector,” said Dr Lorenzo de Simone, FAO’s Earth Observation for Statistics (FAO-EOSTAT) project leader.
The initiative was part of the ongoing FAO-EOSTAT programme, launched in 2019 which has expanded to more than 21 countries.

It helps FAO Members use cutting-edge technologies to produce seasonal crop type maps and annual land cover maps that are standardized, accurate, granular and validated, and integrate earth observation data and tools in the production of land cover and land use statistics.

The EOSTAT-Zimbabwe project, buoyed by funding from the African Development Bank (AfDB), was launched in 2023 to operationalise the use of Earth Observation (EO) data for agricultural monitoring, food security planning, disaster risk reduction, and assess the impacts of climate-related hazards.