FAMINE EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS NETWORK TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT CONTRACT (FEWS NET TSC)

The contract is managed through a living task list, where team members can add ideas or projects of interest. The TSC staff conducts preliminary research into each idea, reporting back to the management team in the form of a report or short white paper. The team then decides which ideas should move forward and which should be shelved, and develops a full deliverable schedule for the projects that receive a green light. One of the new items currently being worked on is remote monitoring. The need for accurate and independent food security and early warning information by USAID decision makers is growing, especially given the fact that the humanitarian space and access to reach the most vulnerable people is shrinking due to insecurity. To supplement the existing data, Kimetrica has hired a monitoring team to collect market data and other relevant food security information in areas that are difficult to access. The team will review and purchase a food security report on a monthly basis, which will be submitted to USAID after a full vetting. Another ongoing project is the East Africa Data Collection. This project involves gathering information on food security in difficult to access areas of East Africa. Data collection via paper survey has been ongoing monthly since August 2012. The primary issue related to data has been to identify a reliable way to get data from the paper field formats to a centralized web-accessible location where it can be downloaded and analyzed. To address this issue, the TSC has implemented an alternative methodology: direct entry from the field into computer tablets. Training was conducted in early December to teach the local assistants how to enter data directly into the system. The FEWS NET Price Data Warehouse is another ongoing project. The project emerged to address a lack of access to historical FEWS NET data. The Data Warehouse will ultimately provide a structure that will organize FEWS NET datasets so that they can be easily queried, analyzed, and shared with others. Kimetrica developed the user requirements for the project, including the ability to upload existing price data, enter new data, query the data for reporting, and design the visibility rules. However, after presenting a prototype to the FEWS NET partners, it was determined that the existing Kimetrica online tools would not meet the needs of the project. The FEWS NET Data Library is an interim step in the process of organizing historical FEWS NET data into the data warehouse. The Data Library is a web-based repository for historical data, including both FEWS NET and other relevant information. The library will provide a centralized location for accessing historical data, making it easier to query, analyze, and share with others. The development of the Data Library is an important step in the process of creating the FEWS NET Data Warehouse.