FEWS NET Collaboration Meeting Report for September 2021

The meeting brought together 22 participants from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the FEWS NET Early Warning team, the Learning and Data Hub team, and the Science team, which includes the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The meeting aimed to review collaboration activities and finalize presentations on joint work planning collaboration topics. The Early Warning team and Science teams are planning together for remote and in-person crop tours and are coordinating on remote sensing imagery for the Tigray region. The Early Warning and Hub teams have enhanced market price and Consumer Price Indices features with Administrative Boundary and market georeferenced coordinates to improve analysis of staple food prices. Collaboration is ongoing on Kobo Toolbox for Sudan and data ingestion work for application programming interface use. The Excel support to the Early Warning team through documented use cases is moving forward as planned. The Science team is in the process of reviewing training materials for use in the development of the FEWS NET Learning Management System. Chris Funk has contributed to the BBC News and other agencies reporting on the effects of climate change. The Science team is continuing work with the Early Warning team in support of the Global Dashboard for Hotspot Identification tool. The Hub has advanced support to IPC data sharing with the automation of regional IPC maps and data for access through fews.net. Historic IPC data will be loaded at a later date. The Hub is installing the open source Moodle Learning Management System on FEWS NET IT infrastructure. The Hub continues image uploads to fews.net and page content updates with the Science team. Each team presented final results of deliberations regarding tasks and priorities for the year ahead. The Science team outlined tasks by responsible organization, while the Early Warning team described their routine collaborative activities and flagged issues for further discussion. The Hub emphasized the collaborative nature of their work, describing activities complementing the work of the other two teams and cross-project support for activities. The Science team conducts routine activities including monitoring and forecasts central to FEWS NET analysis. Planned special collaboration activities include improved extended outlooks with NOAA, UCSB, NASA, and the University of Maryland. Major product updates include the release of version 0 of CHIRPS 2 in February 2022 and the transition from MODIS to VIIRS satellite data by USGS. Updates to the Climate Hazards Model are planned for the Science team, and UCSB and NOAA are working on improved satellite rainfall estimates. The Early Warning team has adjusted their routine collaborative tasks to reflect partnership support and awareness-raising for stakeholders. The team is working with the Hub on the upcoming data inventory and data transfer tasks and anticipates participation in developing a refreshed fews.net web site and associated content management system. The Hub's work is inherently collaborative in supporting FEWS NET, with a focus on data management, documentation, and training. The Hub will continue to support primary data collection, maintain a Kobo Toolbox platform, and collaborate with stakeholders to support form development, data extraction, and analysis. Qualitative data management will be a focus to help manage and process new types of data in new formats. Documentation and guidance for the platforms the Hub supports will be a priority, with a priority on web support and content management system users.