National Workshop: Piloting new approaches for long-term sustainability of ASTI (Lao People's Democratic Republic)

On 1 August, the Statistics Division (ESS) and the Office of Innovation (OIN) of FAO organized a workshop in the Lao People's Democratic Republic to start discussing the country implementation and preparation of the upcoming ASTI pilot in the country.  

As the agency responsible for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology Indicators (ASTI), a global leading programme in compiling and analyzing agricultural research data, FAO is conducting a series of workshops in selected countries where FAO and ASTI partners will start the ASTI implementation phase. The outcomes of the pilot will serve as a critical input to designing the ASTI survey for the global roll out in 2025.

The workshop convened key national stakeholders to introduce them to the ASTI methodology and procedures as well as initiate dialogues between national agricultural research institutes (NARIs) and the national statistical office (NSO). These dialogues aim to unveil and present the new data collection approach while deliberating on and exploring strategies for effective integration of ASTI into National Statistical System (NSS) mechanisms, a crucial step for providing collecting agencies with a clear mandate, ensuring quality, and official validation of the data.

Objectives:

The specific objectives of the workshop were to:

• Introduce the ASTI programme and its new operational mechanisms.
  
• Discuss strategies to enhance the long-term institutionalization of ASTI and to maximize
  policy uptake of ASTI outputs at the national level.
  
• Initiate dialogues between NARIs and the NSO to build a common understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the new approach.
  
• Train participants on the ASTI methodology, data management portal and survey processing monitoring.
  
• Discuss and collectively formulate an agreed methodology and way forward for implementation of the ASTI pilot in the Lao People's Democratic Republic, including series of activities to be carried out during the country survey pilot.

Participants from several national agencies (National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (NAFRI), Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Ministry of Education) attended the workshop.