E: Knowledge Management and Decision-Making

Improving decision-making through the provision of information and assessments and fostering of knowledge management for food and agriculture

Other Information:

Knowledge management is vital for effective decision-making. It involves the acquisition, synthesis and sharing of insight and experience, and their systematic integration with factual statistical information and analyses. This corporate strategy derives its legitimacy from Article I of the Constitution, which mandates FAO to "collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture". The assignment of responsibility to FAO's CFS for monitoring World Food Summit follow-up adds further to the Organization's responsibility for global monitoring and assessment of all aspects of food and agriculture and of progress towards achieving food security for all. The advent of new technologies, including the Internet, has brought new opportunities and also new challenges for FAO in this sphere. The Organization is now in a position to provide better management of the information and knowledge it produces, to ensure their wide and timely dissemination and also to exploit the potential of the Internet for facilitating partnerships in information management. Nonetheless, limitations in access to new technologies remain widespread in developing countries. The challenge is therefore to continue to be proactive in this area and, at the same time, to adapt FAO's tools to the different levels of communications infrastructure in member countries, so that countries with a relatively poor infrastructure receive information as effectively as possible and at the minimum recipient cost. It is also essential to maintain and increase the Organization's effectiveness in raising awareness of pertinent issues in rural development and food security in order to stimulate decision-making and action. Particular care will be taken to tailor the provision of information outputs to clients' needs.

Objective(s):

E.1: Information

E.2: Assessments, Analyses, and Studies

E.3: International Agenda

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