[OSGeo-Discuss] UK Food Poverty: Measurement and risk mitigation

Wed Feb 3 04:26:39 PST 2021

Dear colleagues,

The recording of the GODAN webinar on UK Food Poverty: Measurement and Risk Mitigation is available at https://www.godan.info/news/uk-food-poverty-measurement-and-risk-mitigation

On behalf of the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition, I would like to thank Dianna Smith for sharing this important work that University of Southampton colleagues are doing on topics addressing food poverty alleviation, using Geospatial Science and open data.

Household food insecurity, or food poverty, is an ongoing challenge in the United Kingdom and in many countries. We would like to bring together all colleagues working in this area to learn and share ideas.

Universities in the UK are doing important research in this area. I am grateful to Vice- Chancellors of various UK universities and their representatives who have emailed me with details of the latest research in this topic being done at their universities.

In 2018, I was invited as lead speaker to address on the topic of  “Harnessing the digital potential to drive  higher education transformation in Africa” [1] at the  Sixth African Higher Education Week and the RUFORUM Biennial Conference<http://www.ruforum.org/Biennial2018/node/3> attended by Science and Education Ministers from many African countries, over  85 Vice Chancellors from universities across Africa as well as key scientists from across the world. This high level  meeting aimed to bring together key stakeholders to share ideas  for “Aligning African Universities to accelerate attainment of Africa’s Agenda 2063” [2][3] . The meetings were hosted by the Government of Kenya through the Ministry of Education. One of the key lessons I learned from the African Higher Education meetings was the important contributions that Universities in Africa and globally are making towards a hunger-free world.  I am grateful to all Vice-Chancellor colleagues for their work and leadership for Zero Hunger Aim.

GODAN will be establishing a new working group focussed on how open data can help address Food Poverty issues globally (more details will be send soon) and we invite  experts from all universities, governments, private sector to join the WG and contribute ideas.

Through this new GODAN Working Group to address topics on Food Poverty, we aim to bring together experts from  governments, universities, private sector from across the world on a common platform to work together  and contribute ideas. I am looking forward for your support and participation in this WG. We want to build this platform for joining ideas for our collective mission to end hunger and poverty, both locally and globally.

I am grateful to everyone, everywhere working for Zero Hunger Aim.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/harnessing-the-digital-potential-to-drive-higher-education-transformation-in-africa/

[2] http://www.ruforum.org/Biennial2018/

[3] http://www.ruforum.org/Biennial2018/node/3

________________________________
From: Suchith Anand <ezasa7 at exmail.nottingham.ac.uk>
Sent: 28 January 2021 08:11
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>; GeoForAll <GeoForAll at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: UK Food Poverty: Measurement and risk mitigation

Dear colleagues,

Please join tomorrow’s (29th Jan 2021) GODAN webinar and discussions on UK Food Poverty: Measurement and risk mitigation. Details at  https://www.godan.info/events/uk-food-poverty-measurement-and-risk-mitigation

Through this webinar series, we want to share research outputs and examples of work done in this theme at various UK universities.  University of Southampton’s research is a good example of how geospatial science and open data can help in developing measures to alleviate food poverty in the UK.  We would like to bring together all  universities working in theme to share examples of their research projects, publications etc so we all can learn from each other and work together to alleviate food poverty in the UK and everywhere.

The pain of hunger is the same for the hungry everywhere (in the developed economies or developing economies). We cannot ignore food poverty issues faced by economically poor families globally. We need to find solutions to alleviate food poverty everywhere.

I am grateful to everyone, everywhere working for Zero Hunger Aim.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________
From: Suchith Anand <ezasa7 at exmail.nottingham.ac.uk>
Sent: 23 January 2021 07:57
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org <discuss at lists.osgeo.org>; GeoForAll <GeoForAll at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: UK Food Poverty: Measurement and risk mitigation

Dear colleagues,

I would like to invite you to GODAN Webinar covering UK Food Poverty and insecurity on 29th January 2021. Hidden hunger is a growing issue in developed economies.

Household food insecurity, or food poverty, is an ongoing challenge in the United Kingdom. There has been no systematic measurement of this growing public health and social justice problem until recently, with much data yet to be released. When the data are shared in early 2021, it will be at coarse geographic scales that will not allow for local planning of activities to address food poverty.

To address this knowledge gap, a team of researchers and experts at the University of Southampton have been developing a series of tools and projects to facilitate mapping and sharing of spatial open data, aimed at better informing local government and third sector/civil society.

The team are responsible for initiatives such as mylocalmap, a publishing platform for food poverty risk measures, devised in collaboration with Southampton City Council and agricultural policy advocates Sustain; and CITISCAPE, a citizen science based project enabling direct feedback between young adults and the City Council regarding their local built environment.

The webinar will be presented by Dr Dianna Smith (University of Southampton). Dianna is a lecturer in GIS and health geography, with over 15 years of experience in health inequalities and food insecurity research. She developed a model of food poverty risk used nationally in local government and contributes to Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) on food insecurity across many UK local authorities, guiding data collection and analysis.

More details  at https://www.godan.info/events/uk-food-poverty-measurement-and-risk-mitigation

I  would also like to take this opportunity to thank GeoData Institute and School of Geography & Environmental Science at University of Southampton for their help to GeoForAll initiative many years back.  It was University of Southampton who kindly developed and hosted the initial GeoForAll website for free and established the Open Source Geospatial Lab at Southampton http://www.osgl.soton.ac.uk/researchers

I will always be grateful for the support that University of Southampton colleagues kindly provided for the start of GeoForAll initiative many years back.

I am grateful to everyone, everywhere working for Zero Hunger Aim.

Best wishes,

Suchith

Dr Suchith Anand

Chief Scientist

Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition

https://www.godan.info

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Suchith_Anand

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