REKSS is a centralized system for managing and streamlining knowledge on the rural economy that identifies important information gaps that need to be filled and facilitates location-specific analysis of rural development and food security strategies.
- Data hub, integrating diverse data
- Data sharing framework
- Link to major GIS activities on rural economy
- Development domains
- Strategic priorities
- Investment targeting
- Monitoring and evaluation
A major achievement of the REKSS in the first half of 2006 was the completion of the first Atlas of the Ethiopian Rural Economy, which was launched on June 8, 2006 at the ESSP Policy Conference. The Atlas was produced in conjunction with the Central Statistical Authority. Once printing is completed by CSA in September 2006, dissemination will be undertaken to secondary schools, federal, regional, zonal, and woreda level offices and other users.
The Atlas is a collection of 83 map pages reflecting data on agricultural and rural conditions. The maps present statistics on the biophysical environment, access to services, demographic characteristics of the population, and crop and livestock production at the level of the rural woreda in areas of the country in which cropping or semi-sedentary pastoralism are the dominant rural occupations. As such, this atlas provides an important and accessible new data of spatially disaggregated information on the living conditions and characteristics of individuals and households in rural Ethiopia and the local economies in which they participate.
Other research outputs under REKSS are the following four papers on:
- by Jordan Chamberlin, John Pender, Bingxin Yu
- Water Harvesting and Irrigation Analysisby Jordan Chamberlin and Gezahegn Ayele
- by Mulugeta Tadesse
- by Betre Alemu
- Set up a complete GIS lab: IT arrangements, equipment procurement, installation, staffing/training
- Set up a data system to facilitate new data gathering, data input and harmonization and data inventory and documentation
- Coordinate outreach and protocols with other GIS databases
This activity will be undertaken in close collaboration with the Central Statistical Authority. It will involve putting together a comprehensive atlas of the Ethiopian rural economy across production, infrastructure, market, natural resources, agro-climatic, social, institutional, and demographic domains.
This activity will involve closely working with various groups of researchers and policy analysts to analyze the different definitions of development domains and to provide a definitive output on a set of domain indicators and definitions for policy and research uses.
This activity involves working closely with experts within the Marketing Department of the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development and other market experts to elaborate the implications of the national marketing strategy and to analyze both spatial and non-spatial dimensions of the envisaged interventions.
This activity involves working closely with experts within the Natural Resources Department of the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development and the Ministry of Water Resources to analyze the emerging trends on water uses and to analyze spatially and non-spatially the implications of the national water harvesting and small-scale irrigation strategy as well as the medium and large scale irrigation plans.
For REKSS related events, see the ESSP Events page.