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The Applied Techniques Initiative (ATI)

As the pandemic exacerbates the economic situation the challenges of organizing and managing decision analysis in support of project design for sustainable agricultural development, have increased. Practitioners do not always have the financial means to purchase expensive reference documents or spend time on long theoretical documents. There is an urgent need for practitioners to have direct access to the essentials in terms of well-defined information requirements and to have the required analytical tools at hand to complete the analyses relevant to their particular environmental circumstances to identify lower risk but feasible sustainable solutions.

There have been many and increasing numbers of international workshops on Sustainable Development Goals which most practitioners cannot afford to attend and most such events result in very general guidelines expressed in high levels of abstraction. The main challenge is to disseminate best practice in design in a practical and immediate fashion via cloud computing. The distribution of the Internet and practical access in each country results in the creation of a range of nodes that can make use of analytical tools. Some such locations are urban when the need is to serve rural areas. Therefore the organizations to benefit from ATs include extension services, local consultants and farmer organizations who can disseminate the results of appropriate analyses.

Appeal for practitioner requests

The Sustainable Development Facility invites practitioners working in the agricultural sector to send in their requirements in terms of concise guidelines on analytical techniques applied to project design which they consider to be of value to their work. These requests can be sent to:

ati@sustainabledevelopmentfacility.org

The SDF undertakes to reply to all such requests to provide feedback on the feasibility of developing the guidelines as well as implement the analytical tools supporting the analyses requested.

Sources of funding

The SDF is an appeals account of the George Boole Foundation whose operational units, such as SEEL-Systems Engineering Economics Lab, has been involved in global network technology development and decision analysis since 1983 and associates have been involved in agricultural project design and management since 1972.

In order to carry out AT design and testing there is a requirement for funding and on the basis of prospectus documentation, that contains descriptions of requested briefs and ATs, the SDF will seek funding from various organizations. If those requesting the service can provide funding this, of course, will be welcomed. Currently the Foundation is approaching donors and other organizations to seek funding for the ATI as well as other initiatives.

A proposal for crowd funding is also under consideration to enable small contributions to be received to accumulate to achieve specific targets to be announced in due course. The main objective is to establish a low entry cost for organizations in low income countries in order to help disseminate this service worldwide.

Terms and conditions

The Sustainable Development Facility is an appeal account of the George Boole Foundation Limited. The Foundation is a non-profit organization which has a considerable amount of experience in this field completed by leading experts on a voluntary basis. The provision of the services under the Applied Techniques Initiative follow the same applied principles and conditions as all other Foundation services. All free services are offered on the basis that all copyrights and patents on all AT designs and implemented modules becoming the property of the Foundation. With a non-profit legal structure there are no dividend-earning shares or profit-sharing amongst associates and any margins on any funds received are applied to the furtherance of the Foundation's objectives of creating useful digital applications for the benefit of society.

The operational units supporting the Applied Techniques Initiative include: The Analytical Tool Development Centre of SEEL-Systems Engineering Economics Lab and more recently Mutec.Cloud.

APEurope.org