Review-2001/13 -  WAICENT- The World Agricultural Information Centre - Courtesy Food and Agriculture Organization - FAO

 WAICENT – The World Agricultural Information Centre - is the strategic programme on information management and dissemination of FAO. It provides access to FAO's information resources and makes the knowledge of the Organizaton on all fields of food security and agricultural development widely available to users around the world, through the Internet.

The scope of WAICENT is far-reaching, as it is primarily concerned with the following aspects of information management:

WAICENT provides Specialised Information Systems on topics of global relevance, such as Desertification, Gender and Sustainable Development, Food Standards, Animal Genetic Resources, Post-Harvest Operations, Agro-Biodiversity and Food Systems in Urban Centres.

It offers a vast array of information that is organized and linked to facilitate User access. A point of entry to this information is the WAICENT Information Finder, an on-line search tool that allows the User to navigate through the WAICENT website according to several criteria. The Information Finder is a key tool for managing and disseminating the Organization’s information.

 Sources of Information:

 Waicent basically contains FAOs information resources and makes the knowledge of the Organizaton on all fields of food security and agricultural development widely available to users around the world.

WAICENT meets information needs in all aspects of agricultural development and food security:

• Global Information and Early Warning Systems on Food and Agriculture, Plant and Animal Diseases and Agriculture Genetic Resources.
• The most complete Statistical Database on Food and Agriculture (FAOSTAT) covering over 3000 commodities for 210 countries.
• Maps and remote sensing images on agrometeorology and food security issues from around the world.
• FAO's Virtual Library and Documentation Systems (AGRIS and CARIS), including the AGROVOC thesaurus on food and agriculture covering all the technical areas of FAO's work.
• Hypermedia information systems on key topics including agriculture, nutrition, fisheries, forestry, sustainable development and gender issues in agriculture.

The concept of WAICENT is to help build capacity in FAO's Member Countries in the important areas of food security and agricultural development. This work is part of WAICENT's Outreach Programme.

WAICENT resources are useful for a wide range of users involved in agricultural as well as socio-economic study and research. The planners and decision-makers in the Government bodies too, may find very information of their use, on the WAICENT Web site.

WAICENT offers a vast array of information that is organized and linked to facilitate User access. A point of entry to this information is the WAICENT Information Finder, an on-line search tool that allows the User to navigate through the WAICENT website according to several criteria. The Information Finder is a key tool for managing and disseminating the Organization’s information.

The WAICENT Information Finder is located at: http://www.fao.org/waicent/

Please visit the UN Common Library to consult WAICENT Database and online retrieval of any documents, contained in the repository through our Free Internet Access Terminals. Otherwise, please feel free to use Ask UNCOL, our phone / email-based remote reference service to make database searches for you for the document/s you need and send the search results or document/s to you by return email. The documents may be printed, downloaded on Floppy discs or saved and delivered electronically to an e-mail address as an attachment.