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Invitation à la soutenance publique de thèse pour l’obtention du grade de Docteur en sciences agronomiques et ingénierie biologique

Monsieur Damien JACQUES
Master bio-ingénieur : sciences et technologies de l’environnement
Harnessing the Data Revolution for Food Security and Poverty Mapping - Synergies between Mobile Phone data, Earth Observation and Official Statistics in Senegal

Relevant, accurate and timely data are needed to track progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, hold political leaders accountable and promote sustainable development. Yet, current data used for official statistics in developing countries are unreliable, outdated and expensive to collect. This thesis aims to bridge the resulting knowledge gap by harnessing the unique features of Earth observation and mobile phone data to develop and test new methods that can supplement official statistics for food security and poverty mapping in Senegal. First, we developed a methodological framework to define the accuracy requirements for early estimators of cropland area, crop area and crop yield needed to support early warning systems for food security. We showed that the inter-annual variability of crop yield was the main factor limiting the accuracy of pre-harvest production estimates. Second, we demonstrated how to integrate into a spatial equilibrium model a unique data set of mobile phone communications between 9 million people to model the impact of the traders’ social capital on market functioning and millet prices, an important indicator of food access. Finally, we developed a computational framework to efficiently combine disparate data sources, such as mobile phone and Earth observation data, to provide more accurate predictions of poverty and its determinants for fine spatial micro-regions. A key element of the proposed approach is that data can remain behind the firewall of the data suppliers, therefore ensuring that the privacy of mobile phone users is preserved. The thesis also contributes towards a better understanding of the potential and limitations of the data revolution to support the achievement of main development goals.