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CKAN

Owned by Zoe Wingate
Dec 20, 2024
4 min read

FEWS NET uses CKAN to publish curated Data Sets relevant to food security analysis. These Data Sets are made publicly available on the CKAN platform, as well as on the FEWS NET and HDX websites.

CKAN is also used to store and publish one-off Data Sets that do not benefit from FDW’s time series approach.

FDW to CKAN pipeline

The following packages are automatically published to CKAN from FDW, and from CKAN to the FEWS NET Website Data Center:

  • Acute Food Insecurity: These Data Sets contain the Acute Food Insecurity Classification data used in FEWS NET analysis. The data is provided in Shapefile format, along with PNG maps and a PDF readme file. One data set per FEWS NET country and region per month is available.

  • Geography: These Data Sets contain Geographic Unit Set Versions that are official FEWS NET data, including the FEWS NET administrative boundaries and the Food Insecurity Classification units.

    • These files are mostly static, but a new node will be created each time a new GeographicUnitSetVersion belonging to the FEWS NET organization and with a Public DataUsagePolicy is published. The package will contain the uploaded Shapefile, and the GeoJSON and KML extracts of the GeographicUnits.

  • Markets and Trade: These Data Sets contain the monthly global and country-level staple food price data and East and Southern Africa Cross-Border Trade files.

    • Staple food price data files contain the full time series, with new data being added each month.

The CKAN resources for these Data Sets use links to the appropriate extracts in FDW.

Uploading survey data to CKAN

Add Data Sets

  1. From the Datasets tab or FEWS NET organization page, select Add Dataset. 

  2. Fill out the necessary metadata fields, including: 

    1. Title: This will determine the automatically generated URL alias of the node in D9 starting with http://data.fews.net/dataset/ .

    2. Description: Descriptive text will be visible in CKAN and is searchable. 

    3. Tags: Tags are used to filter data sets within CKAN as well as connect data sets to the FEWS NET Website Data Center. 

      1. Select a tag that matches the http://fews.net data type taxonomy term (i.e., Markets and Trade, Acute Food Insecurity, Livelihood Zones, or Geographic Boundaries) to add the data to the Data Center. 

      2. Only existing tags should be selected. Please submit a HelpDesk ticket if you would like a new tag to be added.

    4. License: Select the option reflected in the Data Source Document (for data in FDW), or as specified by the data collectors. 

    5. For data collected by FEWS NET, use the Creative Commons Attribution, International option. 

    6. Organization: Select FEWS NET.

    7. Visibility: 

      1. If set to Private, those with a http://data.fews.net login who are assigned to the FEWS NET organization will have access. 

      2. If set to Public, anyone with the link can access and data is able to appear in the FEWS NET Website’s Data Center.

    8. Source: The Source field is optional. 

    9. Version: The Version field is optional.

    10. Author: The Author field is optional. 

    11. Author Email: The Author Email field is optional. 

    12. Maintainer: Input fewsnet.

    13. Maintainer Email: The Maintainer Email field is optional. 

    14. Custom Fields: Set custom fields to create start and end dates for data published to the FEWS NET Website Data Center. Dates will be used to drive search results. 

      1. Key: Input start_date; Value: Input year-month-day (e.g., 2023-05-01).

      2. Key: Input end_date; Value: Input year-month-day (e.g., 2023-09-30).

  3. Select Next: Add Data. 

  4. Add new resource: 

    1. Data: 

      1. Select Upload to upload a file directly. Use this option if data is not available by an API, or if the API requires authentication. 

      2. Select Link to provide the API link. 

    2. Name:

    3. Description:

    4. Format: Type to search and select the file format. 

    5. Select Save & add another or Add.

Each dataset must be added to a CKAN group as outlined below. 

Add a Dataset to a Group

All data in CKAN should be assigned to a Group that represents the Country or Region. 

Within the context of the FEWS NET Website, a Region is a taxonomy term representing the location of the node. This may correspond to a Country or a group of countries managed by a Regional Office, such as Latin America and the Caribbean. 

The CKAN Group name must match the name of the Region in the FEWS NET Website taxonomy. Specifically, the region_code listed for the Group in CKAN must match the Region ID used on the FEWS NET Website. This is the ISO-3166 two-letter (alpha-2) country code (in upper case) or region name (in lowercase, with a dash between words). 

A CKAN Group for a Country will also contain an additional metadata item that matches the Country or Region to an FDW Country or Country Group. This will be either iso3166a2 for a Country or m49code for a Country Group/FEWS NET Region.

To view the metadata for a Group in CKAN: 

  1. Select the Groups tab. 

  2. Choose the Group. 

  3. Select the About tab. 

To add a Dataset to a Group in CKAN: 

  1. Select the Datasets tab.

  2. Choose the Dataset. 

  3. Select the Groups tab.

  4. Select the Group from the dropdown.

  5. Click Add to group.