The Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture and Statistics Office have received some new laptops from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Both government departments received the new laptops earlier this month at the Pacific Sub Regional Office which is located in Rarotonga.

The new equipment is part of the country’s collaboration with ADB under what is known as the “knowledge and support technical assistance (KSTA) 9646”, which is part of ADB’s Data for Development initiative (Phase II).

“The technical assistance aims to support the Cook Islands in improving agricultural area estimates from the most recent Census of Agriculture,” said ADB.

“In addition to the provision of equipment, the ADB KSTA 9646 also provides capacity-building activities on statistical sampling techniques and land measurement methods using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools for evidence-based programme planning in the agriculture sector.”

According to the ADB website, the knowledge and support technical assistance (KSTA) has been conceptualised with the objective of enhancing the statistical capacity of the National Statistical Systems (NSS) of selected developing member economies in Asia and the Pacific using technological tools.