Quantifying the impact of European Food Banks
YEAR-4
Further developing the project considering the recommendations made by its members, FEBA will continue to pursue two macro goals, which will serve as focal points for the conduct of the activities characterising YEAR-4.
- Improvement of collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on the activities of FEBA Members; and
- Expanding the use of the online Observatory on Food Donation at the regional/local level.
Pursuing these objectives, the project management will follow an agile approach coined by the regular involvement and exchange with FEBA Members to gather feedback and track the progress.
The envisaged project activities will contribute to the following objectives:
- (1) Increased digitalisation levelz of food banking activities,
- (2) Targeted capacity-building for the benefit of Food Bank co-workers,
- (3) Reinforced capability to advocate for the interests of Food Banks; and
- (4) Sustained ability to provide reliable information<7b> to international organisations, EU institutions, national authorities, and private sector entities, to bolster the recovery and redistribution of surplus food.
Evaluation of Pilot Project with Food Bank Greece
- 8-9 April 2024
- Athens (Greece)
Food Bank Greece is conducting a pilot test that takes FEBA’s project on Data Collection & Digital Transformation to the next level. For the first time, the seven local/regional Food Banks belonging to their network used FEBA’s online Observatory on Food Donation to input their statistics, which are reviewed by the team of Food Bank Greece. As the next step, the aggregated data undergoes an approval process to guarantee validity and then feeds into FEBA’s statistics at the European level.
To monitor and evaluate the progress and gather relevant feedback, FEBA’s Network Development Coordinator travelled to Athens and was warmly welcomed by the team. On the agenda was also an online meeting with the external IT expert supporting FEBA with the technical infrastructure underlying the project with the goal to better understand encountered issues and possibilities for an increase in user-friendliness of the online Data Collection platform.
Kick-off meeting
- 29 February 2024
- Online
Inviting the entire membership, FEBA organised an online meeting on 29 February to kick off the fourth year of its project on Data Collection and Digital Transformation.
30 participants including representatives from 25 FEBA Members joined to get an overview of the goals and activities foreseen in the course of the next months, which are naturally building on the achievements of the previous project year. In line with the core objective of the first semester to further improve the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on the activities of the Food Banks belonging to the FEBA network, technical modifications to the online data collection platform were presented in a live demo guiding the participants through the system.
In addition, the timeline of the second semester was outlined during which the focus will lie on expanding the use of the online Observatory on Food Donation at the regional/local level. In 2024, Federația Băncilor pentru Alimente din România will join Food Bank Greece in the group of Pilot Members using the data collection platform to collect information from their respective regional/local Food Banks.
An interactive Q&A discussion between the participants concluded the meeting. From 4 March, FEBA Members will submit their 2023 data, which in an aggregated format will paint a comprehensive picture of the scale, scope, and impact of European Food Banks.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
