Six Takeaways from the 2025 UN Statistical Commission
By Open Data Watch
20 March 2025
The 56th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) convened in New York from March 4 to 7, 2025, bringing together leaders from national statistical offices (NSOs), international organizations, and civil society to address key priorities in global statistics.
This year’s Commission marked significant endorsements and resolutions, including the new System of National Accounts (SNA), the adoption of the 2030 Population and Housing Census resolution, and the progress report on SDG indicators, which now includes ODIN as part of SDG 17.18.1. The Commission also advanced efforts to form a task force addressing the impact of termination of DHS surveys on national statistical systems. Additionally, the UNSC endorsed the Copenhagen Framework on Citizen Data, recognizing its role in advancing innovative, inclusive data collection.
Alongside these key developments, side events provided a platform to explore AI’s role in data quality, strengthening data financing mechanisms, and innovative approaches to time use surveys, fostering deeper engagement and collaboration on these critical topics.
Below are the major themes and takeaways from ODW’s engagements at UNSC 2025 and what’s next for these discussions.
Power to the People: Citizen Data Gets Official Recognition
The UNSC witnessed significant progress in the realm of citizen data. At the side event Partnership for Impact: NSOs and the Copenhagen Framework on Citizen Data, hosted by the Collaborative on Citizen Data, panelists discussed how NSOs are beginning to integrate alternative data sources, such as citizen data, into their systems. The conversations demonstrated how citizen data gives power to the people, giving them a voice in the data collection and use processes. The need for careful governance and data stewardship were also emphasized as necessary next steps for ensuring the responsible use of citizen data.
What’s New: The Collaborative on Citizen Data presented the Copenhagen Framework, a document that conceptualizes and sets standards for the roles citizens can play across the data value chain. The Commission endorsed this framework, marking a pivotal step in integrating citizen data into official statistics.
What’s Next: The Collaborative will continue to promote the Copenhagen Framework through events, missions, and its Community of Practice. Later in the year, the Expert Group Meeting on Citizen Data will convene to discuss improvements and future steps.
Francesca Perucci, ODW’s Director of Policy and Partnerships, leads a discussion at the UNSC side event on citizen data.
Advancing Time-Use Data for Economic Visibility
During the UNSC, a side event titled “It’s Time for More Time-Use Surveys: Advancing the Field for Gender Equality” was co-hosted by Data2X, Open Data Watch, the UN Statistics Division, and UN Women. This event underscored the importance of time-use data in capturing the full spectrum of work, including unpaid labor, to inform policies on economic productivity and gender equality.
What’s new: Our partner organization Data2X has launched a series of case studies on time-use data focused on women’s time and care work in Kenya, Mongolia, Senegal, and South Korea.
What’s next: ODW is committed to continuing these conversations in 2025 with partners, NSOs, governments, and civil-society, focusing on the adoption of time-use surveys to capture the value of unpaid work worldwide. Such conversations allow us to go beyond traditional GDP measures, providing more nuances on the well-being, economic wealth, and labor dynamics of populations.
Show Me the Money: The Push for Financing Development Data
Discussions on financing for development data were a focal point at this year’s UNSC, especially in anticipation of the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) scheduled for July 2025. ODW organized an official side event on the role high-quality data plays in shaping effective development financing strategies. The event connected NSO heads, government representatives, and UN delegations engaged with the FfD4 process.
What’s New? The Commission reviewed the Zero Draft of the FfD4 Outcome Document, which was based on the Elements Paper that ODW contributed to in the previous year. Countries at the Commission emphasized the value of data in financing development and supported the calls by the HLG-PCCB to ensure data and statistics were represented throughout the outcome document and that data and statistics are used to inform the follow-up to FfD4 without adding greater reporting burdens. On Monday following UNSC, the First Draft of the FFD4 Outcome Document was published. The document calls for investments in data and cooperation around capacity building as outlined in the Medellin Framework, together with an emphasis on better disaggregated data and improved data sharing through open data.
What’s Next: In April, the Fourth Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) and the ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum will take place in New York. These events aim to refine the Outcome Document and bolster multilateral cooperation to scale up sustainable development investments and strengthen global financial governance. The FfD4 in July will gather governments, civil society organizations, NSOs, and international bodies in Spain to further these discussions.
Panelists from the UNSC side event on financing for development gather after the session. Representatives are from ODW, UNSD, Colombia, GPSDD, and Maldives.
From Medellín to Riyadh: The Road to the 2026 UN World Data Forum
The 5th UN World Data Forum in Medellín, Colombia was the latest stop in a five-continent journey, focusing on partnerships, innovation, governance, and financing in data and statistics. As the Forum looks ahead to Saudi Arabia in 2026, the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination, and Capacity-Building reflected on lessons learned, discussing insights from past Forums, priorities to sustain and expand, and ways to enhance outreach and engagement.
What’s New? The Medellín Framework for Action, the outcome document of the previous UNWDF in Colombia, was approved and endorsed during the UNSC. This framework builds on the Cape Town Global Action Plan to guide data efforts until 2030, focusing on strengthening global data capacity.
What’s Next: Aligning with the Medellín Framework, all Commit to Data (C2D) commitments have been mapped to track progress and enhance collaboration ahead of the 2026 UNWDF in Riyadh. To bridge the 2024 and 2026 UNWDFs, ODW and PARIS21 are embarking on the “Road to Riyadh” an initiative that will organize events, convenings, and gatherings in the lead up to the 6th UNWDF. To shape this work, we are conducting a survey to define activities that strengthen commitments and expand the C2D network.
Panelists gather after the UNSC side event on the UNWDFs. Representatives are from ODW, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, UNSD, GPSDD, PARIS21, UNDP, Switzerland, and Albania.
Artificial Intelligence Meets Open Data: The Future of Trustworthy Statistics
While open data was not a formal agenda item at the UNSC, its relevance was underscored in discussions related to AI. Stats New Zealand and Lithuania used the special topic of data governance on March 3 to separately make the points that more open data is a key element of more trust in official statistics and therefore key for more use and returned value. The representative from Lithuania stated that official statistics and open data are two sides of the same coin: Official statistics provides the quality, while open data is how you get the data to be used and its value to be realized.
What’s New: While the AI revolution continues to reverberate, data held by NSOs is still underutilized as crawlers that feed AI systems don’t absorb structured data but rather reports. This increases the need for better data findability and for improving equity issues in the data. In addition to other statements by people like UNSC Commissioner Ulrich, the Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities emphasized that AI can effectively utilize official statistics only if structured data (databases, APIs) are discoverable and accompanied by comprehensive metadata. Amid concerns over the accessibility of data systems, there is a growing movement advocating for open data as a tool to enhance transparency, trust, and democratic accountability.
What’s Next: ODW is set to launch the results of the latest ODIN assessments in April 2025, providing insights into global data systems, particularly regarding standards of openness and coverage. Data Openness can be used as an indicator for how “AI-ready” official statistics are.
Beyond 2030: Building an Inclusive Data Future with iCount
Without disaggregated and inclusive data, the world risks leaving behind the most marginalized communities, making it harder to track progress and create policies that truly serve everyone. During the iCount Coalition side event at UNSC 2025, panelists, including our Research Manager, Lorenz Noe, discussed how to reshape data systems to center individuals and communities.
What’s New: The iCount Coalition, a new global initiative, was featured for the first time at UNSC as a collaborative effort to push for a more inclusive data framework beyond 2030. This work is a core part of Commit to Data (C2D), ensuring that data systems evolve to become more representative, accessible, and actionable.
What’s Next: ODW will continue working with the iCount Coalition and Commit to Data partners to ensure inclusive data frameworks shape policies leading up to 2030 and beyond.
Moving Ahead
The 2025 UNSC showed that data is no longer just a technical issue, it’s a policy and political priority. From new financing strategies to AI governance and citizen engagement, this year’s discussions have laid the foundation for major advancements.
ODW remains committed to pushing the conversation forward on time-use data, citizen-generated data, financing for development, and AI governance—ensuring that statistics serve as a tool for informed decision-making, equity, and progress.
