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BRIDGE is a new data assessiment tool designed for NSOs and NSS partners to check the maturity of their gender data systems, set priorities for investments, and communicate those priorities to domestic and international sources of financing.

Funding for gender data decreased by 55% in 2020 — nearly three times the drop in funding to data and statistics overall. But a four-part strategy to support data for SDG 5 could reverse this trend.

The world is behind in collecting and producing the data needed to measure gender equality, slowing progress towards achieving this critical human rights and development goal. Will UNGA act to chart a new course?

Investing in data ecosystems that include gender is vital to responding to pandemics, climate change, and global conflicts. But closing the gender data financing gap needs a strategy to make funding to go further in a time of scarcity.

How can countries, development actors and other partners accelerate the pace to finance gender data? Research suggests three ways.

Accessible and timely sex-disaggregated data are critical in helping policymakers understand and address the unique challenges that women and girls face. But do investments in gender statistics match their importance?

The most climate-vulnerable regions of the world lack the adequate environment data to combat climate change. Averting a climate crisis requires a data strategy that promotes high-quality, open, and timely data across all countries.

The UN World Data Forum 2021 was the first major opportunity since the pandemic for development data experts and users to assess the lessons and impact of COVID-19 on Sustainable Development Goals. Four main takeaways show a move from “what” to “how” data can be used to achieve SDGs.

The UN World Data Forum 2021 gathers data experts and users from governments, civil society, the private sector, donors, international and regional agencies, the geospatial community, the media, academia, and professional bodies to spur data innovation and mobilize high-level support for better data for sustainable development.

The Generation Equality Forum defined bold commitments to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment across the globe, launching a global 5-year action plan backed by $40-billion in new funding.

We face a paradox: the world runs on data, but even simple statistics to guide policy-makers are often nowhere to be found. Investing in statistics today is investing in our ability to respond diligently, rapidly, and appropriately tomorrow.

Investing in better data on women’s realities is a smart investment to enable effective decision-making — both for immediate pandemic response and for longer-term Sustainable Development Goals.

The world’s inability to monitor and contain the spread of COVID-19 is costing trillions. With such losses, budgets are tightening. Prioritized spending is critical. Funds and hopes are now focused on the arrival of an effective vaccine. But, once again, that won’t be enough.

Counting on the World to Act, published by SDSN TReNDS, is an exceptional data report covering some specific areas of data governance that have been missing from the conversation so far, including discussion of amended laws, new data officers, the digital ecosystem, and the case for investment.

Experts gathered recently in Washington to discuss an issue underpinning all other development issues – the gaps in data and statistics needed to implement Sustainable Developmentd Goals (SDGs). Effective policies to provide a better life for people require more and better data, but how to fund it?

The UN’s Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data (CTGAP) calls for urgent action on a global pact to modernize and strengthen national statistical systems in lower-income countries where, despite being under-resourced and under-staffed, they face increasing demands from data users and increasing needs to measure SDGs.

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals hinges on harnessing evidence, technology, and data science. A new Development Co-operation Report 2017 from OECD provides a holistic view of data-driven development and identifies concrete actions to advance the job of improving the quality of data and statistics.

The Sustainable Development Goals place new demands on the statistical systems of developing countries, but support for building sufficient capacity is lagging behind.

The World Bank’s recently released poverty report, Ending Extreme Poverty and Sharing Prosperity: Progress and Policies, brings news that the rate of extreme poverty in the world declined again in 2012, reaching a global average of 9.8 percent of the world’s population, although a more relevant figure places it at 15.7 percent of the population in “developing” countries.

Recently published estimates by Brookings Institution researchers Laurence Chandy and Christine Zhang of the funding needed to produce indicators for monitoring SDGs appears to demonstrate that other cost assessments are far too high. But the analysis leaves out elements and runs the risk of creating complacency over the need for serious, continuing investments in the statistical capacity of developing countries.

Two questions — “What is the data revolution?” and “How is it affecting people’s lives?” — lead to many more questions. The world is generating data at an ever increasing rate. What is it good for? Who benefits? Will poor countries be left out?

Representatives of the international community met in Addis Ababa (12-16 July 2015) for the Third Financing for Development Conference. This meeting is a pivotal moment for the post-2015 agenda and the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development.

Developing a clear estimate for the scale of resources needed for the statistical capacity of countries to produce the needed data for the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is critical. Up to now, it has been a guessing game to a large extent, but now a team of development data experts has done a comprehensive assessment.