This February the World Bank held the first ever Data Day at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.. Experts and innovators from the World Bank Group and civil society organizations met to discuss data-driven development, technology, and innovation. Earlier in the month, Open Data Watch released the first of three briefs on CRVS and Gender in collaboration with the Centre of Excellence at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Below is a list of additional sustainable development data articles and reports published in February. If there is something else to add, please contact us.
February
El Salvador is the new Charter adopter (2/1)
The Open Data Charter recognizes El Salvador as the newest country and the 65th government to adopt the Open Data Charter in their new blog post. It also outlines how El Salvador has added open data and access to information policies to the country’s newest five-year development plan. (source)
Big data sources for official statistics (2/2)
Statistics Netherlands provides new paper on a time-series model to estimate monthly unemployment figures using Google internet search data on Google Trends. (source)
Gender Equality as an Accelerator for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals – Discussion Paper (2/4)
A new paper written by the United Nations Population Fund argues that accelerating the pace of advancing gender equality in all spheres of society leads to a more rapid increase in progress towards achieving the 2030 Agenda. (source)
Unpalatable numbers: statistician who rocked Modi government had to take a stand (2/4)
Reuters tells the story of how a statistician took a stand against India’s delay in releasing national employment statistics for political reasons. The article states that the statistician was fighting to deliver data in a timely manner to the citizens of India, regardless of the potential political backlash. (source)
Measuring the statistical capacity of nations (2/5)
The World Bank Group organizes one of the first attempts to develop the conceptual foundation for statistical capacity indexes. They created the Statistical Performance Index (SPI) to measure the abilities of national statistical systems. (source)
Death, statistics and a disaster zone: the struggle to count the dead after Hurricane Maria (2/5)
Carrie Arnold explains how two researchers from The George Washington University recalculated the death toll for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. A closer look at death certificates related to the aftermath of the hurricane revealed a higher number of hurricane-related deaths than previous estimates. (source)
Lack of data hampering fight to end FGM, says CS Kobia (2/5)
Muthoni Waweru provides an overview of how the absence of data collected on female genital mutilation is preventing Kenya from ending the cultural practice. She discusses how this gap in the data could prevent the country from meeting the expectations of the Sustainable Development Goals. (source)
Lack of data is an issue of global injustice (2/6)
Claire Melamed of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data discusses the effects of the global identity gap in her TED talk. The global identity gap refers to the number of people who do not hold formal identification and are, therefore, invisible to public services and protection from the government. (source)
What comes after legally mandated OPEN data (2/7)
Jessie Bur of the Federal Times analyzes the effects of the OPEN Government Data Act. She explains that the bill is the first step in getting the United States federal government to provide transparent data for the American public. (source)
Family spending on education: a new guidebook on measurement (12/11)
A guidebook published by the World Bank and UNESCO shows new estimates for the economic costs of education around the world. Data show that the majority of funding comes from families, which adds a disproportionate economic burden to low-income families. (source)
There’s a hole in the data (2/11)
This opinion piece from The Indian Express states that India has failed to create capacities for a timely, reliable, and decentralized data regime. This is in response to the controversy over the delay in releasing employment data from the National Sample Survey. (source)
The Women In Mining (WIM) Index: Using Data to Measure and Improve Gender Considerations in the Extractive Sector (2/19)
Development Gateway explains how they have partnered with Women in Mining Guinea to design a women’s index for the extractive sector titled the Women In Mining (WIM) Africa Index. The new index will assess and measure women’s inclusion in the mining sector to evaluate their working conditions and analyze their challenges. (source)
Data2X’s Takeaways from the World Bank’s First-Ever Data Day (2/19)
Emily Courey Pryor of Data2X provides takeaways from the world’s first Data Day at the World Bank. While the discussions focused on development data, Emily Pryor mentions that gender also played a central role. (source)
How good financial data drives gender-inclusive growth (2/22)
This article written by Devex focuses on the Global Findex database and the importance of gender disaggregated data to diminish the economic disparities between men and women. The most recent dataset reveals that, globally, women are on average seven percentage points less likely to hold a bank account than men.(source)
Better Data make Better Lives (2/23)
Members of the PARIS21 Secretariat produce five podcasts that
describe why better data can improve lives and how data can affect policy choices. (source)
“The World We Want” for Data: Articulating Clear, Compelling Goals on Data for Development (2/25)
Jessica Espey of SDSN TReNDS explains that a funding increase is needed to meet and monitor the Sustainable Development Goals. Additional funding will be needed to increase statistical capacity, fund censuses and increase civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system coverage, support governance frameworks, and to harness new data sources and partnerships for innovation. (source)
Why fixing Africa’s data gaps will lead to better health policies (2/26)
The Middle East North Africa Financial Network (MENAFN) publishes an article that traces the data revolution in Africa. MENAFN has observed that routinely collected health service data has led to improvements among ministries of health in Africa, which is useful for designing national strategic plans. (source)
The Common Denominators of Administrative Data and Official Statistics (2/26)
Paige Kirby from Development Gateway discusses the strengths and limitations of administrative data and official statistics. Through a series of interviews with key stakeholders in seven countries, Development Gateway concluded that the main barriers that affect the usability of statistical data include poor timeliness and inconsistencies in producing machine-readable data. (source)
IIED Finds Gender-related “Blind Spot” in 2018 VNRs (2/26)
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) assesses the inclusion of gender issues in 48 Voluntary National Reviews. They concluded that several countries integrated gender into their national policies but left out the evaluation of their gender focused programs and that more resources are needed to promote equity-focused and gender-responsive evaluation. (source)
Mexico Proves Bill & Melinda Right on Gender Data (2/27)
The Center of Global Development explains how Mexico used sex-disaggregated financial inclusion data to develop policies that help women own their own formal financial product. The research listed the main obstacle to financial inclusion as the absence of collateral. (source)