July was an eventful month for the development data community. ODW continued to monitor the state of COVID-19 data and its impact around the world. A component of this included a blog on the availability of sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19 cases and deaths. With the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), ODW also released the ConVERGE conference outcome report that offers summaries of high-level and technical discussions, and provides messages of action on civil registration and vital statistics and gender.
Below is a selected list of sustainable development data articles and reports published in July. For specific articles on the intersection of development data and COVID-19, visit our “Data in the Time of COVID-19″. If there is something else to add, please contact us.
July
Communicating gender statistics for gender equality (July)
PARIS21, in collaboration with UN Women as part of the ‘Making Every Woman and Girl Count’ initiative, launches a new course that is designed to guide journalists and statisticians to use statistics to report on the unique situation and needs of women and men. (source)
Global SDG Indicators Database (July)
The United Nations Statistics Division releases a major update of the Global SDG Indicators Database with new data for 47 indicators, of which 8 are published for the first time. (source)
Gender Data Portal (July)
The World Bank revamps its Gender Data Portal with over 600 indicators, a comprehensive source for the latest sex-disaggregated data and gender statistics covering demography, education, health, access to economic opportunities, public life and decision-making, and agency. (source)
SDGs Today (July)
In partnership with Esri and National Geographic, SDGs Today: The Global Hub for Real-Time SDG Data is a platform developed by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), providing key stakeholders from around the world access to timely data. (source)
OECD July’s Statistics Newsletter (July)
The July issue includes three articles that discuss the interactions between COVID-19 and data: (1) Three ways a well-being lens can aid COVID-19 recovery; (2) Using commercial data sources to project foreign direct investment flows during the COVID-19 pandemic; and (3) Communicating COVID-19: what are NSOs doing? (source)
A Vaccine Is Not the Only Answer to COVID-19: Why Strengthening Statistical and Data Systems Must Be Part of the Solution (7/1)
Deirdre Appel and Shaida Badiee from Open Data Watch make the case for why strengthening statistical and data systems must be part of the solution to combatting COVID-19, during and after the pandemic in an article on NextBillion. (source)
Operationalising CD4.0 in the Philippines: Strengthening gender statistics for subnational SDG monitoring (Orientation Workshop) (7/1)
PARIS21 and the Philippine Statistics Authority launch a new program in recognition of the growing need to enhance sub-national gender statistics production in line with SDG monitoring practices while empowering communities to participate in the process. (source)
New World Bank country classifications by income level: 2020-2021 (7/1)
The World Bank Group updates countries classification by income level for 2020-2021, of which ten countries are moved to a different category. (source)
Mapping citizen science contributions to the UN sustainable development goals (7/2)
reviews the metadata and work plans of the 244 SDG indicators and presents an overview regarding citizen science position in today’s world and how it contributes data to the SDG indicator framework. (source)
Fair justice systems need open data access (7/9)
A Northwestern artificial intelligence (A.I) researcher, Kristian Hammond, and the C3 Lab are developing an A.I. platform that provides users with access to the information and insights hidden inside federal court records. (source)
New Report: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 (7/8)
United Nations presents an overview of progress towards the SDGs before the pandemic started, and looks at some of the devastating initial impacts of COVID-19 on specific goals and targets. (source)
Census Data Drives Decision Making (7/10)
In honour of World Population Day, ODW compiled a list of helpful articles and resources on census data, organized by categories that affect data-driven decision making: availability, openness, dissemination, and use and uptake. (source)
Six reasons why demography matters during the pandemic (7/11)
Maitreyi Bordia Das from the World Bank discusses the importance of mortality, age structure, migration, marriage and cohabitation, living arrangements and residential patterns, and race ethnicity and gender during COVID-19 and calls for investment in data to understand population dynamics. (source)
Bottleneck for U.S. Coronavirus Response: The Fax Machine (7/13)
Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz from the New York Times explain problems caused by the fragmented health system in the United States, a jumble of old and new technology, and data standards that don’t meet epidemiologists’ needs. (source)
We Must Prioritize Investment in Gender Data for COVID-19 Recovery and SDG Progress (7/14)
Sarah Boyd, Director of Global Advocacy at Data2X, highlights three actionable recommendations governments should take to ensure gender data is informing daily decisions about health, social, and economic policy from Data2X’s new policy brief, Invest in Gender Data for COVID-19 Recovery and SDG Progress. (source)
Statistics Canada to start collecting race-based crime data (7/15)
Statistics Canada and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police will begin working to collect sound data when reporting on victims and people accused of crimes — a step that comes amid mounting criticism of how law enforcement agencies across Canada police marginalized communities. (source)
Epidemiology and Beyond: Modelling adaptive responses (7/16)
Alan Hudson and Parker Essick from Global Integrity review the ongoing discussions and issues about COVID-19 responses, including the complex nature of the challenges, the need for adaptive responses, and the value and limits of models. (source)
Tracking the Trackers: SDG Data Sources at Year Five (7/23)
IISD compiles a list of platforms that permit users to explore SDG-related data and datasets that are country-specific to bring context and targeted functions specific to an audiences’ data needs.(source)
Why real-time economic data need to be treated with caution (7/23)
The Economists explores the trade-offs between timeliness and accuracy of real-time data, in contrast to official hard data that are released with a lag of weeks, with examples of mobility data and credit card transactions. (source)
Open data helps build trust, prevent misinformation (7/25)
Mahar Lagmay, executive director of the University of the Philippines Resilience Institute, discusses the importance of building trust and resilience with open data and open science and how being able to reproduce findings increases public’s trust in authorities. (source)
From Inclusive Data to Inclusive Policy: Reflections from Kenya, Peru, and Senegal (7/29)
Kate Richards, Inclusive Data Charter Outreach Manager at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, takes a deep dive to explore how some countries are generating inclusive data and using it for policy decisions. She interviews three policymakers and statisticians from Kenya, Peru, and Senegal. (source)