Since July open data professionals have been busy preparing for the UN General Assembly and the International Open Data Conference. In the last three months, there have been noteworthy developments, such as data workshops in East Africa, the release of new national strategies for the development of statistics, and two reports on financing the data needs for the SDGs. Here are summaries of these events alongside many others on the topic of the data revolution. If there is something else to add, please contact us.
SEPTEMBER
Data ‘crucial’ to eradicating poverty
This Guardian article by Sarah Shearman, citing the new PRESS report by PARIS21, says the UN sustainable development goals can’t be achieved unless more funding goes to data and statistics. She goes on to say national statistics offices in developing countries are chronically underfunded as support for data is under 1 percent of official development assistance. (source)
Financing the SDG data needs: What does it take?
In this Huffington Post blog, Johannes Jutting and Shaida Badiee discuss two recently published reports which argue that with modest additional investment in data and statistics financing the SDG data needs can be achieved. The Huffington Post article place the statistical funding gap at $340 million a year. (source)
Aid for statistics 2016 report
Open Data Watch’s recent report, “Aid for statistics: An inventory of financial instruments,” draws on a survey sent to multilateral donors asking them to describe the financing mechanism they use to provide support for aid for statistics. The report describes a typology of mechanisms used to finance aid for statistics. (source)
There’s a glaring gap in the war against poverty and disease
All Things Considered on National Public Radio discusses the shortcomings and challenges in compiling the data needed to achieve the SDGs. They draw attention to the major data gaps in communicable diseases, domestic violence, and unpaid labor. (source)
StatsCan head quits, cites loss of independence
The Global and Mail reports on the resignation of Statistics Canada’s chief statistician, Wayne Smith. Citing concerns over the independence of the agency, Mr. Smith said in a memo to members of the National Statistical Council that he quit due to frustration over a shift of StatsCan’s informatics infrastructure to Shared Services Canada. (source)
More African governments are enacting open data policies but still aren’t willing to share information
This article by Joshua Masinde on Quartz Africa discusses the occurrences of African governments who enact open data policies but do not follow through to full implementation. It argues that allowing citizens to access data or information is different from the actual practice of enabling that access. (source)
China investigates former statistics chief, charges two executives with graft
According to Channel News Asia, the state prosecutor said China has detained the former head of the National Bureau of Statistics on suspicion of corruption. (source)
Statistics key to boosting Nigeria’s tax
In an interview with the National Mirror, the president of Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics highlights the importance of improving the country’s statistical database to guide program implementation and explores the role of statistical data in development. (source)
National statistical offices in Andean community participate in regional NSDS Workshop
Officials from the national statistical offices of Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and member countries of the Andean community participated in the regional workshop to develop national strategies for the development of statistics (NSDSs) for the period 2017-2021. (source)
CSO seeks solution to produce statistical data
The Central Statistical Office of Zambia has called for a solution to address challenges facing the coordination and harmonization of statistical data production and dissemination, which is currently very weak in Zambia, according to Zambia Daily Mail. (source)
East Africa’s open data revolution
Javier Carranza, founder of GeoCensos Foundation, recaps the East Africa Open Data Conference and provides his impressions of the data revolution in Africa on the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data blog. (source)
Counting the world’s invisible minority
US News reports on the lack of disability statistics around the world. Experts say disability statistics on a global scale are almost nonexistent and efforts to collect, standardize, and analyze international data have been scattered due to challenges defining disabilities and discrimination in policymaking. (source)
$15 million in USAID funding looks to spark ‘new era’ in agricultural data collection
FAO News reports on its latest partnership with USAID – a $15 million agreement aimed at boosting the capacity of developing countries to track key agricultural data through the new agricultural integrated survey (AGRIS) methodology. (source)
Government of Afghanistan approves 2016-2020 NSDS
Afghanistan’s Central Statistics Organization has produced a National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) 2016-2020, in consultation with government and non-government stakeholders, international statistical agencies and donors, and with technical assistance of PARIS21. The national strategy was recently approved by the government of Afghanistan and implementation is currently underway. (source)
Drafting of Egypt’s first NSDS is underway
Dr. Hussien Abdelaziz welcomes representatives from PARIS21, UNECA, and AFDB. Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) has started drafting the country’s first ever National Strategy for the Development of Statistics. (source)
Vanuatu releases national strategy for the development of statistics
Vanuatu publishes their NSDS for 2016-2020. (source)
Mercy Kanyuka: National statistical office of Malawi
Mercy Kanyuka from the NSO of Malawi discusses country’s recent successes & biggest challenges on PARIS21’s DataTalk podcast. (source)
AUGUST
3rd International conference of big data in Dublin
The 3rd International conference on big data for official statistics was held in Dublin, Ireland from August 30th to September 1st. Organized by Central Statistics Office Ireland and UN Statistics Division, this year’s conference focused on the utilization of big data in the production of official statistics. (source)
UN big data project repository
The UN Global Working Group of UN Stats compiles a database of projects worldwide which harnesses the power of big data for development in sectors such as disease outbreak, humanitarian action, local government decision-making, climate change. Projects are searchable by country, region, SDG Goal, statistics area, and source. (source)
Statistics Canada celebrates ‘best census ever’
CBC News reports on Statistics Canada’s “best census ever” after 98.4 percent of the census population filled out their long-and short-form questionnaires this year. This was the first year for the reinstated mandatory long-form census since the government cancelled it for the 2011 census, replacing it with a voluntary national household survey. (source)
Asia-Pacific conference: Transforming official statistics for implementation of the 2030 Agenda for SDGs
This conference brought together statistical leaders and development experts from Asia-Pacific to draw a clear path for collaborative efforts to strengthen statistics for the sustainable development goals, especially the work that will lead to strengthened statistical capacity in the region. (source)
Agencies seek better data on violence against women in Asia-Pacific
According to the Voice of America article, UNFPA and the Australian government launched a program to train researchers and field workers in the Asia-Pacific region to collect and analyze data on the violence that women experience. (source)
Counting Africa’s invisible workers
In this Project Syndicate blog post, Carl Manlan writes of the lack of employment data in African countries, especially in informal economies. The lack of accurate employment statistics hinders our view of the state of the labor market. With an estimated 122 million people expecting to enter the labor force by 2022, reliable data will become increasingly more important. (source)
How do we “own” data?
Ellen Broad of the Open Data Institute explores data ownership in this age of abundance. The article helps us navigate through questions such as, how do we maximize the value of data? Who benefits from data and has access to it? How are we creating rights and responsibilities for data? And how do we preserve people’s privacy? (source)
Can we measure poverty from outer space?
In this Center for Global Development article, Justin Sandfeur responds to the recent Science paper that applies machine learning to satellite images from Google to create cheap, rough-and-ready poverty measures for several African countries. Satellite data suggests poverty is falling faster than we thought, but it is probably not reliable enough to trust for targeting social programs – at least not yet, says Sandfeur. (source)
Supporting statistical development in Equatorial Guinea
With the support of the World Bank, Equatorial Guinea has established a National Statistics Office that aims to collect and disseminate data to better inform policy makers. The establishment of a central data bank will help remedy challenges linked to limited data availability, low use of data in policymaking, and a weak statistical culture. (source)
Many refugees, poor data: Development cooperation requires higher-quality data
Dr. Steffen Agenendt, David Kipp, and Dr. Anne Koch of CSS Security Watch Series discuss the lack of comprehensive and reliable data on refugees and forced migration. They believe the data provide by UNHCR’s latest annual report on the situation of refugees and displaced persons around the world is incomplete and marked by a number of shortcomings. (source)
Cook Islands strategy for the development of statistics
The Cook Islands have published their 2015-2020 National Strategy for the Development of Statistics. The strategy aims to deliver more value from official statistics and the national statistical system and to ensure the ongoing reliability and relevance of the statistics it produces. (source)
Tanzania set to introduce open data policy to enhance open data
Launching a two-day workshop on developing a data roadmap for SDGs, the permanent secretary in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, East Africa, Regional, and International Co-operation, Dr. Aziz Mlima said that the main objective of the new open data policy is to enhance access to government data. (source)
Tanzania data roadmap for sustainable development national workshop
Tanzania’s National Bureau of Statistics, in partnership with Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, convenes the Data Roadmap for Sustainable Development National Workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The workshop brings together major stakeholder groups to start better understand the data ecosystem including capacity and budget aspects and possible sources of support. (source)
Census website attached by hackers, Australian bureau of statistics claims
The Canberra Times reports on the Australian census website shut down. According to the chief statistician, David Kalisch, the site was shut down after being targeted by foreign hackers. The government, however, contradicts these claims and denies that it was hacked or attacked. The Australian privacy commissioner plans to invest the case further. (source)
Should bad data mean no action?
In this opinion piece on Devex, Claire Melamed responses to Morten Jerven’s commentary that governments should not become more data-driven if the data are imperfect. Melamed says that the data we have, even in their current state, can shed light on problems and provide a guide on how to fix them. (source)
Bill Gates views good data as key to global health
In an interview with Scientific American, Bill Gates talks about the statistics that inspire him the most and the importance of having a separate, independent effort of collecting and publishing statistics beyond the agency. (source)
JULY
Exploring data as a catalyst for greater impact
Devex and its partners explore the power that data have to change our approach to achieving development outcomes. During the month of July, Data Driven examined major questions of the data revolution through interactive features, insightful stories, video interviews, and guest columns on the Devex blog. (source)
Bolivia’s INE integrates ADAPT
PARIS21 and Bolivia’s Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) pilot tested implementation of the Advance Data Planning Tool (ADAPT) from PARIS21. The INE is in the process of developing indicators that will be used to monitor their five-year National Development Plan and has developed an online tool to retrieve information from the various sectors. (source)
Data4SDG toolbox launched
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data launches their Data4SDGs Toolbox. The toolbox is a set of tools, methods, and resources to help countries create and implement their own holistic data roadmaps for sustainable development. (source)
SDG Index
The Sustainable Development Solutions Network and Bertelsmann Stiftung launch the SDG Index and Dashboard alongside the Global Report. The platform will monitor the world’s progress on the sustainable development goals. (source)
Implementing agenda 2030: Unpacking the data revolution at country-level
A report by Shannon Kindornay, Depariya Bhattacharya, and Kate Higgins, synthesizes key findings from the Post-2015 Data Test. Drawing on country studies from seven low-, middle-, and high-income countries, it identifies opportunities and challenges for effectively applying and measuring a universal, country-relevant Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) framework. (source)
Claire Melamed selected as executive director of the Global Partnership For Sustainable Development Data
The Interim Steering Group of the GPSDD announces that it has selected Dr. Claire Melamed as the organization’s first-ever Executive Director. Dr. Melamed will lead an unprecedented open global network of public, private, and civil society institutions working to harness the data revolution for sustainable development. (source)
Laos Conducts Midterm Review of SDNSS
The Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB), with assistance from PARIS21, organized a mid-term review of the Strategy for the Development of the National Statistical System (SDNSS) 2010-2020. Following the mid-term review of the SDNSS, the LSB will be updating the strategy in line with the new development plan for 2016-2020 and SDG monitoring requirements. (source)
An ‘unmistakable sign’ that gender-disaggregated data is top priority
In this video, Papa Seck, statistics specialist at UN Women, discusses the importance collecting accurate and reliable data on women and girls. He tells Devex that the Gates Foundation’s $80 million commitment to closing the gender data is an “unmistakable sign” that accurate and reliable data on women and girls is a priority to the global development community. (source)
GPSDD announces collaborative data innovations for sustainable development pilot funding
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data announced a new multi-million-dollar funding initiative to support collaborative data innovations for sustainable development. The Partnership seeks innovative proposals for data production, dissemination, and use for the sustainable development goals. The aim is to encourage collaboration, experimentation, and capacity development in the field of sustainable development data. (source)
Review of MDCR Senegal
PARIS21 participated in the Multidimensional Country Review of Senegal. It is the first time that the issue of statistical capacity has been included at length in their country’s MDCR. (source)
The sustainable development goals report 2016
This UN report presents an overview of the 17 SDGs using data currently available to highlight the most significant gaps and challenges. The statistics presented show how important coordinated global data-generation efforts will be in supplying reliable and timely data to track and measure progress towards the SDGs. (source)
Joined Up Data Standards consultation paper
The aim of this consultation paper by Joined Up Data Standards (JUDS) is to start a discussion on what technical and political solutions to interoperable data could look like at a global level. The JUDS project is about unlocking the potential of data to help drive poverty eradication and sustainable development by finding comparable standards and formats. (source)
SDG 16 initiative launched
The SDG16 Data Initiative is a collective project to compile existing global data that can help track progress towards the achievement of SDG16. The recommended UN official indicators, along with proposed complementary indicators, are listed for each target. A variety of respected data providers are included, highlighting gaps and alternative data sources for SDG16 targets. (source)
Cambodia population census: Leaving no one behind
The Phnom Phen Post reports on Cambodia’s upcoming comprehensive and inclusive population census in March 2018. The 2018 Cambodia population census will provide the largest data collection ever to be used in all aspects of the development planning in Cambodia. The first census was conducted in 1998 after major civil strife and instability in the country that resulted in a major change in the population of Cambodia. (source)