The last three months brought with them the United Nations High-Level Political Forum in July and the International Open Data Conference in Buenos Aires in September. In addition to major conferences, the World Wide Web Foundation released the Open Data Barometer Leaders Edition, which looks specifically at 30 governments that have made concrete commitments to champion open data, and the Open Data Charter surveyed open data stakeholders to ascertain if the Charter needs to be updated. Below we provide summaries of other reports, blogs, and articles on the topic of the data revolution. If there is something else to add, please contact us.
July
UNSD Disability Statistics (July)
The United Nations Statistics Division updated the United Nations Disability Statistics Database (DISTAT). The repository includes data on disability collected from national population and housing censuses, household surveys, and some administrative data. (source)
Oman Creates Strong Action Plan for Official Statistics (July)
Open Data Watch conducted a workshop on 15-16 May with Oman’s National Center for Statistics and Information to explain the benefits and the basics of open data. This blog post provides an overview of the issues discussed. (source)
A #SocialGoodChat: Satellites, Big Data, and Tracking Progress on the SDGs (7/2)
During the High-Level Political Forum, Social Good, Data2x, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, and the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) discussed how new methods of technology can be used to support the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals. (source)
How to harness private data towards meeting the SDGs? The need for data stewards (7/3)
Stefaan Verhulst from the GovLab explains the importance of data stewardship by promoting a new initiative, DataStewards.net. This initiative identifies and connects existing practices of data stewardship to ensure data responsibility. (source)
Five Ways Countries Can Use Gender Data to Track SDG Progress (7/9)
Emily Courey Pryor highlights the importance of gender data for tracking the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals in this blog post from Data2x. (source)
Population Estimates by Admin Unit For 13 Countries (7/12)
The WorldPop Team tackled the population distribution data gap by teaming up with the Humanitarian Data Exchange team to create population estimates with administrative boundaries for 13 countries. The goal of this initiative is to produce population estimates by administrative units in preparation for humanitarian emergencies. (source)
Open Data for Better Mobility in Bogota: the Movilidata Project (7/13)
The Movilidata Project, implemented in Bogota, Columbia, concerns the collection of transportation data for policy making about road congestion, pollution, and social inequalities. (source)
Africa Needs Quality Data for Success of SDGs—ECA (7/13)
Tinfissi Joseph Ilboudo, Chief of the Statistical Development Section in the ECA’s African Centre for Statistics (ACS), discusses the challenges that accompany the collection and dissemination of policy-relevant data across Africa. (source)
Is Open Data Working for Women in Africa? (7/13)
The World Wide Web Foundation released a report called, Is open data working for women in Africa. This report serves as a wake-up call for policymakers, civil society, and private organizations to invest in open data for women. (source)
Data Dashboards, Democracy and “Cooper-tition” Discussed at HLPF Side Event (7/13)
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), hosted by the Permanent Mission of Canada, gathered for a side-event to discuss the difference between data availability and data accessibility. This outcome document highlights the issues discussed at the event. (source)
HLPF Side Event Discusses Mobilization of Data Revolution to Advance SDGs (7/16)
Attendants at Leaving No One Behind Through Data Revolution: Evidences from Bangladesh exchanged views of data mobilization methods during a side-event at the High-Level Political forum. This blog highlights the major issues that the speakers addressed. (source)
Open government is the key to leaving no one behind (7/16)
The 5th Global Open Government Summit took place between 17-19 July. This article highlights the focuses of the summit: open civic engagement, fighting corruption, and public service delivery. (source)
Inclusive Data Charter (7/17)
The Inclusive Data Charter (IDC) was released in July by GPSDD and its partners as an agreement that joins political commitments and actions to increase data disaggregation. The IDC and relevant action plans from committed organizations are available in this article. (source)
Holding tight to purpose in a changing world (7/18)
Paul Stone, the Co-chair of the Implementation Working Group, put together a series of reflection pieces by open data leaders. The blog offers reflections of the Open Data Charter Principles and opens a discussion of open data and artificial intelligence. (Source)
Unlocking the potential of private data for public good (7/24)
This report by the Urban Institute analyzes the primary pathways through which private data providers share their data assets. (source)
Launching the U.S. Open Data Toolkit: Putting Government Data to Work (7/24)
The Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE) launched the U.S. Open Data Toolkit to maximize the use of open government data for users. The Toolkit is designed to help federal data providers and data users better understand and harness the strategic value of open government data, by providing a number of resources and tools in an easy to use format. (Source)
Meet the SDG 4 data: Preparing children for education (7/25)
The Global Partnership for Education published a blog exploring available data and data collection mechanisms for SDG 4 on education. It focuses on the quality early childhood development, care, and pre-primary education. (source)
Introducing two new dashboards in the Health, Nutrition and Population data portal (7/26)
The World Bank launched launch new Health, Nutrition, and Population Portal dashboards. This article highlights data-driven stories created from data on the World Bank’s new dashboards. (Source)
Satellites can advance sustainable development by highlighting poverty (7/30)
The EU-funded Understanding Social-Ecological Systems project created this research brief to analyze how satellite images can be used to estimate household-level poverty in rural regions of developing countries. (source)
Data Reconciliation: Process, Standards, and Lessons (Bogotá, Colombia) (7/31)
This blog post by UNSDSN explains the outcomes of their project in Columbia and offers recommendations for future data reconciliation projects. (source)
August
SDG Gender Index and Gender Advocates Data Hub (August)
In September 2018, Equal Measures 2030 launched the new Gender Advocates Data Hub – an interactive website that brings together our global, regional, and national data as well as influencing products, including EM2030’s SDG Gender Index and Advocate Survey findings. This webpage outlines some of the potential uses of this new index. (source)
Girl Center (August)
In August, the Population Council launched the GIRL Center, an adolescent data hub that shares data on adolescents living in low and middle-income countries. Visit their platform to learn more. (source)
Building a Big Data Platform for Agriculture (August)
A conversation with Dr. Devare, a data architect for the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Platform, provides an overview of an initiative that uses big data tools to mobilize agricultural research. (source)
Counting Women’s Work (August)
A new working paper, ‘Measuring the Gendered Economy: Counting Women’s Work Methodology’ has been released from Women’s Work Counted from the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town. (source)
Q&A: How mobile technology can help achieve the SDGs (8/2)
Christin Roby from Devex discusses the role of mobile technology as an influential developmental factor and its vital role in tracking SDG achievements. (source)
5 reasons to check out the World Bank’s new data catalog (8/3)
Two data scientists from the World Bank list five reasons to access the World Bank’s New Data Catalog. The catalog manages 3,000 datasets and 14,000 indicators while also including microdata, time series statistics, and geospatial data. (source)
UN launches guide for countries to improve geospatial data management for better decision-making (8/06)
The United Nations Statistics Division, together with the World Bank, launched a new guide on geospatial information to help nations manage their data. (source)
Improving education data to count minority girls in Peru (8/6)
In from the Brookings Institute, Eliana Villar Marquez writes that while the government of Peru has tried to improve access to education for poor people, the lack of disaggregated data has made it difficult to measure the impact of specific programs on specific vulnerable minorities. (source)
Challenges facing SDG 2030 deadline for safe water and sanitation (8/9)
Through analyzing data from the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, WaterAid explains the unfortunate reality that Goal 6 of the SDGs, access to basic water and sanitation, is unlikely to be achieved by 2030. (source)
Better data sharing to improve the lives of Afghan refugees (8/12)
The World Bank and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) signed a data sharing agreement (DSA) that reinforces their partnership in Afghanistan and their dedication to delivering effective aid to refugees. (source)
Switzerland Aligns National Indicator System with 2030 Agenda (8/14)
In July, Switzerland aligned their national sustainable development indicator system (MONET) to the 2030 SDG agenda. This system is designed to monitor the implementation of the Sustainable development goals on a national basis. (source)
Shining a light on the use of citizen data (8/14)
Open Knowledge International is partnering with King’s College of London and the Public Data Lab to develop research that maps the diversity of citizen generated data for sustainable development. (source)
World’s 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government (8/14)
Apolitical presents their 2018 list of the world’s 100 most influential people in digital government. (source)
How can Bangladesh increase its resilience to disasters through data sharing? (8/14)
Debashish Paul Shuvra, a Disaster Risk Management Analyst in Bangladesh, explains how a geospatial data sharing platform, GeoDASH, is helping the private sector and the Government of Bangladesh formulate policies based on disaster risk and climate change. (source)
Why we need data to end malnutrition in Africa (8/15)
Mercy Lung’aho from the international Center for Tropical Agriculture discusses the necessity of effective data to end malnutrition in Africa. With the proper technology, there are hopes of achieving the 2030 development agenda. (source)
A new data center to improve the global response to forced displacement (8/15)
The World Bank Group and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are joining together to set up a new joint data center that will better support refugee and internally displaced persons. This center will fill the data gap that is needed to assess the state of refugees and their needs. (source)
We don’t have enough data to draw conclusions about the digital divide (8/20)
Much has been made of the digital underpinning of many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the need to set ICT sub-targets for them. The truth is we don’t have the data from developing countries, and therefore in our global statistics, to determine where we are now or to know what progress we are making towards overcoming the ‘digital divide.’ (source)
How can local authorities embrace open data? (8/21)
As the quantity of data available to us proliferates at an astounding rate, organizations are focusing on using better ways to share and analyze this information. This article explores how local governments can be involved in this process. (source)
2018 World Population Data Sheet with Focus on Changing Age Structures (8/24)
A fact sheet from the Population Reference Bureau states that the world population will reach 9.9 billion by 2050, up 2.3 billion or 29 percent from an estimated 7.6 billion people now. Facts on age disaggregations and country-level population projections are included in the fact sheet as well. (source)
Catalyzing the use and impact of official statistics for sustainable development (8/27)
This blog presents a preview of findings from a two-part project increasing the use and impact of official statistics and facilitating better data dissemination strategies. Their full report will be launched at the UN World Data Forum. (source)
Release of new assessment guide (8/27)
National statistical systems (NSS) will need to assess their ability to respond to new national development priorities arising from changing regional and international development priorities and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. PARIS21 has documented various NSS assessment tools and prepared a guide for developing countries to use in identifying and selecting an appropriate assessment framework that fits their needs and requirements. (source)
Tokyo blasted for fake data on disability hiring (8/29)
This article in the Straits Times from Walter Sim reports on a scandal that the Japanese government has been found to have inflated the number of people with disabilities under its employment by 3,460 to meet a legal quota. The author states that this is damaging to disability and inclusion efforts but also detrimental to people’s confidence in the social system. (source)
True Demand for Data (8/30)
The development of methodologies which help to assess a country’s true demand for data could improve the effectiveness and sustainability of data policies, technical support, and financing, toward helping each country to reach its optimal level of data. This article on the World Bank’s Data Blog make the argument for true demand for data. (source)
Leaving no one behind beyond data disaggregation (8/31)
This blog post from the United Nations University outlines the different types of data marginalization that are relevant to the “leave no one behind” movement. This and more findings will be detailed in their upcoming report: “Engaging Citizens for Sustainable Development.” (source)
September
Statistics for policy professionals Things that you need to know (September)
The case for a policy can usually be strengthened by including statistics that show context and help to demonstrate the predicted impact and cost. This guide for policy professionals from The Good Practice Team (GPT) highlights key points for policy professionals to know when reviewing statistics about policies and their impact. (source)
Good Practices for Sustained Financing of National Statistics (September)
Given demands around SDG monitoring and the ‘data revolution’, renewed donor attention is focusing on statistics. This discussion paper by Paris 21 reviews the various efforts to build NSO capacity, direct the attention of politicians and policymakers to the development of statistical systems, and direct greater resources to producing statistics through both official and unofficial channels. (source)
Facebook Use Linked to Gender Equality (9/1)
A new study finds that, worldwide, Facebook use by women is associated with greater gender equality. Places with a lower female-to-male usage ratio, such as Afghanistan, were deemed to have a greater “Facebook gender divide.” The study found that the smaller a country’s Facebook gender divide in 2015, the more economic gender equality increased the following year. (source)
Google unveils search engine for open data (9/5)
This article in Nature reviews a new tool from Google called Google Dataset Search. The new search engine is designed to help researchers locate online data that are freely available for use. The company launched the service on 5 September, saying that it is aimed at “scientists, data journalists, data geeks, or anyone else.” (source)
Moon Shots and Puddle Jumps – Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals (9/6)
According to a report launched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Innovation Facility, to address the world’s most challenging problems, international organizations increasingly need to invest in transformative innovation. This blog post summarizes some of the major findings from the report. (source)
Civil Registration as a Tool for Women’s Empowerment (9/12)
This blog post by the Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) outlines outstanding questions around CRVS and gender that are up for research and discussion at the World Data Forum. (source)
A Preliminary Look at the State of Gender Disaggregated Aid Data (9/12)
This blog post from Publish What You Fund is about how transparency could play a role in the push for more or better gender equality. (source)
How many people will the world leave behind? (9/14)
A report from Brookings that shows that that most countries are making progress on most SDG issues, but the SDGs still require much faster progress to leave no one behind. (source)
Figures of the week: Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals in sub-Saharan Africa (9/27)
Examining the SDGs at the country level, a new Brookings working paper, How many people will the world leave behind: Assessing current trajectories on the Sustainable Development Goals, assesses where countries stand on achieving several SDG targets by 2030. (source)
The two big problems with SDG data (9/27)
Claire Melamed, executive director of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, writes that too much of the data available to track the world’s progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is outdated. In her article she examines how new data sources should be integrated into data infrastructures and long-term funding should be made available to fix this problem. (source)
Opinion: Data-driven adaptive management for international development (9/27)
Achieving the 2030 sustainable development agenda requires development organizations to move beyond the “one-size-fits-all” model of development and the standardized approach typical of the industrial age. This Devex opinion piece makes the argument that organizations should move toward interventions that are both bespoke and suitable for the complexity of the world we operate in and, at the same time, responsive and adaptable to a rapidly changing environment. (source)
Open data barometer from promise to progress (9/28)
The World Wide Web Foundation released a ‘leaders edition’ of its Open Data Barometer report, with the tagline ‘from promise to progress’. The report looks specifically at 30 governments that have made concrete commitments to champion open data – either by adopting the Open Data Charter, or, as members of the G20, by signing up to the G20 Anti-Corruption Open Data Principles. (source)