On November 7th, the UN Secretary General’s Independent Advisory Expert Group (IEAG) on the Data Revolution published its report, ‘A World That Counts’: Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development’. The report generated a wide range of responses. We have collected and summarized the articles and blog posts we found below. Please contact us if you have any additions.
2 December 2014
Development Gateway publishes a blog post titled The Demand Side of the Data Revolution: Lessons from the Government of Nepal. The post evaluates summarizes a study on the use of government data in Nepal. The post highlights the problems with data use on the part of government officials, including limited data analysis capacity and other challenges.…(more)
2 December 2014
Pauline Rose publishes a blog post for the Post-2015 website titled Bringing the data revolution to education, and education to the data revolution. The article discusses the need for better data, particularly of marginalized groups for education and the need to revolutionize the way data is used in education.…(more)
2 December 2014
Jenny Lei Ravelo publishes an article for Devex titled A bumpy road: Using data to inform policymaking. The article discusses challenges in data use in South Korea, South Africa, and Indonesia.…(more)
1 December 2014
Lawrence Haddad publishes a post to the blog of the British Medical Journal titled Do we really need a nutrition data revolution? The posts highlights problems in nutrition data and cites a source that the returns on improved nutrition data could be as high as 10:1.…(more)
28 November 2014
Bill Anderson publishes a blog post to the Development Initiatives website titled The Data Revolution and monitoring of the SDGs: the case of data on maternal mortality. The post evaluates the latest report by the SDSN on the SDG and argues that the report does not focus enough on country-led capacity building.…(more)
26 November 2014
Jenny Lei Ravelo publishes an article titled A ‘revolution’ to fill the data gap. The article discusses the data revolution in the context of Indonesia.…(more)
25 November 2014
Nancy Choi publishes a blog post to AidData website titled Harnessing the Data Revolution: Three Goals to Better Improve Development Outcomes. She highlights three ways to make data more accessible, primarily in the context of foreign aid.…(more)
25 November 2014
Trevor Fletcher publishes a blog post on the PARIS21 website titled Who’s ready to join the data revolution? The post introduces seven country studies on the Data Revolution, as viewed from developing countries.…(more)
25 November 2014
Thilo Klein publishes a blog post on the PARIS21 website titled IDR Project unveils two new tools. The post introduces two new tools for tracking the data revolution, the Metabase and the Innovations Inventory.…(more)
25 November 2014
The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) publishes a document titled Indicators and a monitoring framework for Sustainable Development Goals: Launching a data revolution for the SDGs. The working draft incorporated feedback on ways to measure SDGs in connection with the Data Revolution.…(more)
24 November 2014
Notes from a discussion that was held in Washington DC, London, and Boston on the Data Revolution were posted. The comments respond to the IEAG report and highlight possible next steps in the Data Revolution…(more)
21 November 2014
Robert Kirkpatrick, the UN Global Pulse Director and IEAG member, is interviewed by SciDevNet on the data revolution and the future of big data.…(more)
24 November 2014
The Center for Economic and Social rights publishes a blog post titled The ‘Data Revolution’: Of the People, For the People? The post highlights the relationship between the data revolution and human rights. The post concludes that data does not necessarily empower people or hold people accountable and that deep engagement with communities is required.…(more)
18 November 2014
Dr. Claire Melamed publishes a blog post to the IEAG website titled The Week After the Revolution…Still Counting. The article post discusses some of the reaction to the IEAG report and provides some reactions…(more)
18 November 2014
Jenny Lei Ravelo publishes an article for Devex titled The next steps for a ‘data revolution’. The article focuses on the IEAG report and the SDGs…(more)
17 November 2014
An event called “From Ideas to Action: Making the data revolution count for those who need it most” is hosted by PARIS21 at the offices of the Open Gov Hub. The event involved a discussion of the IEAG report and the next steps. The link provides a summary by PARIS21 consultant, Sala Patterson…(more)
17 November 2014
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) publishes the 2014 Global Nutrition Report. The report includes a section on global nutrition data, including a call for a revolution for better nutrition data…(more)
15 November 2014
The Economist publishes an article titled Data and development: Off the map. The article highlights the gap between data in wealthy countries and developing countries. The report references the IEAG report and argues that technology can help solve some of the problems, but not all.…(more)
14 November 2014
A group of civil society organizations publish an Open Letter to the UN Secretary General on the IEAG’s Report on the Data Revolution. The letter responds to the IEAG report and highlights three problems 1) Lack of consultation 2) Insufficient emphasis on strengthening human capacity 3) Over-emphasis on global priorities at the expense of national.…(more)
14 November 2014
The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) publishes a blog post titled IATI’s contribution to a data revolution for sustainable development. The post outlines the ways that IATI seeks to address issues highlighted in the IEAG report.…(more)
12 November 2014
Jed Miller writes a post for the Transparency Accountability Initiative titled Will the Data Revolution Be Well-Advised? The post reacts to the IEAG report highlighting some flaws in the report, specifically he argues that the report underemphasized NGOs and overestimating “Super-Citizens”.…(more)
12 November 2014
Bill Anderson writes a blog post for Development Initiatives titled Donors, results, IATI and the data revolution. The post outlines the need for more locally produced data, rather than donor-driven data collection. It suggests that the IEAG could provide a roadmap to change the system.…(more)
10 November 2014
Bill Anderson writes a blog post for Development Initiatives titled Bridging the global-local divide: The challenge facing the Data Revolution for sustainable development. The post highlights and responds to several passages after noting the there should have been more consultations with the public.…(more)
7 November 2014
LK Hewlett writes and article for the St. Kitts and Nevis Observer titled Statistics Play A Vital Role in Policy Making. Quoting the Caricom Ambassador Colin Granderson, the article discusses the importance of statistics in the region. Ambassador Granderson suggests that new ICT tools be used to revolutionize data in the Caribbean.…(more)
7 November 2014
Craig Fagan posts a blog post on Transparency International website titled Can Big Data Solve the World’s Problems, Including Corruption? Mr. Fagan argues that the IEAG did not consult with the public enough and that it fails to adequately outline the steps “needed to ensure that data collection is transparent, accountable and participatory, from the start”.…(more)
7 November 2014
Haishan Fu writes a blog post on the World Bank website titled “A World That Counts” – The Data Revolution Report is Out. The post highlights four key recommendations from the report: 1) Develop a global consensus on principles and standards 2) Share technology and innovations for the common good 3) New resources for capacity development 4) Leadership for coordination and mobilisation.…(more)
7 November 2014
Selim Jahan writes a blog post on the IEAG website titled The Data Revolution for Human Development. The post highlights links between the Human Development Index and the IEAG report. He argues that truly revolutionizing data can have a strong link with human development.…(more)
6 November 2014
Shawn Donnan writes an article for the Financial Times titled Inequality and Why the World’s Poor Are Being Left Behind by Big Data. The article primarily discusses the IEAG report and the summer report by the Center for Global Development and the African Population and Health Research Center on the problems with data in developing countries.…(more)
6 November 2014
Neva Frecheville and Savio Carvalho write a post on the CAFOD policy team blog How [not] to run a consultation: lessons from the Data Revolution. The article primarily raises concerns with the brief consultation with civil society and the public in the preparation of the IEAG report.…(more)
6 November 2014
The IEAG Data Revolution Report: A World That Counts: Mobilising The Data Revolution for Sustainable Development is published.…(more)
4 November 2014
John Hendra and Eduardo Sojo write an article for Devex titled A Gender Data Revolution for Accountability and Transparency in Post-2015. The authors discuss the IEAG and the SDGs and argue that all countries need to do a better job of tracking gender disaggregated data.…(more)
4 November 2014
Sarah Lucas and Rachel Quint write a post on the Post-2015 Data Test blog Bringing Country-Level Realities to Global Ambitions (Part 2): The Power and Potential of Southern Think Tanks for the Post-2015 Agenda. The blog post highlights the connection between the political and technical problems that lead to data problems. They suggest several ways to address these problems.…(more)
4 November 2014
Sarah Lucas and Rachel Quint write a post on the Post-2015 Data Test blog Bringing Country-Level Realities to Global Ambitions (Part 1): 4 Key Takeaways from the Post-2015 Data Test’s Presentation of Initial Findings. The blog post highlights four ideas about the Data Revolution: 1) Countries have a long way to go to meet the technical data needs. 2) A combinations of global and local targets would be (very) complicated, but could work. 3) A post-2015 architecture will need to take into account political incentives. 4) Intra-governmental dynamics will significantly impact goal-setting and implementation.…(more)
4 November 2014
Dr. Paul Zeitz and Biraj Swain, write an article for the Huffington Post titled Using the Data Revolution for Mutual Accountability & Transparency in the Era of Sustainable Development. The article highlights several ways to improve data use, transparency, and accountability.…(more)
4 November 2014
Stephen Katz, from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, writes a blog post for post2015.org titled The Impact of the “Data (R)evolution” on International Organizations. The article says that the data revolution will change the technologies available to IOs for data collection and dissemination and may make IOs even more important for global data.…(more)
3 November 2014
Dabapriya Bhattacharya and Kate Higgins, write a blog post for the Post-2015 Data Test titled Unpacking the Data Revolution at the Country Level – Initial Findings. The article highlights 5 problems from case studies and provides 5 recommendations for the Data Revolution. The recommendations are: 1) Measure what matters 2) Capacity and policy space need attention 3) Data is political 4) Support country ownership 5) There is an appetite for more and better coordination on data.…(more)
31 October 2014
Sarah Jayne Olan writes a blog post for rappler.com titled Data revolution: Unlocking the power of data. The article discusses a meeting on the data revolution hosted by PARIS21 in Manila, Philippines.…(more)
30 October 2014
Dr. P. Niclas Broer writes a blog post for post2015.org titled Informing a Medical Data Revolution. The article discusses the potential for a revolution in the way data are collected and used in healthcare...(more)
30 October 2014
Kwemoi Kapchanga writes an article for Standard Digital titled Why Africa’s economies continue to grapple with ‘statistical tragedy’. The article is an interview with Prof. Morten Jerven on statistical problems in Africa with a mention of the data revolution.…(more)
29 October 2014
The Education For All Report publishes a post to their website titled Relevant data for education post-2015 need not be ‘big data’. The post argues that while big data may be exciting, there needs to be much more work on basic data for education in many countries.…(more)
28 October 2014
Alyson Hayes publishes an op-ed on the Dhaka Tribune titled Ready for Data. The op-ed discusses the potential for the data revolution for Bangladesh in the post-2015 period.…(more)
24 October 2014
Dr. Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Secretary General and CEO of Civicus publishes a blog post on the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation website titled From development information to a data revolution. He calls for a bottom-up approach to the revolution.…(more)