Search
  • The UN Secretary General's Independent Expert Advisory Group
  • on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development
Search Menu

Data Landscape: addressing systemic challenges

The consultation has ended and comments are closed.

In the previous three sections, we have examined the data revolution sub-themes of improving access, robustness and utility of data, rethinking how we monitor progress and looking to new and emerging technologies and sources of data.

In this section we welcome input on how those pieces fit together, to comprehensively build an inventory of what is currently recorded, where the gaps are, and what would need to happen to make system-wide improvements.

linked open data sourcesThere remain issues in delivering timely, robust statistics especially from poor countries and ‘getting the basics right’ will remain important over the next decade. If national governments and international organisations are to improve statistics and other data points, and harness new sources of information then we need a roadmap detailing the situation as it stands and what would be needed to raise standards across the board.

We welcome input on the following questions:

  • Is the current national and international architecture and level of resourcing for data collection and use adequate for the task at hand?  If not, what should be the priorities and levers for change at the different levels?
  • What are the priority actions in the first 1-2 years following the agreement of new goals that can set the right course for long-term improvements and innovations in data collection and use by governments and citizens?

The Independent expert advisory group, working with others, is engaged in mapping the data revolution landscape and welcomes contributions on the following:

  1. a ‘map’ of the data landscape including major producers and users of data in both public and private sectors; the types of data collected and used.
  2. an inventory of key data gaps – what are the issues, groups of people, and countries about which the least is known?  Which of these are most critical for making progress on sustainable development?
  3. a definition of data revolution and illustration of what data revolution would concretely mean at the national, regional and international level
  4. a literature review on the ‘value of information’ with examples of the costs of poor or inadequate data and the benefits to be gained by improving the coverage, timeliness or quality of data at local, national and international level.
  5. an inventory of current projects and innovations in the area of big data for development (including social data, mobile data, search data, satellite, sensors etc), with an assessment of results where possible.
  6. an inventory of current projects and initiatives using mobile for good technologies to gather or disperse information (including polling, crowdsourcing, apps, ICT for agriculture etc), with an assessment of results where possible.
  7. an assessment of the current institutional and funding environment for the production, dissemination and use of statistics, including estimates of the ranges of current spending at national level on data in, respectively, high, medium and low income countries.
  8. estimates of current spending on data among international organisations, and the institutional arrangements for producing, handling and disseminating data
  9. an assessment of the funding environment for data among donors and foundations.
    a typology of the different national level institutional systems for producing and handling data
  10. an inventory of national and local institutions involved in collecting household survey data, with an indication of coverage and frequency
Image: linked open data sets by Open Knowledge (CC)

24 Comments