SDSN TReNDS (SDSN's Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics) is a global research network that facilitates better evidence-informed decision-making by producing actionable research on data innovations, supporting local capacity building in Global South institutions, and documenting both processes (to encourage replicability) and progress (being honest about successes and failures) so policymakers and practitioners, particularly those based in the Global South, can capitalize on new data technologies and approaches to address sustainable development challenges. TReNDS’ efforts to improve data and evidence support its long-term objective of contributing to better government performance through effective policy implementation, better management of resources, strengthened service delivery, and improved citizen engagement that increases trust and accountability in government and contributes to democratic values. For more information on TReNDS, visit www.sdsntrends.org.
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POPGRID
To ensure that no one is left behind, we need timely and reliable population data. The POPGRID Data Collaborative aims to advance the use and impact of geospatial population and infrastructure data by bringing together and expanding the international community of data providers, users, and stakeholders to accelerate the development and use of high-quality, georeferenced data on population, human settlements, and infrastructure.
Data for Now
Too much of our data is out-of-date, and too many people are missing from the numbers. Data For Now seeks to address this issue by working to equip countries with the right tools and methodologies to produce and collect more timely data.
Citizen Science
Citizen science has great potential to complement traditional data sources and fill data gaps. This project seeks to develop a methodology, guidelines, and tools for the uptake and use of citizen science data by National Statistics Offices and other governmental bodies for SDG monitoring.
Smart Cities
In many places, cities have been at the forefront of innovation around data for sustainable development. This workstream assesses collaborations that support cities to improve their data for decision-making and service delivery.
Data Revolution
As we near the mid-point of the SDGs, this workstream reflects on the promise of the data revolution and aims to identify lessons learned to further the 'data for development' agenda in the lead-up to 2030.
Monitoring Digital Financial Inclusion
Promoting digital financial inclusion is critical to supporting marginalized groups, especially women. This project supports the G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa to accelerate advocacy efforts for women’s digital financial inclusion.
Overcoming Data Graveyards in Official Statistics: Catalyzing Uptake and Use
While billions of gigabytes of data are produced daily, far too often unused data pass into a “data graveyard” (Custer et al, 2017) – where they go unutilized, precluding evidence-informed decisions from being made. This is especially dangerous at a time when intersecting crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and energy and food insecurity put a premium on decision-making that incorporates the best data. Additionally, our understanding of how data is transformed into usable information for decision-making remains weak relative to the efforts to produce data, and many producers of official statistics remain unclear about how to assess data uptake and impact. In this report, SDSN TReNDS and Open Data Watch, set out to provide conceptual clarity about the challenges of improving data use and a way forward for research by sourcing best practices from countries through a survey and in-depth interviews.
Addressing the Challenges of Using Earth Observation Data for SDG Attainment: Evidence from the Global South and West Africa Region
The growth of Earth Observation (EO) data has skyrocketed over the past few years with technological advancements and a surge in new technologies, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), image processing, satellite imagery, and PNT services. With these technologies, users can add more granularity, temporal, and localized information to their data. According to a recent analysis by Morgan Stanley, space-borne EO’s value is expected to exceed $25 billion USD by 2040. Additionally, a recent assessment highlights that existing EO systems could generate data for 33 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators across 14 goals. Consequently, governments are increasingly using this data for evidence-based decision-making on sustainable development challenges. Yet, countries in the Global South, particularly in Africa, continue to face challenges with harnessing the breadth and complexity of EO data for decision-making on sustainable development issues. This research paper explores the bottlenecks to use and the types of partnerships that may prove beneficial to overcoming these challenges, drawing from interviews with West African institutions and the grey literature.
ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT 2022: G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa
In 2019, with an estimated 250 million women in Sub-Saharan Africa facing financial exclusion, under the French Presidency, the G7 Partnership for Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa (G7P) was created to promote social equality and reduce the digital gender divide by realizing the value of digital financial services and supporting African governments, regulators, banks, and financial institutions to build more gender-inclusive, sustainable, and responsible digital financial systems. The G7P brings together a myriad of existing institutions working in Africa on complementary issues of research, investment, and regulation around digital finance and its potential benefits for women. This report addresses the request from the French G7 Presidency to support greater transparency and accountability across G7 initiatives. This year’s report focuses on the theme of “trust” and offers reflections on the progress of the collaborative in its second full year of implementation and provides recommendations for improving its collective impact.
Big Data and the Sustainable Development Goals: Innovations and Partnerships to Support National Monitoring
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present an unprecedented monitoring challenge for governments and National Statistical Offices (NSOs). As a result of increasing demands for data from users, declining budgets, and rising data collection costs, interest has grown in harnessing data from new partners in the national “data ecosystem.” The potential for “big data” to support SDG monitoring has incited considerable enthusiasm with many emerging experiences and use cases which underscore the need for increased collaboration and partnership. However, there is poor information-sharing on how partnerships can support national SDG monitoring. This report provides guidance for countries leveraging partnerships to harness big data to support national SDG monitoring. It synthesizes recent experiences from countries that have used partnerships to harness big data, as well as the latest research collaborations that are deriving new, innovative datasets from big data to support SDG monitoring.
Towards A Framework For Governing Data Innovation: Fostering Trust In The Use Of Non-Traditional Data Sources In Statistical Production
With the rise of new technologies, the use of non-traditional data sources in recent years has increased exponentially. This research paper seeks to cultivate a better understanding of the governance factors that improve trust and confidence in the use of non-traditional data sources for official statistical production, with a focus on legal arrangements, quality assurance practices, and policy changes. Drawing on desk review analyses and substantive experience working with National Statistics Offices (NSOs) and entities in the sector, it explores how NSOs in Ghana, Mexico, and the United Kingdom have worked to innovate and instill trust in the use of non-traditional data sources. Using insights from these case studies, the paper aims to construct a three-part definition of trust in official statistics derived from non-traditional data sources and proposes a draft analytical framework, with a view towards facilitating future research into the factors that either feed into or detract from trust in non-traditional data use for statistical production.
COVID-19 Data and Data Sharing Agreements: The Potential of Sunset Clauses and Sunset Provisions
Building upon issues discussed in the C4DC report, “Laying the Foundation for Effective Partnerships: An Examination of Data Sharing Agreements,” this brief examines the potential of sunset clauses or sunset provisions to be a legally binding, enforceable, and accountable way of ensuring COVID-19 related data sharing agreements are wound down responsibly at the end of the pandemic. The brief is divided into four substantive parts: Part I introduces sunset clauses as legislative tools, highlighting a number of examples of how they have been used in both COVID-19 related and other contexts; Part II discusses sunset provisions in the context of data sharing agreements and attempts to explain the complex interrelationship between data ownership, intellectual property, and sunset provisions; Part III identifies some key issues policymakers should consider when assessing the utility and viability of sunset provisions within their data sharing agreements and arrangements; and Part IV highlights the value of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) as a viable vehicle for sunset provisions in contexts where data sharing agreements are either non-existent or not regularly used.
Laying the Foundation for Effective Partnerships: An Examination of Data Sharing Agreements
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, data has never been more salient. COVID has generated new data demands and increased cross-sector data collaboration. Yet, these data collaborations require careful planning and evaluation of risks and opportunities, especially when sharing sensitive data. Data sharing agreements (DSAs) are written agreements that establish the terms for how data are shared between parties and are important for establishing accountability and trust. However, negotiating DSAs is often time consuming, and collaborators lacking legal or financial capacity are disadvantaged. Contracts for Data Collaboration (C4DC) is a joint initiative between SDSN TReNDS, NYU’s GovLab, the World Economic Forum, and the University of Washington, working to strengthen trust and transparency of data collaboratives. The partners have created an online library of DSAs which represents a selection of data applications and contexts. This report introduces C4DC and its DSA library. We demonstrate how the library can support the data community to strengthen future data collaborations by showcasing various DSA applications and key considerations. First, we explain our method of analyzing the agreements and consider how six major issues are addressed by different agreements in the library. Key issues discussed include data use, access, breaches, proprietary issues, publicization of the analysis, and deletion of data upon termination of the agreement. For each of these issues, we describe approaches illustrated with examples from the library. While our analysis suggests some pertinent issues are regularly not addressed in DSAs, we have identified common areas of practice that may be helpful for entities negotiating partnership agreements to consider in the future.
Leaving No One Off The Map: A Guide For Gridded Population Data For Sustainable Development
Now more than ever, it is essential that we understand where people are located, what conditions they are facing, what infrastructure is available, and what basic services they can access. Fortunately, gridded population data have emerged as an important resource for delivering actionable data in challenging circumstances, including in disaster response and health and infectious disease monitoring. Yet, many decision-makers are still unfamiliar with the nuances of each gridded population data product and may lack the knowledge, time, or technical expertise to assess their strengths and weaknesses for potential application. In this report, we aim to narrow this knowledge gap by presenting an overview, analysis, and recommendations for the use of gridded population datasets in a wide range of application areas. We also compare seven gridded population datasets from the POPGRID Data Collaborative, present an intercomparison assessment of the use of different datasets and their varying outputs, address misconceptions, and offer nine guiding criteria to aid users in their selection process.
Counting on the World to Act: A Roadmap for Governments to Achieve Modern Data Systems for Sustainable Development
Eradicating poverty and hunger, ensuring quality education, instituting affordable and clean energy, and more – the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out a broad, ambitious vision for our world. But there is one common denominator that cuts across this agenda: data. Without timely, relevant, and disaggregated data, policymakers and their development partners will be unprepared to translate their promises into reality for communities worldwide. With only eleven years left to meet the goals, it is imperative that we put in place the fundamental building blocks for robust, inclusive, and relevant national data systems that support the curation and promotion of better data for sustainable development. In Counting on the World to Act, TReNDS details an action plan for governments and their development partners that will enable them to help deliver the SDGs globally by 2030. Our recommendations specifically aim to empower government actors – whether they be national statisticians, chief data scientists, chief data officers, ministers of planning, or others concerned with evidence in support of sustainable development – to advocate for, build, and lead a new data ecosystem. In this report, we highlight four building blocks of an innovative and inclusive national data system.
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