Real time data on the world’s biggest challenges, launching now
Written by Jessica Espey
On Wednesday 25 September 2019, SDSN TReNDS, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), the World Bank and UN Statistics Division launch their new initiative, Data for Now, on the margins of the UN General Assembly. The initiative aims to increase the frequency and timeliness of key sustainable development measures to enable governments to make evidence-based decision and drive progress on the world's biggest challenges.
Source: Diane Bondareff/GPSDD
The initiative will work with 8 initial country partners-including Ghana, Senegal, Colombia, Paraguay, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Nepal, Rwanda-to identify key data that the governments need in real time to make better-informed decisions. The countries’ data requirement might include poverty rates, population growth, deforestation, biodiversity loss, urban development, economic performance and many more. At the event, representatives from Ghana, Paraguay and Mongolia spoke of the huge challenges they face curating timely information, due to capacity constraints, lack of technical skills, limited resourcing, lack of computing power among others. Data for Now will engage local experts, in universities and centers across these countries, to fill capacity gaps, whilst engaging private companies such as Google, ESRI, Facebook and many more, to provide skills, training, equipment and methodologies to help fill these gaps.
Data for Now will also work globally to curate real time measures of key SDGs, such as deforestation, air quality, women in parliament, poverty, hunger and many other issues. SDSN TReNDS will go further, brining this data to the general public to raise awareness of the sustainable development challenges through a partnership with Project Everyone, the world-leading communications organization led by Richard Curtis, the British film director, and the GPSDD. The partnership will develop clocks- launching in 2020- which show daily change in poverty, hunger, tree loss and many other sustainability issues, ensuring everyone knows the truth about the state of our planet.
Source: Diane Bondareff/GPSDD
SDSN TReNDS was represented at the launch event by TReNDS co-chair, Shaida Badiee, who emphasized the important role of universities and non-government organizations to help engage non-government partners in these national efforts, to broker consultations (acting as a neutral arbiter), to flag challenging issues governments may not raise themselves such the need for new governance arrangements, open data policies and, finally, bringing in their expertise in new methods and approaches to data collection.
You may find the Deputy Secretary-General’s remarks here.
For more information on Data for Now visit: http://www.data4sdgs.org/index.php/initiatives/data-now or contact Maryam Rabiee, Manager, SDSN TReNDS: maryam.rabiee@unsdsn.org.