In Fall 2022, SDSN TReNDS and Open Data Watch released the report, Overcoming Data Graveyards in Official Statistics: Catalyzing Uptake and Use, which aimed to provide conceptual clarity around the challenges of improving data use and a way forward for research by sourcing best practices from countries. This blog series spotlights insights and best practices from the countries profiled.
Read MoreIn a continuing blog series on staff perspectives, TReNDS’ Program Associate, Steph Pietras, describes her experience participating in the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN)’s Urban Design Climate Workshop (UDCW) in Denmark last November.
Read MoreIn Fall 2022, SDSN TReNDS and Open Data Watch released the report, Overcoming Data Graveyards in Official Statistics: Catalyzing Uptake and Use, which aimed to provide conceptual clarity around the challenges of improving data use and a way forward for research by sourcing best practices from countries. This blog is the third in a blog series spotlighting insights and best practices from the countries profiled.
Read MoreLast Fall, SDSN TReNDS and Open Data Watch released the report, Overcoming Data Graveyards in Official Statistics: Catalyzing Uptake and Use, which aimed to provide conceptual clarity around the challenges of improving data use and a way forward for research by sourcing best practices from countries. This article is the second in a blog series spotlighting insights and best practices from the countries profiled.
Read MoreIn many places, local governments have been at the forefront of innovation around data for sustainable development. For years, cities have been combining traditional and novel data sources to measure performance and benchmark against other cities, to create dashboards to inform citizens, and to advance local policymaking. TReNDS’ research on data governance and stewardship at the municipal and local levels illustrates how national governments and international organizations can benefit from the lessons learned around cities’ approach to data stewardship.
Read MoreDespite the recent news of successful COVID-19 vaccine trials, the end of the pandemic still seems a long way off. The data community, however, should be thinking ahead to the end of this crisis, when unique data demands will no longer apply. In this Op-ed, Hayden Dahmm explores how sunset clauses and provisions can be used to ensure that surveillance measures are wound down responsibly at the end of the pandemic.
Read MoreCOVID-19 is rapidly shifting perceptions, priorities, and needs as they relate to digital and data policy, and this has accelerated the urgency of discussions around data governance. In this blog post, Tom Orrell, TReNDS' expert member discusses four recommendations that came out of a recent UN World Data Forum virtual session on this issue.
Read MoreLast week, more than 7,000 data experts from around the world gathered virtually for the third annual World Data Forum. Increasing investment in statistics, effective communications around data, the importance of disaggregation, emerging data sources, and careful data governance were among the key issues discussed.
Read MoreStatistics are fundamental to our daily lives – from predicting the daily weather forecast and stock market trends to determining insurance premiums. This World Statistics Day, the TReNDS’ Secretariat have highlighted a few recent statistics that we’ve come across that we think are particularly shocking. Thereafter, we put forward some of our individual recommendations on how the global statistical system can be improved.
Read MoreData plays a critical role in how we understand the Covid-19 epidemic and determining how policies are shaped. Everything from the allocation of personal protective equipment and drug treatments to reopening plans is guided in part by available data, and because these decisions can often make the difference between life and death, the data must be reliable and transparent. However, in recent months, several cases have demonstrated the dangers of politicizing data as well as the dearth of systems in place in both high and low-income countries to maintain data accountability and transparency.
Read MoreTimes of crisis require difficult trade-offs between competing public interests. In the present instance with Covid-2019 raging around the world, trade-offs between fundamental human rights — the right to freedom of assembly, to liberty, and in some instances to due process — have to be balanced against the urgent collective need of society and countries around the world to flatten the curve of the virus’s spread.
Read MoreFollowing the Data For Now Inception Workshop in Kigali, Rwanda’s local newspaper, the New Times, spoke with TReNDS and partners on the aims of the Data For Now initiative and the importance of timely, accessible, and quality data for sustainable development.
Read MoreJonathan Glennie asks, Can we counter the data counter-revolution? From surveillance to data governance, he examines the delicate balance struck between data and power.
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