“Policymaking without data is a rudderless ship.” Indeed, data and statistics are fundamental to improving evidence-based decision-making. And while statistical capacity and the use of data for decision-making have improved across the globe, Africa still lags far behind other regions. This is especially true for civil registration and vital statistics (where only eight out of 50 African countries have a system to register deaths), climate data and environmental monitoring, and health data. In addition, even in African countries that have the data available, its use is often hindered by weak data literacy and data-driven policy design cultures. Fortunately, in recent years there have been some bright spots, including the rise of big data innovations and a number of regional and multi-stakeholder partnerships to tackle COVID-19 and other complex challenges. This African Statistics Day, we’ve highlighted a few of the noteworthy cases in which data-driven decision-making is improving development outcomes and decision-making on the continent.

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Local action is critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. According to the UN, 3.5 billion people – nearly half of humanity - currently live in cities. And this number will only continue to increase over the next several decades. The latest UN-Habitat World Cities Report reports that the world will continue to urbanize over the next three decades - from 56 percent in 2021 to 68 percent in 2050 - an increase of 2.2 billion urban residents, living mostly in Africa and Asia. Cities are also becoming increasingly interconnected. As such, cities, particularly “Secondary Cities,” will play a critical role in advancing the sustainable development agenda in the years ahead.

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This week marked the official end of the 77th UN General Assembly (UNGA), where leaders from across the globe convened in New York to confront the world’s biggest challenges, including the war in Ukraine, global supply chain and economic issues, rising interest rates and debt levels, climate change, and ending the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide a high-level snapshot of the data-related highlights from the week below.

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