How to Harness Data’s Value in a Rapidly Changing Landscape: Reflections on the 2021 World Development Report
Written By Grant Cameron
Source: The World Bank
The newly released World Bank’s 2021 World Development Report (WDR) takes a wide-angle view of data’s role in development. To allow data to work for both economic and social good, the WDR identifies 35+ main messages and offers a slew of recommendations spanning tax, trade, and competition policy, regulatory arrangements, recognition of data as a fundamental right and how to ensure equitable access, infrastructure policies and platforms, improved statistical legislation and data governance, and more.
Clearly, over the WDR’s 360+ pages, there is much to unpack. And as I read it, I asked myself two questions: First, does the WDR make a significant intellectual contribution regarding data’s role in development? Second, do the report’s recommendations practically translate into how the Bank provides financial and technical support to countries or into implementation advice for development institutions and practitioners? Let’s take these questions in turn.
The WDR’s core messages will be familiar to readers who have followed the near decade-long international dialogue on the data revolution for development. The WDR messaging around harnessing new technologies and methods, enabling equitable data access for growth, modifying laws and regulations to safeguard data privacy, assuring independence for official statistics, and enhancing data openness began with the 2013 High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Goals. Since then, key international bureaucrats and stakeholders have held events, drafted reports, and taken steps to emphasize data in development programming. Adding to the momentum, existing global think-tanks joined the revolution, including the Center for Global Development and PARIS21, and new entities were created such as, SDSN TReNDS, which I now direct.
Although these messages are well-worn, there are three areas where the WDR expands, or organizes, our knowledge in helpful ways:
First, it emphasizes using data more effectively to improve development outcomes. This focus on data use – for day-to-day decisions, to analyze and improve government-run programs, to decide what policies need to be adopted, and to canvas feedback from citizens and civil society to set priorities – is the WDR’s biggest contribution. Until recently, much of the post-2013 HLG data revolution focused on filling data gaps through enhanced statistical production. However, this production focus assumes that existing capacities to collect and translate data, to analyze them, and to make decisions are firmly in place. Once the data are available, data-driven decision-making will seamlessly take off. For many well-resourced private sector entities, this is often the case. But for many governments, particularly those in low-income countries, we now know that the baseline skills just aren’t there. Along with the WDR, leading OECD countries, including the United Kingdom and Canada, have also documented their concerns that their technocrats lack the skills to turn data into knowledge.
The WDR’s second big contribution is its discussion of competition, tax, trade, and infrastructure policy necessary for a functioning national data system. The chapter on infrastructure reinforced the importance of these policies on equitable access to data and information. One has often seen these policy planks supporting a country’s digital agenda – but not supporting data use and re-use. For instance, I did not know that half of global trade in services were data-driven services (Chapter 7, Figure 7.4). Nor had I considered the importance of tax instrument selection to foster trade in data services.
Third, the WDR’s organizing framework also gets a thumbs up. As the back cover says, data are ubiquitous and influence our daily lives through many channels and in many ways – for good and for bad. The report provides a useful data typology (Table 1.1) and a (relatively) simple data pathway model that support the document’s structured narrative. While I am unsure if either the typology or paths will endure, they certainly help the reader navigate the WDR’s multitude of topics and themes.
Unfortunately, the WDR does less well when it turns to recommendations. While I found the recommendations for further research on creating value particularly noteworthy – especially its recognition that the bulk of the research and implementation to date has been done in, and for, countries in the Global North and should be expanded significantly to the Global South – I wished the other WDR chapters presented a research agenda in such a succinct and compelling way.
Additionally, the WDR calls for a new social contract for data as a “pressing domestic priority,” but this does not align well with how the Bank provides support to countries. The Bank’s Independent Evaluation Branch found that social contract interventions conflict with the Bank’s engagement approach. It’s difficult to support citizens and governments equally with a business model that prioritizes supporting the national governments. The same evaluation recognized that social contract transitions are long-term processes that do not fit into the Bank’s shorter-term country programs. Will engagement in social contract transition processes pose risks to the Bank’s reputation as a neutral technocratic body? Only time will tell.
I also remain unconvinced that the WDR’s application of a maturity model is the best way to support countries on their journeys to an integrated national data system (INDS). The WDR’s INDS organizes 20 components under four broad headings: data functions, main participants, supporting pillars, and foundational elements. The WDR maturity model suggests actions that tailor support to these components commensurate with a country’s stage of progress (i.e., level of maturity). Although I am usually a fan of maturity models, adopting this approach requires systematic, synchronized improvements – 15 major initiatives for low-maturity countries - at a time when post-COVID pandemic priorities may be more pressing for governments.
As an alternative, we could encourage countries to invest in data systems that quickly demonstrate their impact. Learning from Smart City initiatives, such as in Singapore, Los Angeles, or India may be a good place to start. These initiatives often begin by using technology and data to address one or two pressing needs (e.g., public safety) – that impact citizens on a daily basis and gain momentum as the public sees changes that directly benefit their lives – creating a virtuous cycle to drive improvements and create support for a broader program of action.
Overall, the WDR represents a solid foundation to inform data for development efforts in the years to come. However, if the Bank is to help countries realize the full value of their data, it will require substantial commitment and effort to work more closely with governments, external researchers, and other development actors with greater ties to civil society and the public at large.