Data For Now: Improving Access to Timely, High-Quality Data for Decision-Making

INTRODUCTION

Accurate, inclusive, and timely data is the foundation of good policy and decision making. And without a serious commitment and investment to ensure the availability and use of more accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data, governments will not be able to keep the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Data for Now was launched in Autumn 2019 with a simple mission – to support countries’ capacity to deliver robust and timely data to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With less than ten years to go before the 2030 deadline, too many countries are still working with data that are out-of-date or incomplete, limiting their ability to identify and solve problems, to make progress on the SDGs, and to ensure that no one is left behind.  

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Data For Now drives better decision-making by supporting national statistical and data systems in improving the information available to governments and others working to achieve the SDGs. We do this by:

• Embracing a user-centric approach under the leadership of National Statistical Offices to identify specific priority gaps and needs.

• Mobilizing a wide network of experts across government, academia, the private sector, and civil society with knowledge of different country contexts, who are deeply committed to learning from each other and sharing expertise.

• Facilitating the uptake and use of new data sources, methods, and technologies by countries to provide timely insights for better policymaking, ultimately accelerating progress on the SDGs.

The initiative is co-led by a core team of partners that includes TReNDS, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), and the World Bank.

TRENDS’ DATA FOR NOW EFFORTS

Current Efforts:

  • Ghana - Building off past citizen science work TReNDS supported to measure progress on SDG 14.1.1b (marine litter), we are working with key stakeholders including the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency, the Ghana Statistical Service, and others to determine the feasibility of using drones to collect data along the country’s coast, combined with the existing citizen science data collected from past clean-ups (and potentially historical satellite imagery data) to identify marine litter “hotspots” (where there is a significant build-up of plastics and waste) in Ghana. We will use this information to better understand the trajectory of marine litter waste across the country to inform the government’s coastal and marine management plan and Ghana’s Voluntary National Review. This project is also featured in the Data to Policy Navigator, a joint collaboration between GIZ and UNDP.

  • Rwanda - In Rwanda, the NSO, the National Institute Of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), was seeking support in raising greater awareness of its statistical offerings and census results among local user groups. In collaboration with the UK ONS and other key stakeholders, TReNDS is working with local civil society networks and academia to drive awareness and communications around the NISR’s statistical offerings and post-census results by piloting a localized data dissemination and user engagement strategy in districts and gathering intel on what data offerings would be useful to local government leaders and decision-makers. 

  • Sierra Leone - In Sierra Leone, SDSN TReNDS partnered with Statistics Sierra Leone and Ghana Statistical Services for a knowledge exchange event on marine litter data and citizen science. The objective of this knowledge exchange event was to foster collaborative learning by sharing experiences, lessons learned, challenges and opportunities for collecting marine litter data with a special focus on harnessing citizen science data. Through this exchange, we aimed to explore sustainable strategies, for expanding data collection efforts and enhancing cross-country cooperation within the Data For Now Initiative.

Past Efforts:

  • Colombia - In Colombia, poverty data are lacking for many municipalities, particularly in rural regions. As such, Colombia’s NSO, Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE), sought to improve its office’s capacity to measure multi-dimensional poverty estimates using non-traditional data sources and methods. Employing the D4N approach, SDSN TReNDS worked with a local implementor in Colombia and local academic experts to help identify methodologies and data gaps for multi-dimensional poverty and conducted a series of technical trainings to improve NSO representatives’ skills and knowledge. As a result, DANE has begun to measure multi-dimensional poverty in the country’s Pacific region, home to some of the highest poverty rates, using methodologies learned in the trainings and as identified by the local experts. 

  • Paraguay - In Paraguay, SDSN TReNDS worked with local partners, CEPEI, and the NSO, The Directorate for Statistics, Surveys and Censuses (DGEEC), to develop a centralized water information system to track water resource utilization for timely decision-making, a key challenge indicated by DGEEC. The process involved convening key stakeholders across sectors and line ministries in the country to build the necessary partnerships, as well as organizing a number of peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges with DGEEC and countries, including Mexico and the Dominican Republic. As a result, 40 available data sources and 13 new indicators were identified to measure water indicators in the country using non-traditional data sources, and the governance framework for the water system and requirements for the IT system architecture are in development.

  • Senegal - In Senegal, the NSO, Agence Nationale de Statistique et de la Démographie (ANSD), sought to improve its land registration systems to foster better land management via the use of cadastral data. To assist the NSO, SDSN TReNDS collaborated with SDSN Sahel, an SDSN Network of seven country members hosted by Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, alongside core and local partners to conduct a series of virtual meetings and webinars to improve the framework and design of the cadastral system, review data sources, tools, and methods for urban data, cadastral data, and sustainable land use in the country. A comprehensive report was produced that provides an inventory of the available data and tools in Senegal’s cadastral sector and recommendations for improving the reliability and monitoring of the country’s cadastral data.

  • Vietnam - In Vietnam, the use of non-traditional data to support development priorities remains aspirational, and the General Statistics Office of Vientam (the GSO) primarily relies on conventional surveys. Alongside the UN Statistics Division, the World Bank, and other D4N partners, TReNDS is working to identify how we can support improvements to the Government of Vietnam’s national statistical system through the use of non-traditional data. In particular, we are looking at how earth observation data can be joined up to surveys to produce the data necessary for SDG indicator reporting on child poverty, food security, and agricultural production.

RESOURCES

Published Materials

With support from GIZ, TReNDS provided subgrants to partners to conduct in-country work in Ghana, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Colombia, Paraguay, and Senegal. The following reports were authored by the partners:

Presentations and Events

In-country workshops on Gridded Population Data

In November 2020, in collaboration with the POPGRID Data Collaborative, TReNDS hosted a series of workshops centered around the use of gridded population datasets for the SDGs for partner countries involved in the Data For Now initiative.

For more information and to partner with TReNDS on the Data For Now initiative, contact trends@unsdsn.org.