IMPROVING LIVES THROUGH DATA ECOSYSTEMS

At the end of August 2014, the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, appointed an Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. The Statistician-General, Mr Pali Lehohla, is one of those appointed to this group. For a full list of members please click here.

The IEAG has been asked to craft a strategic framework on what the “data revolution for development” would mean in practice, how it can be funded and what institutional and governance implications this would entail. Specifically, the Group is asked to suggest measures to close the data gaps and strengthen national statistical capacities, and to assess the new opportunities linked to innovation, technical progress and the surge of new public and private data providers to support and complement the conventional national countries statistical systems to support the sustainable development agenda, as well as to strengthen accountability at the global, regional and national level.

The group is currently consulting on a number of areas including the data landscape, promoting open and accessible data, measuring the Sustainable Development Goals and harnessing big data and new technologies.

To have your say in what this data revolution will mean for yourself, your community, your country and society, log onto www.undatarevolution.org Consultations are open until Wednesday 15 October 2014, so log on and have your say.

You can read more about data revolution here.