PARIS21Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st

Century

From data to policy action in low income countries: how can

innovation help?

Matjaz Jug

PARIS21Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st

Century

A Call for Action

•“We should actively take advantage of new technology, crowd sourcing, and improved connectivity to empower people with information on the progress towards the targets.”

(From the UN Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development

Agenda)

Innovation Opportunities

Case studies in the following areas:•Data Collection•New data sources•Crowd sourcing•Visualisation and GIS•Data Dissemination

Challenges

• Difficult direct data collection due to the low penetration of technology.

• Difficult access to households.• Affordability of traditional methods of data collection.• Administrative data sources from the government not

available or not fit for the purpose.• Poor timeliness for example information becomes

available for analysis and policy action years after it has been collected.

• Lack of data at the dis-aggregated level that would be required to inform policy action.

• Information sharing and transparency is not widely adopted.

• Lack of skills and expertise to analyse and use data for policy action.

Using mobile phones for data collection to support OVC in

Tanzania

Tracking Population Movements using Analysis of Mobile Phones

Data in Haiti

Source: irevolution.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/journal-pmed-mobile-phone-haiti.pdf

Use of GIS-enabled Mobile Collection and Visualisation in Surui Carbon

Project

Source: rhiza.com/act/

Web-based Data Catalogue

Source: http://www.ihsn.org/home/software/nada

Technological progress

Open Data

Source: http://theodi.github.io/open-data-barometer-viz/

Enablers

• Standards and frameworks

• Technology• Methods• People• Partnerships

Standards: International Aid Transparency Standard

Source: www.aidtransparency.net/

Technology: Cloud-based Data Storage and Analysis

Source: International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 74 – No.2, July 2013

Methods: Advocacy Monitoring through Analysis of Big Social

Data

Source: http://www.unglobalpulse.org/EWEC-social-data-analysis

People: The Big Idea Pilot

Source: restlessdevelopment.org/big-idea-pilot

Creating An Innovative Ecosystem: Network of Global

Pulse Labs

Source: www.unglobalpulse.org/pulse-labs

Key Success Factors

• Pilot project approach provides staged and controlled environment to test how would innovation work in practice.

• Use of technology and methods, suitable for the environment in low-income countries, for example mobile infrastructure, GIS and visualisation.

• Leveraging alternative data sources by using crowd sourcing and harnessing new big data sources.

• Development, use and promotion of open data standards and practices to enable reuse of data and increase transparency.

• Partnerships across development organisations, government and private sectors that are crucial to mobilise skills and capabilities required for implementation.

TRENDS ENABLERS INNOVATION AREAS

OUTCOMES

Cloud Technology Crowd sourcing Relevant

Mobile People Mobile Data collection

Timely

Social Methods Visualisation Accurate

Big Data Partnerships New Big Data sources

Coherent

Open Data Standards and frameworks

Open Data Dissemination

Accessible and Interpretable