United Nations Global Platform A global …...Mobile Phone Data, Satellite Imagery and Geospatial Data, Scanner Data and Social Media Data. Task Teams are multidisciplinary and work

UN Global Platform: Background Document - Draft “A global collaboration to harness the power of data for better lives”

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United Nations Global Platform “A global collaboration to harness the power of data for better lives” Background Document for National Statisticians

Version: 2.3 August 2019 https://unstats.un.org/bigdata/ [email protected]

https://unstats.un.org/bigdata/


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Foreword from the Director of the United Nations Statistics Division Nowadays, business leaders, political leaders and the public at large expect that data, information and insights will be delivered quickly, frequently and contain a lot of detail. We know that our consumer preferences or even our political preferences can be measured almost instantly. So, why doesn’t our bureau of statistics give us instant overviews of the economy, the environment and the society? That question is not unreasonable, and we as statisticians will have to adequately respond to it. I recall that in 2014 an eminent group of experts directly challenged the world of statisticians, when it published the Data Revolution report, in which it recommended – amongst other things – that technology and innovation should be shared for the common good, that we should broker global public-private partnerships for data sharing and create a “SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) Data Lab”. Quite a number of statistical offices have started to experiment with the use of new data sources to release faster and more detailed data. For example, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the United Kingdom has recently released faster estimates of the UK’s economic activity through the analysis of several new data sources. I’m very happy that the UN Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics took on the challenge of bringing together many national and international statistical offices as well as many of our partners from private sector, academia, and civil society. The data innovation results, which I have seen so far, are very promising. In this regard, I like to thank Heather Savory (UK) and Niels Ploug (Denmark) for their enthusiastic and effective leadership of this group. Special thanks also goes to ONS, UK, for creating a digital platform on which the whole world can come together to develop faster estimates of the state of all societies, and in particular faster estimates for the SDG indicators. This initiative may prove in hindsight to be the decisive action, which gave our community the “SDG data lab” in the form of the UN Global Platform. I hope the UN Global Platform will find the long term support it deserves, because the platform will make it possible even for small statistical offices in developing countries to access global Big Data sets, access state-of-the-art technologies and a network of experts to help in the execution of Big Data projects and the compilation of SDG indicators.

Stefan Schweinfest Director, Statistics Division, DESA, United Nations


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A message from the co-Chairs of the United Nations Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) The modern digital world gives us the potential to access previously unprecedented, content rich data sources. These have the potential to deliver great public benefit. Harnessing this data with the latest technology, tools and expertise has the potential to deliver near real-time insights into the economies and societies of the world, for the benefit of citizens, businesses and governments. Independent official statistics are at the core of this development. Working under the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities, National Statistics Offices (NSOs) deliver trusted data and measures to record many different aspects of the economies and societies across the world. Independent statistics are essential to provide the basis for decision-making by governments, businesses and citizens alike. The realisation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda is dependent on measuring the 232 indictors monitoring the progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve this and deliver other insights from newly available data sources the international statistical system needs to modernise its approach. The community of official statistics has joined forces in the United Nations Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) to find solutions for data innovation. After some years of fragmented experimentation, the GWG has recently been engaged in the development of a digital platform (the UN Global Platform) which enables active collaboration by a network of statisticians and data scientists on innovative projects using global data sets and the latest technology. The time has come to scale up the Global Platform and put it onto sustainable footing for the future. Our plan, set out here, is to set up an independent not-for-profit organisation, the Global Platform Institute, with the sole focus of making this happen. We thank those who have been part of the GWGs work for several years, especially members who have offered their time and support alongside their ‘day-jobs’. Their contributions have helped us develop our thinking and deliver the proofs of concept in technologies and methods which fully demonstrate the potential of the Global Platform. We are pleased to be working with many NSOs and private companies and hope to welcome additional partners, particularly those who can contribute data sources to the Global Platform, in the future. We hope you will resolve to play your own part in the future of this exciting endeavor. We need support from international funding sources, technology and data partners and experts in the application of Big Data. If you are interested in working with us please get in touch. It is by working together that we will be successful. Niels Ploug and Heather Savory Co-Chairs of the UN Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG)


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Contents Foreword from the Director of the United Nations Statistics Division .......................................... 2

A message from the co-Chairs of the United Nations Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) .............................................................................................................................. 3

1. Background .............................................................................................................................. 6

Driving innovation for the Agenda for Sustainable Development ............................................. 6

The Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) ........................................ 6

United Nations governance and future endorsement ............................................................... 8

2. UN Global Platform vision and values ..................................................................................... 8

Vision ........................................................................................................................................... 8

Values .......................................................................................................................................... 8

3. The UN Global Platform ......................................................................................................... 10

Underlying concept ................................................................................................................... 10

How it will work ........................................................................................................................ 11

Data Collaboratives ................................................................................................................... 11

4. The Global Platform Institute ................................................................................................ 12

What it does .............................................................................................................................. 12

Blended business model ........................................................................................................... 12

Global Platform Institute governance and oversight ............................................................... 13

Regional Hubs ........................................................................................................................... 14

Not-for-profit model ................................................................................................................. 15

International reach ................................................................................................................... 16

Working with Regional Hubs ..................................................................................................... 16

5. Funding Considerations ......................................................................................................... 16

International funding ................................................................................................................ 16

Sustainable funding .................................................................................................................. 16

6. Global Platform progress to date .......................................................................................... 17

Proofs of concept ...................................................................................................................... 17

Marketplace .............................................................................................................................. 17

Data Services ............................................................................................................................. 17

Methods Service ....................................................................................................................... 18

Developers Service .................................................................................................................... 18

Security and Ethics .................................................................................................................... 18


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Stakeholders and how they can benefit ................................................................................... 18

7. Global Platform Task Teams .................................................................................................. 22

8. Scaling up the Global Platform .............................................................................................. 22

Global collaboration .................................................................................................................. 22

Regional Hubs ........................................................................................................................... 22

Events and communications ..................................................................................................... 22

Building the Global Platform Institute ...................................................................................... 22

Annex A – Membership of the UN Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG)....................................................................................................................................................... 23

Countries ................................................................................................................................... 23

International Organisations ...................................................................................................... 23

Annex B – Global Platform - Services ............................................................................................ 24

Annex C – Global Platform – Capability ........................................................................................ 25

Annex D – Global Platform – Support ........................................................................................... 26


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1. Background

Driving innovation for the Agenda for Sustainable Development Effective use of new Big Data sources across National Statistical Systems (NSS) requires friction-free access to these data, state of the art technical architectures to deal with data governance and privacy issues, the latest analysis and dissemination tools and the skills and capability to work in this digital environment. Countries around the world compile their national statistics according to international recommendations, which should ensure that these statistics comparable across countries. Many statistics, like life expectancy, GDP (gross domestic product) or CO2 emissions are most valuable as country by country comparisons rather than as an isolated national measure. This is also true for the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicators, which measure progress towards achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Data compilation for the SDG indicators is challenging even using traditional data sources, such as surveys, censuses or administrative data. The complexity of Big Data sources make compilation even more complex and could easily lead to divergent practices across countries. To deliver comparable measures across the world the techniques and methods of analysing new data sources need to be uniform and robust. The Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) has already set up several Task Teams to research ways in which sources of Big Data can be put to use in a standardised way to create new insights into economies and societies and to help measure the SDGs. The Global Platform, led and funded to-date by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK, has delivered proof-of-concept and alpha technologies and services to enable and support this work. The progress made to-date is set out in an overview document United Nations Global Platform: Data for the world.

The Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) At its 45th session in 2014 the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) created the Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG). The GWG provides strategic vision and direction to coordinate a global program on Big Data for Official Statistics, including for the compilation of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicators for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The structure of the GWG is shown in Figure 1. Under the umbrella of the United Nations the GWG brings together participants from National Statistics Offices from many nations (see Annex A). The full GWG meets formally once or twice a year co-chaired by the UK and Denmark, who also lead the Bureau of the GWG which meets regularly to oversee the strategic direction and progress of the work of the GWG. The GWG also organises an International Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics every year.

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/

https://unstats.un.org/bigdata/bureau/documents/meetings/meeting27_180419/Kigali%20Declaration%20-%20May%202019%20-%20for%20GWG%20meeting.pdf



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Figure 1. Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG) Structure

GWG Task Teams are set up to look into the uses of Big Data, for example: Big Data and the SDG’s, Mobile Phone Data, Satellite Imagery and Geospatial Data, Scanner Data and Social Media Data. Task Teams are multidisciplinary and work in collaboration to research these data sources and the methods to derive public benefit from them. They generate learning materials to be shared with others. Each Task Team includes members drawn from a variety of National Statistical Systems (NSS) across the world and other invited partners with expertise in specific topics. Task Teams work to share and develop expertise in the different areas; this work is shared across the GWG and the wider statistical system. In parallel to this work on the specific uses of different types of Big Data a Task Team on the Global Platform, based in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the United Kingdom, has been developing the framework for a governance and technology infrastructure, the Global Platform, to allow effective international collaboration on the uses of Big Data for public benefit. Trust is the trademark of the community of official statistics, expressed in the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. The Global Platform is based on trust, built around four pillars: Trusted Partners, Trusted Data, Trusted Methods and Trusted Learning. Trusted Partners are aligned to the work of National Statistical Systems and the SDG agenda, they come together to work in collaborative groups on the Global Platform, are provided with access to Trusted Data, access or develop Trusted Methods to analyse this data and access or contribute to Trusted Learning – materials which enable capacity building in the use of Big Data for Official Statistics. The Global Platform is a digital platform operated under a platform business model, developing digital services to support the development, sharing and publishing of Trusted Data, Trusted Methods, and Trusted Learning with an innovative marketplace capability to enable collaboration between Trusted Partners. A proof of concept for the Global Platform has been designed and developed over the last two years and is now released in alpha, it has already been visited by more than 200 users from more than 100 countries.


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United Nations governance and future endorsement Development and maintenance of the Global Platform is performed under the auspices and guidance of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) in support of the National Statistical Systems of developed and developing countries. In March 2018 the GWG presented a report on the Global Platform to the 49th Session of the UNSC for endorsement. This report presented the main aspects of the business model for the Global Platform as a basis for further development of the full business case – focusing on the legal entity, operational entity, governance and ethics and gained support from across the UN that the work should continue for two years. The UNSC Report on the 49th session (6–9 March 2018) included:

….. that the proof of concept phase for the global platform of the Working Group should run from now until March 2020, reiterated the need to present the business case for the platform, and requested that work on the legal, ethical and funding considerations be initiated during this phase and that steps be taken to enable access by small island developing States to big data

Further work has continued to develop the Global Platform business model. In March 2019 a background paper was submitted to the 50th session of the UNSC which sets out that an independent entity, the Global Platform Institute, should be set up to develop and operate the Global Platform with a view to putting it onto a sustainable footing for the future. The next step towards delivering the vision of the Global Platform is now setting up this independent entity as a UK-based charity, securing the funding necessary to take the Global Platform forward and building the network of Regional Hubs with close ties to the charity, to make the platform truly global.

In March 2020 the platform business model, with firm commitments from the main contributing parties, will be presented to the 51st session of the UNSC for endorsement.

2. UN Global Platform vision and values The statements below encompass the vision and values of the UN Global Platform

Vision The primary vision/purpose of the UN Global Platform is to facilitate: A global collaboration to harness the power of data for better lives.

Values The values of the UN Global Platform are as below:

● Non-commercial purpose – the Global Platform will not be a profit-seeking entity ● Public purpose – the Global Platform will carry out activities for the public good

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/49th-session/documents/Report-on-the-49th-session-E.pdf

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/49th-session/documents/Report-on-the-49th-session-E.pdf


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● Open and Transparent – the Global Platform will operate in an open and transparent manner

● Global collaboration – the Global Platform will promote and facilitate global collaboration to further the beneficial use of data for the public good

● Reach across all nations – the Global Platform will actively support all regions within a global network

● Focus on developing nations – under guidance from the United Nations the Global Platform will prioritise activities to assist developing nations, putting their needs above those of developed nations

● UN oversight – the Global Platform will operate under the oversight of and in partnership with the United Nations

● UN brand visibility – the Global Platform will actively promote the United Nations and its values as a partner in the operation of the Global Platform and its underlying entities

● Support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the Global Platform will drive activities to enable the successful measurement and reporting of the 2030 SDGs

● National Statistics Offices (NSOs) – the Global Platform will actively involve NSOs – including sister institutions in national statistical systems – as Trusted Partners in the Global Platform ecosystem

● Regional Hubs – the Global Platform will actively support a network of Regional Hubs, through partner agreements with these hubs to ensure that they comply with Global Platform governance, technical standards, data privacy and legislation

● Ecosystem development – the Global Platform will continually reach out to engage with and support increasing numbers of Trusted Partners and increasing numbers of active Data Collaboratives

● Data and Methods support – the Global Platform will deliver Trusted Partners access to Trusted Data and Trusted Methods for sharing and collaboration, whilst complying with platform governance, technical standards, data privacy and legislation

● Access to Cloud computing and storage services – the Global Platform will enable scalable access to major Cloud providers

● Leaning and capability building – the Global Platform will actively support global learning and capacity building in the areas of official statistics, data analysis and data science

● Follow the sun support – the Global Platform will, through its network of Regional Hubs, deliver 24/7 support for partners and users

● Sharing with others – the Global Platform will deliver and support seminars and events to further understanding about what data can tell us about the world

● Horizon scanning and policy support – the Global Platform will be active in the emerging global debate about the appropriate use of data in the public interest and how this is best achieved

● Access to expertise – the Global Platform will access the expertise and capabilities required to carry out its functions either directly or through partnerships with other organisations, including from the private sector, academia and civil society.

● Organisational flexibility – the Global Platform will be set up with the organisational flexibility necessary to permit and drive innovation


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● Funding – the Global Platform will build a sustainable funding model for the future ● Co-funding/project funding – the Global Platform will support partner entities as and

when they need to attract funding for particular activities in the public interest ● Ability to operate legal contracts – the Global Platform will enter into commercial

arrangements with partners and suppliers ● Staffing – the Global Platform will employ its own staff and support secondments from

NSOs and other partner organisations. ● Attitude – the Global Platform will be approachable, open-minded and open to

suggestions and feedback from all parties ● Diversity – the Global Platform will commit to developing and maintaining a diverse and

inclusive culture in line with the core values of the United Nations

3. The UN Global Platform

Underlying concept The modern digital world gives us the potential to access previously unprecedented, content rich data sources. These have the potential to deliver great public benefit. Harnessing this data with the latest technology and tools has the potential to deliver near real-time insights into the economies and societies of the world, for the benefit of citizens, businesses and governments. The International Statistical System, working under the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the Principles Governing International Statistical Activities, delivers data and measures to record many different aspects of the economies and societies across the world. Independent statistics are essential to provide the basis for decision-making by governments, businesses and citizens alike. Alongside this the United Nations adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an important milestone for humanity since UN Member States pledged to ‘leave no-one behind’, recognising that the dignity of the individual is fundamental and that the Agenda’s Goals and targets should be met for all nations and people and for all segments of society. It was also agreed that we should collectively endeavour to reach first those who are furthest behind. The realisation of the SDG Agenda is dependent on defining and measuring the 230 indicators beneath the 17 goals. To achieve this and deliver other insights from newly available data sources the international statistical system needs to modernise its approach. Statistical systems across the world are generally rather traditional in their approach, often under-resourced and typically lack the digital skills necessary to gain value from new sources of data. This is particularly true of developing nations for whom international support should be prioritised. Generally, not just in statistics, the data revolution presents challenges on many fronts, particularly in the ready availability of the skills, capability and systems necessary to gain value and insights from the data around us. To get the best out of this data for public benefit the international statistical system, via discussions at the United Nations Statistical Commission, has recently acknowledged the benefits of partnering with the technology sector, academia and


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subject matter experts to resolve immediate and future challenges. The Global Platform is the vehicle which will allow this to happen by enabling a wide variety of stakeholders to participate and collaborate on the premise that each stakeholder contributes to the ecosystem, by putting something into the system in order to benefit from membership of the system. The Global Platform concept is therefore that of a multi-faceted, public good focused, platform business model.

How it will work The Global Platform will provide its partners with data and digital services (see Annex B) and access to learning materials. All services are accessible through a standard web interface. Partners will be accredited by the Global Platform Institute as Trusted Partners to access the platform. Collaborative projects (Data Collaboratives) can be set up by groups of Trusted Partners to work together virtually on a particular problem, enabling collaboration across the international statistical system in a way which is not currently possible. Trusted Partners will sponsor other stakeholders to participate in the platform network. The Global Platform needs to support many different types of stakeholders, set out in more detail in section 6. Stakeholders will be bound by specific agreements as to what is asked of them and what benefit they will derive as partners in the Global Platform ecosystem on an ‘ability to contribute’ basis. For example, a developing nation may not be asked to contribute more than say, a single data set to be shared with others or a single Data Scientist resource to work in a Data Collaborative. In return that nation will reap the rewards of easy access to data and technologies, also methods and learning developed by other Trusted Partners. They should be able to use these methods to help measure and report on the SDGs for their country, alongside others, helping them in their ability to understand their nation and how it compares globally. Meanwhile technology companies, large and small, will be able to deliver products and services through the Global Platform but will be expected to do so in a way which is cost effective across the entire statistical system. If the Global Platform Model is adopted collaboratively, by stakeholders who share the ambition to ‘leave no-one behind’, there is vast potential for global public benefit and everybody in the ecosystem can be a winner.

Data Collaboratives The Global Platform will create an ecosystem of Trusted Partners. Partners will set up Data Collaboratives to focus on particular research areas and drive innovation in the creation of new official statistical methods, particularly in the use of Big Data. This collaboration amongst partners with an emphasis on sharing data, methods and learning across the system can reduce the time and cost of developing new methods. Sharing data sources and new methods will develop a network of fellow statisticians, data scientists and other researchers, and increase harmonisation in the use of new data sources, particularly Big Data sources, across the statistical system.


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4. The Global Platform Institute

What it does The Global Platform Institute will provide the operational and technical infrastructure to enable the Global Platform adopting many elements of recently emerging commercial platform business models. A ‘platform’ business model is a fundamentally different approach to more traditional ‘pipeline’ business models, facilitating sharing between Trusted Partners who may be both consumers and producers. Platform organisations are one of the best organisational structures for enabling rapid evolution. The appeal of platform organisations is their potential to generate more and different forms of value, at lower total cost. It is by extending some of the recent platform business concepts to include a public benefit dimension that a new type of public/private partnership arrangement can be achieved, where all partners can benefit, but in different ways. The Global Platform Institute as the owner/orchestrator of the Global Platform, will not typically own Trusted Data, Trusted Methods, and Trusted Learning but instead be the means of connection (bringing Trusted Partners together) through a governance framework and technical infrastructure which delivers a set of principles, processes and services to create a coherent ecosystem. A platform organisation is driven by understanding the behavior of its partners within the platform. The platform business model is self-learning, meaning that the Global Platform can use analytics and machine learning from the Global Platform usage to evolve in response to demand from partners and to deliver well understood data, methods, and learning as standard products and services. The more activity the platform orchestrates the more it can learn and the better it can evolve. For the Global Platform, the rate of innovation is not dependent upon the physical size of the platform but the size of the ecosystem of its stakeholders All members of the ecosystem can provide information on improvement, quality control, reliability and price sensitivity. In other words, for a platform organisation, the bigger the network of users becomes the more innovative, efficient and user-focused it can become.

Blended business model The blended business model is based on the triple bottom line: people, planet, prosperity. For the Global Platform different categories of Trusted Partners are defined within the blended model based on the principle of ‘ability to contribute’ to realise partner benefits. Thus, each class of partner will contribute something to the Global Platform to derive its partner benefits from the Global Platform. The Global Platform business model will ensure that trusted data, methods, learning, services and software applications are exchanged in a way that contributes to better statistics and SDG indicators, and the modernisation of the statistical system whilst also supporting profits for commercial partners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line


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The Global Platform business model is underpinned by partners working in collaboration. Entities from across the public, private, third and academic sectors will work together for mutual benefit. The benefits will accrue to different types of partners in different ways and will include access to data, methods and learning and financial reward.

Global Platform Institute governance and oversight Oversight of the Global Platform Institute will be provided through the United Nations Statistical Commission. The Global Platform business model will align with the Statistical Commission’s responsibilities to comply with United Nations goals, values and ethical standards. The key principle to ‘leave no one behind’ will drive policies, principles and procedures. The United Nations will create an agreement (initially an MOU) with the Global Platform Institute to set out the relationship between the two bodies and to develop and guide the governance framework for the execution of data, ethics, security and assurance policies and principles. The agreement is expected to include the setting up of a Steering Committee for the Global Platform, which will consist of the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, the Under-Secretary General of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs plus the Chief Executive of the Global Platform Institute and the designated UN manager for the Global Platform Institute. UN mechanisms, led by the GWG, will be accountable for the delivery of the Global Platform. Within the GWG, the GWG Bureau has set up a Global Platform Advisory Board to perform this function. The Advisory Board includes senior managers from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), National Statistical Offices (NSOs), other GWG members and a number of independent board members. The GWG Bureau and its Advisory Board will report openly and transparently on the activities of the Global Platform, which will be included in the regular reports of the GWG to the Statistical Commission. The GWG Bureau and its Advisory Board will own the data, ethics, security and assurance policies for the Global Platform and will provide overarching guidance by defining principles and standards, including ethical standards to form the compliance and assurance framework necessary to ensure the Global Platform is a reputable, inclusive, trusted endeavor operating at the highest level of standards and values, in an open and transparent manner, inviting contributions from a wide range of stakeholders. The Global Platform Institute will comply with the governance framework set out by the GWG Bureau and its Advisory Board. The Institute will design and operate the Global Platform, oversee and work with the Regional Hubs, manage Trusted Partner relationships and promote, develop and support Data Collaboratives. The Regional Hubs are being set up similarly to the Global Platform Institute; each has a separate governance arrangement between it and the United Nations. The Global Platform Institute will operate as the central global hub in the overall constellation.

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/


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As an independent institute, the Global Platform Institute is governed by a Board of Trustees through its Articles of Association and will report on an annual basis within its own jurisdiction (in this case the United Kingdom). The structure of the UN Global Platform Institute is shown in Figure 2. The GWG Task Teams will operate independently, under the guidance of the GWG as users of the Global Platform. A description of the GWG Task Teams already in place is provided in section 7.

Figure 2. Global Platform Institute

Regional Hubs Maintaining public trust is essential to statistical production. Data providers and individual data owners need reassurance about where their data is stored and who is accessing it for what purposes. To support and enable the expansion of the Global Platform across geographies and across different topic areas a number of Regional Hubs will be set up. Regional Hubs will conform with the governance set out by the GWG Bureau and its Advisory Board and the technical standards set out in Partner Agreements with the Global Platform Institute to enable interoperability with the Global Platform and a common, integrated approach to Trusted Partner support. Regional Hubs will be regional data labs for innovative project work, data analysis, specialist research, the production of official statistics and provision of regional training courses which will provide direct local support for the Global Platform. They can be drawn from across the public sector, civil society, academic institutes and private organisations. There will be an obligation for research hubs to dedicate staff and resources to the Global Platform. Typically, hubs will operate on the Global Platform although there may be options for hubs to federate their own systems to the core Global Platform. Regional Hub outputs will become available for use by Trusted Partners. Regional Hubs will provide the flexibility to create a truly international network in line with the Bogota Declaration from the 4th Global Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics held in

https://unstats.un.org/unsd/bigdata/conferences/2017/Bogota%20declaration%20-%20Final%20version.pdf


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Columbia in November 2017 which recommended, “a global data collaborative, facilitated by the global platform with the potential to accommodate many different types of trusted data, services and applications” and the Kigali Declaration from the 5th Global Conference held in Rwanda 2019 which reinforced, “support and governance structures for the UN Global Platform, an online platform that facilitates the exchange, development and sharing of data, methods, tools and expertise, across the global statistical community (including UN and government agencies, private sector, researchers, academics and civil society)”. Regional Hubs will be used to deliver ‘Follow the sun’ support for the Global Platform (see Annex D). Global Platform communications and support are also provided via the GWG Website and open on-line channels. Regional Hubs are expected to work in their region to provide training opportunities and facilitate short-term secondments of staff from regional NSOs into the Regional Hub.

Not-for-profit model The business model for the Global Platform has been discussed at the UNSC and by the GWG. An information paper put to the 50th Session of the UNSC in March 2019 put forward a recommendation that the Global Platform should be operated as a separate not-for-profit legal entity. There are various reasons why this is the preferred option to operate the Global Platform including:

● That the primary purposes of the UN are: to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples; to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends. The UN is not a delivery body and a separate organisation is required, which can operate nimbly and successfully in an innovative global environment to deliver the Global Platform;

● To-date the UK, supported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has taken the lead in the development of the Global Platform, including working with technology companies, domain experts and other NSOs to deliver the proofs-of-concept which underpin the current proposals to find a way to develop the Global Platform further and put it onto a sustainable footing for the future;

● To maintain independence and ensure there are no vested national interests in the

Global Platform the UNSC has recommended that it should not be owned or operated by a single NSO.



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The Global Platform Institute will therefore be set up as a UK Charity under the governance of its trustees. The Global Platform will be delivered under the oversight of the UN, as set out above. As a UK-based Charity the Global Platform Institute will seek an international mix of trustees to maintain the global vision. Ideally, Global Platform Institute trustees will be a group of individuals from across the world with the necessary skills and credibility to oversee and support the Global Platform. They are expected to have a personal passion for the development agenda; the use of data at scale in the public interest; and the application of new technologies to facilitate this.

International reach The Global Platform Institute will operate internationally working with the Regional Hubs to deliver the Global Platform vision and values by delivering the Global Platform. Global Platform Institute activities will include development of technologies and techniques in partnership with others, stakeholder engagement and user support. Activities will be led by a senior team based in the United Kingdom with other Global Platform Institute staff located in specific international regions as necessary to provide local support for the Global Platform and for the Regional Hubs.

Working with Regional Hubs The Global Platform Institute will enter into suitable Partner Agreements with the Regional Hubs and actively support their development as part of an internationally federated network of expertise and support to deliver the Global Platform.

5. Funding Considerations

International funding The Global Platform Institute is seeking is a global portfolio of funding sources. In the same way that the Global Platform Institute will seek an international mix of trustees and Regional Hubs, it will seek a number of funding streams from different geographies to develop and maintain the international approach essential to the goal of leaving no-one behind. The Global Platform Institute intends to be truly global and does not want to be ’owned’ by funds from any single organisation or single geography. In addition to oversight from the UN, the Global Platform funders from different regions are expected to help ensure that each region is fully represented in the work of the Global Platform and that the programme of work remains inclusive and international, and holds its primary focus on assisting developing nations, putting their needs above those of developed nations.

Sustainable funding The Global Platform Institute will seek to agree funds for development and expansion across a number of future years to mitigate against the risk of a funding crisis which could inhibit growth of the ecosystem. Funds will be drawn down against an agreed business model and delivery milestones to be agreed with the funding parties.


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Alongside funds for organisational development and capacity building the Global Platform Institute will also seek funding for R&D and wider policy development activities in order to develop the technologies and platforms which will be required for future generations of the platform. It will seek to carry out these R&D activities in collaboration with technology partners and other experts. A key example is in the area of Data Privacy and Security where new policy needs to be made and modified working in close collaboration with emerging technologies. The Global Platform Institute will be well placed to assist in the development of international policies in the complex, currently emergent, data landscape. The Global Platform Institute will be not-for-profit. Initially funding will be required to build the Global Platform Institute. As the Institute matures in the future it is anticipated that opportunities will arise to allow the Institute to generate external revenue, always maintaining its public good remit, core purpose and ethical standards. These revenues will help make the Global Platform sustainable in the long term.

6. Global Platform progress to date

Proofs of concept So far, the UK, supported by a team in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has led the creation of the technology platform. Over the last 18 months a number of proofs of concept have been instantiated to deliver a set of 100% Cloud services covering the development and publishing of statistical methods and algorithms; a marketplace that provides access to data, services, learning and expertise and specialised services that deliver location and earth observation capabilities. An overview of the full capabilities planned for the Global Platform and Global Platform Institute is provided in Annex C. The document United Nations Global Platform: Data for the world contains details of the services currently available. Current Global Platform services include:

Marketplace The Marketplace is a powerful index of trusted data, methods, services, learning and partners. It is the web page users access (via a standard web browser) to set up collaboratives to develop new ways of using Big Data, to access methods, data and compute resources and to browse learning materials which will help them develop their skills in the analysis of new data resources. Trusted partners can publish content securely to their own areas and control access and contributions by those they are working with, alongside the publicly available data and services.

Data Services Earth Observation Services and a Location Analytics Service already exist in the proof of concept Global Platform. The Global Platform Institute will add to these data service over time, working with data suppliers to deliver friction-free, cost-effective access to new data sources for the Global Platform community.


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Methods Service The methods service allows members of the Global Platform to find, use and publish methods and algorithms in the cloud, alongside the real or representative data sources they act upon. Algorithms will be callable via APIs and new methods will be quality assured through peer review, overseen by the Scientific Advisory Committee.

Developers Service This service provides access to code development and data exploration environments to support users in developing new algorithms, data science pipelines and applications. Services will include cloud-based workspaces and notebooks, support for R, Python and more and enable distributed teams to collaborate quickly and effectively.

Security and Ethics The proper use of data for public benefit is at the core of the Global Platform. Policies and guidance on Data Ethics and Data Security will be published openly and transparently so that data providers can understand how their data is being used. Access to the Global Platform and its rich content will be governed by a set of policies and principles overseen by the United Nations. To ensure the proper and ethical use of data in the public interest the Global Platform will not be a fully open environment. Users will need to prove their pedigree, conform to a set of rules and regulations and demonstrate how each of their projects is ethical and in the public interest.

Stakeholders and how they can benefit Resources for the initial development of the Global Platform are being provided by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), partner NSOs and the UNSD, collaborating via the GWG. Some of the technical partners working with the Global Platform have also directly contributed resources to assist, for example; free access to data and tools, and free credits for cloud services. The blended model for the Global Platform is an important concept which allows multidisciplinary stakeholders to collaborate, contribute and gain individual benefit from the Global Platform. The primary focus of the platform is to facilitate the close partnerships between NSOs and technology and data suppliers who have the resources to enable the analysis of a wide variety of data in the public interest. The public benefits to be delivered will be of most benefit to developing nations, helping to bring them up the maturity curve in their ability to measure and report against the SDG indicators.


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Global Platform stakeholders are categorised into different groups. The table below sets out how non-statistical stakeholder groups will contribute to the Platform and how they can benefit from it.

Stakeholder Group

Definition / composition

Stakeholder Contributions Stakeholder Benefits

Civil Society This group includes the research arms of foundations for public and social good, public interest groups and other non-governmental (not-for-profit) organisations

Civil society institutes can contribute, for example, data scientists to develop and test algorithms, crowd-sourced data or other data sources, ground-truthing via crowd-sourcing, and hack-a-thons

Not-for-profit institutes for public and social good may be able to attract project funding where they are partnered with a Global Platform Trusted Partner to undertake specific work as part of a Task Team or Data Collaborative. They will gain reputation and trust by collaborating on the platform. Global Platform products will carry a stamp of quality, trust and approval, which civil society organisation can use to better support the goals they are striving for. Collaborating on the Global Platform will reduce the cost of research through improved access to Big Data sets, Cloud server technologies and high-end computing

Academia The academic sector consists of universities and associate research institutes and centers of excellence

Academic researchers can contribute by developing and testing methods and algorithms, and underpinning these methods with quality assurance frameworks. Academics could lead on AI and Machine Learning and potentially could contribute data as well

Academic Researchers may be able to attract project funding where they are partnered with a Global Platform Trusted Partner to undertake specific work as part of a Task Team or Data Collaborative. They will have the opportunity to access global Big Data and interact on the latest IT developments and analytics processing capabilities with experts from the public and private sectors. Collaborating on the Global Platform will reduce the cost of research through improved access to Big Data sets, Cloud server technologies and high-end computing


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Stakeholder Group



Private Sector The private sector includes national and multi-national companies and start-up companies as well as for-profit research institutes.

Private sector stakeholders will provide Cloud services and the latest IT technology and can develop APIs by incorporating trusted methods and trusted data into processing solutions Companies can offer data sources, such as satellite data, mobile phone data, social media data, or transactional and product data. They can also provide additional services, such as jointly developing algorithms or assisting with data aggregation and other data management functions Companies developing privacy preserving or other innovative techniques for data handling and processing can benefit by working with users of advanced analytics on the Global Platform

Collaboration on the Global Platform provides opportunities to test products and services in a global community and gain access to potential government and other customers. Lowering the costs of innovation through collaboration benefits new product development The Global Platform offers companies the opportunity to reduce the overhead of providing free-to-use public good access to their services (e.g: via Cloud credits) across multiple projects as use can be managed and tracked on their behalf by the Global Platform Products on the Global Platform will gain reputation through the quality and trust of the Global Platform. Partners gain reputational value which will translate into positive messages for company and product promotion Commercial data providers could reduce the cost of integration of proprietary and sensitive data sets with other data sets. Sharing data across the Global Platform, in a trusted environment, means that an expanded user base of trusted users can be grown rapidly at a reduced cost. For example, sensitive mobile, retail or geospatial data can be integrated with official statistics and incorporated into new products offering additional utility


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Stakeholder Group



Donors Foundations and agencies for development cooperation can contribute funding to the Global Platform and its capacity development activities

The Global Platform Institute needs philanthropic core funding for its institutional development to support the further development and operation of the Global Platform to bring it to scale The Global Platform Institute will provide opportunities for and manage matched funding The Global Platform enables donors to be very specific about what their funds are supporting. Donors can support specific projects aligned with their areas of core interest. For example funding partners may wish to target specific platform capabilities, individual projects or the addition of specific data sources aligned with their institutional objectives

The Global Platform Institute is strongly focused on helping deliver the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda The Global Platform is based on Cloud server technology and will help rapidly advance National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in less developed countries in their access and use of new data sources and the latest technologies. The Global Platform is strongly focused on learning and capacity building for the less advanced NSOs Donors providing core funding will be supporting many countries at the same time. The methods and outcomes of research activities will be peer reviewed by the Trusted Partners of the Global Platform ensuring that donors are supporting high value activities Where project funding is provided donors can be reassured that the project outputs will be openly shared with the wider community, thus all donor funding for the Global Platform has a wide, tangible, measurable, global impact

Table 1: Global Platform Stakeholder Overview: expected contributions and benefits


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7. Global Platform Task Teams Alongside the work on the Global Platform itself there are currently ten GWG Task Teams covering:

• AIS (Shipping) and Trade Data - led by UNSD

• Big Data and the SDGs – led by Denmark

• Integrating Statistical and Geospatial Information – led by UNECE

• Mobile Phone Data – led by ITU

• Privacy Preserving Techniques – led by UK

• Satellite Imagery and Geospatial Data – led by Canada

• Scanner Data – led by Canada

• Social Media Data – led by Mexico

• Training, Skills and Capacity Building – led by Poland Each Task Team is a collaboration between a number of NSOs and other partners looking at a specific topic to develop new techniques for the platform and methods of using Big Data. Further details can be found on the UNGWG website.

8. Scaling up the Global Platform

Global collaboration Alongside the endorsement of the UNSC in March 2018, the Global Platform has received expressions of interest from many public sector and NGO organisations, academics, leading technology suppliers and other potential partners. Over 600 direct contacts have been already been established across a wide variety of organisations. Since its soft-launch in 2018 the marketplace has been visited by users from 100 different countries and there are already more that 200 active on-line users across 14 time zones. The Global Platform team is working to identify and formalise the ways in which stakeholders can contribute and/or consume data, methods and other services on the Global Platform.

Regional Hubs Two partners have already been identified to be the first of the Regional Hubs; China and Rwanda. The GWG is developing agreements to formalise these arrangements and is in discussion with other countries to identify more partners to create a global network.

Events and communications The GWG organises regular international conference on Big Data including to-data. The formal Annual GWG Meeting is convened during the week of the Big Data Conference which is held in different international locations each year. The Global Platform team attends these and other international events to promote the platform and will continue to work to on-board new partners to the platform.

Building the Global Platform Institute Preparations are underway to set up the Global Platform Institute, including setting up the not-for-profit organisation and talking to prospective funders. If you would like to know more please email [email protected].

https://unstats.un.org/bigdata/


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Annex A – Membership of the UN Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (GWG)

Countries *** = GWG Bureau Member

International Organisations

• Australia • Bangladesh • Brazil • Cameroon • Canada • China • Colombia *** • Denmark *** • Egypt • Georgia • Germany • Indonesia *** • Ireland • Italy

• Mexico *** • Morocco • Netherlands *** • Oman • Pakistan • Philippines • Poland • Republic of Korea • Saudi Arabia • Switzerland • United Arab Emirates *** • United Kingdom *** • United Republic of Tanzania • United States

• African Development Bank *** • CARICOM • Eurostat *** • FAO • IMF • OECD • GCC-Stat • ITU • UN Global Pulse • UNECA • UNECE *** • UNESCAP • UN Statistical Institute for Asia and the

Pacific • UNSD *** • Universal Postal Union • World Bank


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Annex B – Global Platform - Services


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Annex C – Global Platform – Capability


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Annex D – Global Platform – Support

Documents

United Nations Global Platform A global …...Mobile Phone Data, Satellite Imagery and Geospatial Data, Scanner Data and Social Media Data. Task Teams are multidisciplinary and work