D t
1, 2 Big Data by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger, a professor of internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, and Kenneth Cukier, data editor of the Economist newspaper.
8
In the Session’s fray was Francesca Perucci, Chief of Development Data and Outreach at the UN Statistics Division (UNSD), a life-long data lover who began her career more than 30 years ago helping to develop the first gender- related statistics: “I saw data as a way to bring about change,” Perucci explains, once we’ve left behind the throng of delegates and loud speaker announcement about impending sessions. “We were a small group of people working on gender statistics in the UN back then and we were very passionate about having data to show policy makers. There was so little understanding even of women’s participation in the labor market. Women were assumed to be at home caring for children. So all my life I’ve known that data can be the answer to a lot of problems. We need to convince people with real facts.” Perucci pauses for a moment, looking out of the windows. “Good data couldn’t be more relevant than it is today,” she laughs. The idea of the UNSC 50th Session is to bring countries
:
SOMETHING NEW AND SPECIAL
HAPPENING
together, to set standards and guidelines about collecting, disseminating and using data, and come up with the marching orders for what the global statistical community is supposed to do next. The report of the meeting is presented to the UN Economic and Social Council, so that statistical- related decisions can inform political discussions. In some cases, where resolutions require political decisions and global backing, draft resolutions go to the UN General Assembly for formal adoption, as was the case when the statistical community devised the SDG indicators and the framework to measure progress. In 2014, many years after computers entered mainstream society and it was becoming obvious that data was accumulating to such an extent that something new and special was happening1
, then UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked an Independent Expert Advisory Group to make concrete recommendations on bringing about a data revolution in sustainable development. The ensuing report,
A World That Counts: Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, highlighted two big global data challenges: the challenge of invisibility, or gaps in what we know from data; and data inequality, or the differences between those with and without information, and what people need to know to make their own decisions. “We needed to somehow harness the data revolution; to establish a dialogue with other data communities in the private sector, scientific and academic communities, and broader civil society,” says Perucci. “We realized that the Statistical Commission wasn’t the place to stage a free and creative discussion – it’s too formal.” The protocol of the Session’s proceedings – which unfold slowly and deliberately in the UN’s cavernous General Assembly Hall, where each of the 192 delegations has three seats – is something to behold. It was clear that an additional
forum was needed, Perucci says, and so the UN World Data Forum was born.
PHOTO: OFID/Steve Hughes
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51
