Will the Real Grand Challenge Please Stand Up?

There have been many “grand challenges” for development made, and fewer met. Ken Banks challenges development institutions themselves in his post “Is ‘Fixing Development’ the Real Grand Challenge for Global Development?” Whether it will be met is yet to be seen, and would require some sincere self-analysis by many key players.

Speaking of global challenges and big players. The G-7 agreed that decarbonization will be important to keeping global warming below 2 degree Celsius. At least one person is excited about that. Ok, make that at least two, as Sir David King hopes this means a climate deal is likely at Paris this year, even after it failed to materialized in Copenhagen in 2009.

Those considering taking up the challenge to make your data public and open might be interested in reading some key points about (like how to make it usable), and how one organization’s fears around going open didn’t come to pass.

The State Department’s Annual Fiscal Transparency Report found that 60 countries aren’t up to the challenge of open data, and aren’t meeting minimum requirements for fiscal transparency. Only nine of those have made any significant progress since last year. While it can be challenging to keep up with all the grand challenges, and not as grand, but still important, challenges that are ever-present, it’s good to keep in mind this is what we signed up to do, to try and solve problems one-by-one and step-by-step.

This piece was originally posted on the First Tranche. Image credit: AidData Flickr