Posts by Martha Staid

For a long time, gender in development data has been an afterthought. The focus was on the role of data or technology broadly; if gender came up, it was usually in the context of issues that explicitly affected women (maternal health for example.) DG has increasingly sought to prioritize a gender data. By asking “how could we use a gender focus here?,” we have been able to answer a surprisingly broad range of questions. 

As experts scramble to better understand why Covid-19 can impact individual patients so differently, a growing body of evidence suggests that one factor contributing to the severity of the disease is whether the patient is a smoker. Could enhanced tobacco control policies be another tool for governments fighting the virus?

Adaptive management – the idea that development projects should respond to real life complexities and be flexible enough to respond to unforeseen changes – is an often-praised approach to doing development differently, with donors and partners exploring how to apply it within their programming.

In nearly 15 years of implementing aid management programs, we’ve seen a number of shifts in who uses aid data and how they use it. So we sat up and took notice of this quote from the latest ODI blog post.

The 2018 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) took place amidst a striking moment in the news – one that has brought data, especially data privacy, into the spotlight. As we transition to the EU General Data Protection Regulation, privacy and data security issues are a priority

Despite public health progress in many areas, mortality rates for mothers and newborns in low-resource environments remain stubbornly high – even where other health metrics have improved. Understanding why is a high priority...

Time for some real talk: a data management system is only as good as its reporting tools. It could contain the lost library of Alexandria, but if no one uses it because it’s confusing or difficult, what purpose does it serve?...

This week, DG will be at NetHope’s 2016 Global Summit in Atlanta, where we look forward to discussing how data can be made usable and actionable to drive results. You can find us at the following sessions...

The United Nation Development Group’s Information Management System (IMS) is one of the largest software tools DG has ever built. With users on 131 UN Country Teams, the IMS tracks progress toward core UN goals on and coherence in 165 countries and territories....

There are a lot of misconceptions about using geographical information systems (GIS) in development: that it’s a niche tool, or one that requires a large budget...