Posts categorized Explainer

March is International Women’s History Month. Throughout the next weeks, DG will be publishing a series of blogs that highlight and honor the work that we and others are doing to support the vital role of women. We’re kicking off the series with this post, highlighting the importance of gender data.

Incentives, accountabilities, and fitness-for-purpose influence how (and whether) data are used to drive policy. So what opportunities exist in national data ecosystems that can catalyze systemic change, toward greater evidence-based decision-making?

What does “fit-for-purpose” data actually mean? It depends: on who you ask, and what decision is at stake. For governments and development partners – particularly those who rely on data from country systems for program planning and management – much frustration came from perceived redundancies in statistical and administrative data systems. 

Within the Sustainable Development Goal context of “leave no one behind,” there exists an opportunity – and a pressing obligation – to support better outcomes for children. But much of the change needed must happen at country and local level, through better use of data and evidence in decision-making.

When someone mentions artificial intelligence (AI), it’s easy to conjure up two conflicting images: the first, killer robots whizzing past, replacing human jobs, daily tasks, and social interactions in a post-apocalyptic world; the second, a C-3PO-esque personality revolutionizing our health and food systems. Pondering this, we are also inclined to explore the question, where does

Development actors, ourselves included, talk a lot about the importance of opening up datasets and building interoperability in order to leverage the power of collective data – but often without clarity on what meaningful collaboration and sharing actually requires in practice. For example, what can a livestock project in Nepal and a rice project in Cambodia learn from each

Since this past May, you’ve probably received a flood of company emails updating terms of service and consent requests to give permission to collect your data. You also probably know that this flood is all thanks to the EU’s recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has set us abuzz in its heightened protection of

A few months ago, under the mSTAR project funded by USAID, DG and our partner Athena Infonomics (AI) set out to understand the underlying structure of the data currently being collected and managed by Feed the Future implementers, and how to best support them to open up and share their data through digital tools and best practices.

When it comes to implementing Agenda 2030, country partners have shared two main data and digital pain points: knowing where Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) data will come from, and how to ensure this information is useful beyond reporting....

DG has been spearheading a lot of work around disaster resilience in cities around the world. Specifically, we’ve been interested in how governments and citizens can plan against the worst-case scenarios, to minimize disruptive impacts and to help communities bounce back quicker and better....