Global Data Barometer Second Edition - measuring data for public good

 

Over the last decade, data has risen to the top of national and global policy agendas as nations seek to develop their economies or use data to address social and development challenges. Increasingly, they are being pressured to respond to citizen concerns about privacy and the uses and abuses of data. Yet progress toward effective data governance and toward realizing the public value of data remains highly uneven across countries, regions and sectors. For example, while data protection laws are now widespread across the globe, many still lack key redress mechanisms and few comprehensively address emerging issues around location data or algorithmic decision-making. In critical areas like climate action, significant data gaps can frustrate local action to protect ecosystems and respond to climate vulnerability. Further, in many cases, data that has been collected or shared lacks quality assurances that would allow it to properly power civic action or improve public services and economic development.

As a flagship initiative of the Data for Development Network, the Global Data Barometer (GDB) pilot edition was launched in May 2022 to provide globally comparable evidence needed to support national and global decision-making related to data for development strategies. The first edition of the barometer not only produced assessments of countries based on the state of their data, but also assembled and supported collective learning around what works and how to effectively intervene with and around data.

This project, which will focus on Latin America and Africa, will build on the lessons learned from the pilot edition to provide a better understanding of the local context for action, providing comparable metrics to help reformers in government and civil society push for more democratic and inclusive data governance, while also pursuing more targeted research that will address the specific needs of fragile or developing democracies to support their efforts to build more effective governance institutions.