Data innovations and new initiatives are changing the way countries and institutions compile, process and use data for different purposes, potentially helping to improve the assessment of SDGs by informing or complementing traditional statistics with real-time, people-centric, and technology-enabled approaches. They span from AI applications, crowdsourcing, the Internet of Things to Earth observations and satellite imaging, with a potential for offering greater timeliness, finer granularity, and better insights into lived experiences. At the same time, new approaches to data may raise concerns about privacy, algorithmic bias, statistical quality and reproducibility, and fragmentation of metadata and target definitions.
This webinar explored how data innovations, including the role of AI applications, can contribute to addressing the measurement gaps in the SDGs and well-being, while preserving trust, data sovereignty, and the capacity of national statistical systems to continue providing statistics that adhere to official standards. It built on the ongoing work of the SDG Inter-Agency and Expert Group (IAEG) and other international initiatives to provide insights relevant for data governance to integrate new approaches in the statistical systems, and share country experiences – such as with e-government interoperability, urban data hubs, and Earth observation applications to highlight progress and remaining challenges.
