The level of development in any economic sector is as good as the degree of accuracy and timeliness of the data available to it. Inadequate data happens to be the biggest impediment to investment in Africa. While technology, especially the use of cell phones has made it easy to aggregate news in real time, there is still a huge gap in data that Africa needs to plug. Top of the list of Africa’s concerns is how to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with its biggest impediments to progress being out of date and incomplete data. That kind of data blurs the progress being made with the goals.
The Data for Now initiative, a partnership by the United Nations Statistics Division, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the World Bank, and SDSN TReNDS; seeks to address this gap. This initiative will also involve the private sector, donors, and civil society who will provide the required technical support to countries. The initiative is looking at two major focus areas—to overhaul outdated data laws which will reduce bureaucracies associated with data access, and to fund national statistics offices. Read more at iAfrikan.
Dear D –
Africans in the diaspora need to invest in data projects, which are the key to achieving the continent’s Sustainable Development Goals. Do you know that Africa has already made huge strides in data innovations? Several African data innovations were among the winners of the Collaborative Data Innovations for Development funding in 2019. Among the data innovations included Nigeria’s Early Warning disease Outbreak Recognition System, Mozambique’s HydroPC for hydrological forecasting, Ghana’s soil mapping innovation dubbed Map to the Future, and Madagascar’s data hub for urban sanitation. Read more about these innovation projects that are changing the way decisions are made in various sectors.