The UN’s technocratic answer to the ‘data revolution’


Alternative title: Have bureaucracy, will organize meetings: The UN’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution

It started with casual Twitter feed browsing on Sunday and a short exchange of tweets between Zara Rahman and me: 

So I had a closer look at the UN’s press release and to be honest, afterwards questions about gender distribution or the ‘North-South’ divide did not seem to be the most pressing ones.
While I have absolutely no doubt about the technological and technical expertise of the group members, I wonder why the UN went for the most conservative, most quantitative, most statistics-driven approach to the ‘data revolution’ to fulfill its ambitious goal:
The Group is also expected to assess new opportunities linked to innovation, technical progress and the surge of new public and private data providers to support and complement conventional statistical systems and strengthen accountability at the global, regional and national level.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand the nature of UN expert groups and I am also fully aware that rocking any kind of boat is usually not linked to the UN system, but I have some doubts that ‘innovation’ is really the term that comes to mind when going through the bios of the group members: Lots of present and former international civil servants, lots of senior statisticians with a little sprinkle of academia (economics, statistics & engineering, of course), civil society (Twaweza from Tanzania and Ushahidi) and large corporations (Baidu, Orange).

I am also aware that an advisory group can never capture the full spectrum of the ‘data revolution’, but I am a bit disappointed about all the blind spots: Qualitative research maybe? Anything from sociology to anthropology? Digital humanities, anybody?! And what about the communications aspect of ‘data’ and the ‘data revolution’? Data journalists, C4D people, maybe? Or, to be quite daring, what about an artist or an expert on data visualization, linked to the communications aspect? Or innovative companies that are a bit smaller than Orange or Baidu, Topys, for example which really supported our recent research project on Twitter and global policy summits?
I am sure you can think of many other suitable candidates and organizations from critical civil society to open data/access advocates.

In the end, the UN seems to have chosen a technocratic route-not entirely surprisingly, but hopefully not an indication that ‘data’ is on its way to become the next ‘box ticked’ next to ‘gender’ or ‘participation’…

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Global Development Substacks I Like

Image
The other day a friend asked me about recommendations for development-themed Substacks and rather than responding to him directly, I decided to share my favorite "blogs-send-out-as-newsletters" resources on the blog... For many years a group of German media entrepreneurs has been awarding the Goldenen Blogger and one category they had for many year was "bloggers without a blog"-this is a bit how I feel about Substack and the concept of (mostly) long newsletters instead of traditional blogs. So which are some of my favorite writers and concepts then? An Africanist Perspective Ken Opalo is a towering figure in the #globaldev Substack community-his posts, fully developed essays really, set the standard for long-form post-blogging... Disability Debrief I am so grateful to learn every week something new about (dis)ability & development thanks to Peter Torres Fremlin's newsletter! Suvojit's Newsletter "I currently live in Nairobi, and write regu...
Read more

Should I consider a PhD in International Development Studies?

After the Economist’s piece on the (non-)value of doing a PhD and some comments later (e.g. Prometheus doesn't read the Economist (I like the slightly cynical dichotomy between ‘civilians’ and the ‘academic insiders) or the ' 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School ' (they are only halfway through so check it out regularly in the future...) I had an interesting conversation with a prospective PhD student a few days ago. This was not the first time that I had been approached about doing a PhD and I always try to be as frank as possible, even playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ when it comes to the complicated ‘should I or shouldn’t I?’ decision-making process. At the end of our conversation I sat down and tried to summarize a few important and generic points from the point of view of doing a PhD in Development Studies and in the UK . I understand that every case is different and involves a range of motives, options and rationales, but there a few important questions and t...
Read more

Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 06 - Localisation and the humanitarian sector

Image
Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.  This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 06 - Localisation and the humanitarian sector - contributed by Rita Stephan and Claudia E. Youakim From the introduction Over the past 15 years, the humanitarian crises have grown sixfold. Despite these alarming and swelling trends in humanitarian aid demand, a greater number of people who are affected by conflict and disaster ‘are unreached or underserved by the humanitarian sector’ ( Robillard et al., 2021 ; Girling and Urquhart, 2021 ). The humanitarian financing gap is growing whilethe availability of qualified and willing staff to meet the needs of people in crisis is becoming increasingly challenging ( UNHCR, 2016 ). Some observers suggest that one way to ‘fix’ the formal system is to improve donors’ effective engagement with local actors. Empowering local actors will not only addres...
Read more

What if MrBeast really is one of the futures of philanthropy-and what does that mean for communicating development?

Image
“ I feel good seeing myself dancing after receiving the money. It makes me appreciate the moment my life changed and reminds me of when I was able to send my son to school .” (Resident of Nakapiripirit, Uganda) “ It might seem strange to carp over a few good deeds filmed for YouTube clicks. After all, even if this Gen Z mode of philanthropy is brash and narcissistic, some lives are being changed for the better. Yet at the same time, Donaldson is exploiting less fortunate people’s problems to shape his image of decency, while reinforcing the aid illusion that has blown so much money and achieved so little over the past half century .” (Ian Birrell, UnHerd ) “ As people have noted, if you watch the video in total isolation, it's maybe not that bad? Mr Beast is good at this. And he's not obviously mocking or manipulating these people. Then again, the TV commentators in the Hunger Games fawned over Katniss. That wasn't the issue .” (Justin Sandefur, Center for Global Developmen...
Read more

Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality - Chapter 05 - Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective

Image
Every two weeks I am going to feature one of the chapters of our Handbook on Humanitarianism and Inequality which was published in spring 2024.  This week we are taking a closer look at Chapter 05 - Humanitarianism, development and peace: a southern perspective - contributed by Priya Singh and Paula Banerjee. From the introduction There has been a significant increase in emergencies caused by conflicts and deeply entrenched development issues over the last decade in many parts of the world, especially in the Global South. New conflicts, probability of renewed conflicts, failures of peace agreements, an alarming increase in global forced displacement with most refugees finding shelter in low-and middle-income states with shared borders, are added onto earlier rounds of humanitarian crises such as partitions of countries by colonial powers (e.g. Murshid, 2014 ) and multi-country wars. Added to these are crises related to climate change ( Jolly and Ahmad, 2019 ) and other ‘natural’ ...
Read more