I like David Roodman's post on the Data revolution. He points out one of the obvious reasons why it is hard to make sense of what it is supposed to mean: “Data,” understood broadly, is like “documents”: inarguably important, but not a good organizing...
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Category: Data revolution
From Bigger to Better? Data Quality in Aid and Development
Special issue on data and development in the World Politics Review out last week. Contributions from Claire Melamed, ed Jack Goldstone and I contributed a write up on the gaps in the macroeconomic statistics in some African countries.
Data and Accountability for the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Just came back from New York and the UNDP organized workshop and conference on Data and Accountability for Post-2015. You can browse the program and see some of the presentations here. My sense is that despite all the talk of a 'Data Revolution' many...
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African Statistics Day
Did you know that November 18 was African Statistics Day? Jason Braganza of Development Initiatives with his view of what he thinks is required for meet the objective of "Quality Data to support African Progress."
New Afrobarometer results further question the ‘Africa rising’ narrative
In Poor Numbers I suggested that many African economies are not growing as fast as the official statistics will have us think, and that we know too little to judge what is happening actually to living standards and poverty in the aggregate. As John...
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What kind of ‘data revolution’ do we need?
There has been talk of a data-revolution. We are not quite sure what it would look like yet. Here are my 'five fundamental propositions' for a data revolution in development. 1. We need to focus on data supply, not only on global data demand....
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