PARIS21, with the support of Data-Pop Alliance and other organizations, hosted this event in September 2015.

Despite some progress over the last 15 years and increasing attention and recognition, the question on how to best build national capacity in terms of data production, dissemination, and use remains largely unanswered in many countries. As Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) put an unprecedented demand on developing countries to produce more and better data for monitoring, reporting and policy and decision making at national and sub-national levels, it is clear that business as usual will no longer work, and new ideas and practices will be necessary to make progress.

The data revolution is underway, marked by an explosion in the volume, variety and velocity of data and number of new tools. Countries need to take advantage of both, and adopt innovative approaches to build stronger and more responsive systems. “Strengthening Capacity in Developing Countries: It’s time to get it right!” brought experts together from multidisciplinary backgrounds to discuss how to strengthen capacity in developing countries around two themes: (1) revisiting capacity building and (2) innovation and modernisation. The event also aimed to:

• Take stock of what has been successful over the last 15 years in terms statistical capacity
building and identify gaps and main challenges;
• Showcase positive examples and innovations for countries to strengthen capacity building;
• Distill concrete steps forward on how countries can build national capacities, and how the Global Partnership on Sustainable Development Data can help do so.