Dans la riposte contre la COVID-19, le gouvernement Togolais décida d’instaurer des mesures de restriction de mobilité pour éviter la propagation du virus. L’analyse suivante se sert de sources de données innovantes pour caractériser les changements des tendances de mobilité qui ont suivi la mise en place de ces mesures. En l’occurrence, l’analyse se concentre sur les données de mobilité … Read More
Policy Paper: Using Data to Fight COVID-19 – And Build Back Better
The policy paper looks at how digital technologies and data have been applied to fight the Coronavirus. The paper summarizes main debates and questions around these initiatives to reflect on their usefulness, implications, limitations, risks and their requirements. Furthermore, it explores how the learnings of the first wave of the pandemic could provide an opportunity to use data more efficiently … Read More
Analyse synthétique des effets principaux de la COVID au Togo
C’est dans ce contexte, et s’appuyant sur la stratégie dedonnées du Togo lancée en 2019, que le Programme desNations Unies pour le développement (PNUD) au Togo fait recours à Data-Pop Alliance (DPA) pour aider les autorités et la société togolaises à faire face à la COVID-19. Afin d’identifier les impacts de la pandémie de COVID-19 au Togo, le PNUD, en … Read More
Socioeconomic Assessment of the Impacts and Implications of COVID-19 in South Sudan
This paper assesses both the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic and, weaving together the forementioned triple transitions, identifies implications for the donor community, including the UN System. First it looks at macroeconomic and fiscal prospects, noting a dearth of options in the absence of sustained structural changes (Section 2); then at the effects of COVID-19 on human development … Read More
Socioeconomic Impact Assessment of COVID-19 in Equatorial Guinea
This publication compiles extensive work focused on understanding the effects of COVID-19 in Equatorial Guinea and coordinating a response based on 5 pillars: i) putting health first, ii) protecting people through social protection and basic services, iii) promoting social cohesion and community resilience, iv) supporting the macroeconomic response and multilateral collaboration. All with the objective of advancing towards the Sustainable … Read More
Mobile phone data for informing public health actions across the COVID-19 pandemic life cycle
The coronavirus 2019–2020 pandemic (COVID-19) poses unprecedented challenges for governments and societies around the world. Non-pharmaceutical interventions have proven to be critical for delaying and containing the COVID-19 pandemic. These include testing and tracing, bans on large gatherings, nonessential business and school and university closures, international and domestic mobility restrictions and physical isolation, and total lockdowns of regions and countries. … Read More
Mobile phone data and COVID-19: Missing an opportunity?
This paper describes how mobile phone data can guide government and public health authorities in determining the best course of action to control the COVID-19 pandemic and in assessing the effectiveness of control measures such as physical distancing. It identifies key gaps and reasons why this kind of data is only scarcely used, although their value in similar epidemics has … Read More
Estrategia de Big Data para Colombia – Documentos de diagnóstico
Documento 1: Estado del arte y análisis comparativo de estrategias nacionales de Big Data Document 1: State of affairs and comparative analysis of national Big Data Strategies This study provides an analysis of the main characteristics of the existing government strategies related to Big Data, while clarifying the operational concept of Big Data used throughout this project. Documento 2: Buenas prácticas sobre … Read More
The ABCDE of Big Data: Assessing Biases in Call-Detail Records for Development Estimates
CDRs (Call Detail Records) represent an important and largely untapped source of data for the developing world. However, they are not representative of the underlying population. We combine CDRs and census data for Senegal in 2013 to evaluate biases related to estimates of population density. We show that: (i) there are systematic relationships between cell-phone use and socio-economic and geographic … Read More
Sharing is Caring: Four Key Requirements for Sustainable Private Data Sharing and Use for Public Good
How data are shared and used will determine, to a large extent, the future of democracy and human progress. In this context, the authors of the paper “Sharing is Caring” describe four key requirements that must inform European efforts to ensure that private data are shared and used for the public good in a safe, ethical, and sustainable manner. This … Read More
EmpoderaData: Data literacy assessment and Sustainable Development Goals data gaps
EmpoderaData builds upon the success of the Q-Step paid internship programme from the University of Manchester. The project aims to promote a virtuous cycle of social transformation by fostering data literacy. The purpose of this report is threefold: (1) understand the unmet needs in terms of data literacy skills, (2) recognize to what extent might a data literacy capacity building … Read More
Big Data para o bem comum
Desde o início do século XX, a maioria de nossas ações e interações tem sido mediada e capturada por dispositivos eletrônicos. Os rastros de dados deixados pelo caminho resultam no que foi batizado de big data. Embora a exploração do big data tenha sido desenvolvida por gigantes da internet, que transformaram a mineração dessas migalhas digitais em uma de suas … Read More
Harnessing Innovative Data and Technology to Measure Development Effectiveness
In this study, the authors discuss and show how new kinds of digital data and analytics methods and tools falling under the umbrella term of Big Data, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, can help measure development effectiveness. Selected case studies provide examples of assessments of the effectiveness of ODA-funded policies and programmes.
Evaluación de nuevas herramientas y técnicas del big data para proyectos del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo
El presente estudio identifica herramientas innovadoras de Big Data a partir de casos de estudios basados en cinco proyectos en vía de implementación por el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) en los países de la Comunidad Andina (CAN) con el fin de que nuevas tecnologías puedan ser aprovechadas e implementadas en estos u otros proyectos de inversión de la región. … Read More
Retrouver le sens de la mesure pour de meilleures décisions collectives: vers une intelligence artificielle humaine à l’ère des données (p. 47 à 55)
Les données personnelles et institutionnelles récoltées de plus en plus massivement à l’échelle mondiale ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles façons de penser la prise de décision collective. Cet article présente les conditions d’un traitement de ces données tourné vers le développement humain, au travers du concept d’Intelligence Artificielle Humaine (IAH). Nous présentons à cet égard un exemple de projet … Read More
Towards a Human Artificial Intelligence for Human Development
This paper discusses the possibility of applying the key principles and tools of current artificial intelligence (AI) to design future human systems in ways that could make them more efficient, fair, responsive, and inclusive.
On the privacy conscientious use of mobile phone data
The breadcrumbs we leave behind when using our mobile phones—who somebody calls, for how long, and from where—contain unprecedented insights about us and our societies. Researchers have compared the recent availability of large-scale behavioral datasets, such as the ones generated by mobile phones, to the invention of the microscope, giving rise to the new field of computational social science.
Mobiliser et humaniser la Révolution des Données pour la statistique publique, le développement et la démocratie “
Note au Bureau Pays du PNUD Togo
Panorama setorial da Internet. Big Data e desenvolvimento: uma visão geral”
Apesar do entusiasmo existente em torno do “Big Data para o desenvolvimento” – ex- pressão que abrange o campo de pesquisa e prática sobre as aplicações e implicações do Big Data para a elaboração de políticas e para o desenvolvimento – o seu uso ainda é muito incipiente em termos intelectual e operacional. Seria ele o “novo petróleo” que poderá … Read More
How to use Big Data? Leading experts’ roadmap to data-driven innovation projects
This position paper highlights overall takeaways and recommendations in the areas of privacy protection, responsible data governance, transparency and accountability for unleashing big data-driven innovation, including: (1) putting ‘privacy by design’ into action: privacy-preserving technical procedures and standards for data sharing and use; (2) focusing on responsibility in data use: establishing internal responsible data governance standards and (3) Keeping transparency, … Read More
Understanding Patterns of Human Mobility At Different Timescales
The main objective of this paper is to discuss whether and how the future of algorithms can be crafted such that their development and deployment—from their design to their use, including control, evaluation, auditing, governance—be based on and foster core democratic values such as accountability, transparency, participation, and collaboration. In doing so, we will focus on algorithms affecting public life … Read More
Algorithmic accountability – Applying the concept to different country contexts
Drawing from interviews with global experts, topic workshops and content research, this scoping paper aims to provide the reader with an understanding of algorithmic decision-making processes and the challenges they pose to our existing understanding of accountability across different contexts. It offers a map of existing technical and governance mechanisms for both identifying and addressing algorithmic harms and bias, as … Read More
Fair, Transparent and Accountable Algorithmic Decision-making Processes
The combination of increased availability of large amounts of fine-grained human behavioral data and advances in machine learning is presiding over a growing reliance on algorithms to address complex societal problems. Algorithmic decision-making processes might lead to more objective and thus potentially fairer decisions than those made by humans who may be influenced by greed, prejudice, fatigue, or hunger. However, … Read More
Leveraging Algorithms for Positive Disruption: On data, democracy, society and statistics
The main objective of this paper is to discuss whether and how the future of algorithms can be crafted such that their development and deployment—from their design to their use, including control, evaluation, auditing, governance—be based on and foster core democratic values such as accountability, transparency, participation, and collaboration. In doing so, we will focus on algorithms affecting public life … Read More
The Tyranny of Data? The Bright and Dark Sides of Data-Driven Decision-Making for Social Good
We focus our attention on social good decision-making algorithms, that is algorithms strongly influencing decision-making and resource optimization of public goods, such as public health, safety, access to finance and fair employment. Through an analysis of specific use cases and approaches, we highlight both the positive opportunities and the potential negative consequences that practitioners should be aware of and address … Read More
Oportunidades y requerimientos para aprovechar el uso de Big Data para las estadísticas oficiales y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible en América Latina
Este documento se realizó en el marco de un proyecto apoyado por el Banco Mundial e implementado por Data-Pop Alliance en asociación con el Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística de Colombia – DANE. Data-Pop Alliance es una coalición sobre Big Data y el desarrollo creada conjuntamente por la Iniciativa Humanitaria de Harvard, el MIT Media Lab y el Instituto de … Read More
Book chapter – “The Evaluation of Complex Development Interventions in the Age of Big Data
Recognizing that complexity calls for innovative, conceptual, and methodological solutions, this unique book offers practical guidance to policymakers, managers, and evaluation practitioners on how to design and implement complexity-responsive evaluations that can be undertaken in the real world of time, budget, data, and political constraints. Introductory chapters present comprehensive, non-technical overviews of the most common evaluation tools and methodologies, and … Read More
Applications and Implications of Big Data for Demo-Economic Analysis:The Case of Call-Detail Records
This dissertation analyzes and discusses various applications and implications of BigData for demo-economic analysis, focusing on the analysis of cell-phone data collected by telecommunication operators for billing purposes, commonly referred to as call-detail records, or CDRs, which include the time and duration of calls, the location of the emitter and receiver, etc. This is done by placing the resulting opportunities … Read More
Event Paper – “Big Data and Privacy: Understanding the Possibilities and Pitfalls of the Data Revolution in Germany
As the first event paper in the digitising Europe’s series, this event paper captures the major key themes emerging from our events in Berlin in November 2015. The Berlin workshop and public forum focused on the possibilities and pitfalls of using Big Data analytics for economic growth and public good. Bringing together German academic institutions, think tanks, businesses and other thought-leaders, … Read More
Beyond Data Literacy: Reinventing Community Engagement and Empowerment in the Age of Data
This paper attempts to delineate the broad contours of “data literacy” through analysis of its history, definition, expectations, application, and promotion. The paper thus defines “data literacy” as “the desire and ability to constructively engage in society through and about data” and argues that promotion of “data literacy” should be via and for social inclusion.
Group Privacy in the Age of Big Data
This paper attempts to define what is a group and what is privacy in order to determine how a privacy right might attach to groups distinctly from the individual privacy rights of its members, and what might be the content of such a group privacy right. The challenge faced by group privacy is to enable the positive uses of Big … Read More
Big Data and Development: An Overview
This paper describes the fundamental nature of Big Data as an ecosystem and how it engages with society. Although Big Data has promising applications to real-world problems, it is met with warnings and risks–the most severe being risk to individual privacy, identity and security. In response to these challenges and risks, the paper explores the future of Big Data and … Read More
White Paper: The Law, Politics and Ethics of Cell Phone Data Analytics
This paper examines Call Detail Records (CDRs) and their expanding role in providing insight into human behavior, movements, and social interactions. As a result of their growing application, certain ethical and legal questions need to be addressed. The paper summarizes current legal frameworks, explores structural socio-political parameters and incentives structuring the sharing of CDRs, proposes guiding ethical principles and discusses … Read More
Quantifying the Data Deluge and the Data Drought
This paper investigates how the world’s Big Data capacity can be understood in terms of the world’s storage capacity and the telecommunication capacity to access this storage (‘the cloud’). This paper follows the methodology of what has become the standard reference in estimating the world’s technological information capacity: Hilbert and López (2011).
Official Statistics, Big Data, and Human Development
This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing and future debate about the relationships between Big Data, official statistics and development. This paper argues that Big Data needs to be seen as an entirely new ecosystem comprising new data, new tools and methods, and new actors motivated by their own incentives. The emergence of this new ecosystem provides both a … Read More
Big Data & SDGs note for Global Sustainable Development Report
This paper focuses on the intersection of Big Data and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the spectrum of ways and channels through which Big Data as an entirely new ecosystem could impact—contribute to or hamper—human progress as called for and measured by the SDGs. Applications of Big Data to SDGs have the potential to advocate for causes, shape incentives and … Read More
AFD Paper – “CDRs & Poverty and Population Analysis – Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal”
This paper considers Big Data’s potential to partly fill some key data gaps and complement or even replace official statistics. Data-Pop Alliance offers the specific case of Côte d’Ivoire, using Call Records (CDRs) from Orange in conjunction with two other datasets, the WorldPop dataset, which provides population data derived from satellite imagery, and the recently released 2013 Demographic and Health … Read More