The commitment of the World Bank-hosted Global Data Facility (GDF) is to help finance data-powered development to enable better lives on a livable planet. With compounding global crises, this commitment has never been more important. The GDF’s newly published inaugural Annual Report shows key progress toward the realization of this commitment. Thanks to the generous thought-leadership, support, and trust of our partners, the GDF’s impact is already being felt on issues that directly affect the most vulnerable among us.
The story of the Global Data Facility is the story of a promise made and a promise kept. The Global Data Facility was formally launched by Haishan Fu, Director of the World Bank's Development Data Group, at the UN World Data Forum in Bern, Switzerland on October 6, 2021. It is part of a new data financing architecture established through a unique partnership between the World Bank, United Nations, and development partners to mobilize at least $500 million and coordinate support for the world’s most critical data impact opportunities by 2030.
The Global Data Facility is the World Bank’s primary mechanism to turn the new social contract on data, proposed by the World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives, into reality. This report explores the tremendous potential of the changing data landscape to improve the lives of poor people, while also acknowledging its potential to open back doors that can harm individuals, businesses, and societies. To address this tension, it calls for a new social contract that enables the use and reuse of data to create economic and social value, ensures equitable access to that value, and fosters trust that data will not be misused in harmful ways.
The “Data with Purpose” campaign is a historic, new coalition between the United Nations, the World Bank, and their global partners for data investments in a better, safer, and greener future. Grounded in the World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives and Our Common Agenda, and centered around a new data financing architecture composed of the Global Data Facility (GDF) and the Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d), the joint effort aims to assist the global community in raising $500 million over 10 years for greater scale, insight, and impact from “data with purpose.” The campaign was launched the 2022 WBG-IMF Spring Meetings.
This policy briefing reminds us of the evidence for why high-quality data must be the foundation of investments in sustainable development, pandemic recovery, climate action, and emergency response. In light of the huge gaps in data and data use that exist, the briefing also explains the rationale for the “Data with Purpose” campaign launched in the spring of 2022 by the UN and World Bank in cooperation with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data to unlock the power of data for a better, greener, safer future.
This report, conducted by Dalberg and published by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, demonstrates that every dollar invested in data systems creates an average of $32 in economic benefits. Alongside the economic return on investment, the research shows that stronger data systems drive a diverse range of powerful benefits, improving quality of life, livelihoods and leading to greater efficiencies in social programs. The report was launched at “Unlocking Impact: Data with Purpose” during the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The Global Data Facility builds and expands on the impactful legacy of the Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB). The TFSCB was a multi-donor trust fund hosted by the World Bank Group that aimed to improve the capacity of developing countries to produce and use statistics with an overall objective of supporting effective decision-making for development. The TFSCB worked to advance coordinated international efforts to improve statistics globally, including strengthening national statistical systems in priority areas and developing statistical capacity in a sustainable manner.
The Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data was informally launched at the first UN World Data Forum on 15 January 2017 in Cape Town South Africa, and adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 48th Session in March 2017. The action plan, which has six strategic areas (see image above), is intended to provide a framework for discussion on, and planning and implementation of statistical capacity building necessary to achieve the scope and intent of the 2030 Agenda.
World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives
Unlocking Data for a Better, Greener, Safer Future (Policy briefing) (PDF)
Investment case: Multiplying progress through data ecosystems (PDF)
Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data
Bern Data Compact for the Decade of Action on the Sustainable Development Goals
Survey on the Implementation of the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data
Microsoft: "Working together on a resilient foundation for the Sustainable Development Goals"
Statistical Journal of the International Association for Official Statistics: “Toward a new, collaborative global financing architecture for fragile, low- and middle-income countries’ data priorities”
The Guardian: "Policymakers need data about us despite privacy fears"
UN World Data Forum Blog: "Putting Mobile Phone Big Data to Work for Policy and Official Statistics"
World Bank Data Blog: “Decades of learning and experience from the Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building to inform the new Global Data Facility”
Clearinghouse for Financing Development Data
CRAF’d (The Complex Risk Analytics Fund)
Financing for Sustainable Development Report 2020, Chapter IV: Data, monitoring and follow-up (PDF)
International Debt Statistics 2022
Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building (TFSCB)
