The World Bank recently published the World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives. This is the first World Development Report that is solely focused on the role of data for development and it comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has caused havoc in the global economy.
What is Data?
The World Development Report 2021 has quoted an expansive description of data provided by the UK National Data Strategy, as per which data means information about things, people, systems, it includes personal data such as basic contact details and records generated through interaction with services or the web or information about their physical characteristics.
Data can also extend to population-level data, such as demographics. It can also be about infrastructure and systems such as administrative records about businesses and public services.
The term data can also be used to describe location such as geospatial reference details, and the environment we live in such as data about biodiversity or the weather or it can also refer to the information generated by the web of sensors that make up the Internet of Things.
What is Public Intent Data?
Public Intent Data-The data collected with the intent of serving the public good such as national surveys, Census, national accounts, household surveys, enterprise surveys, labor force surveys, surveys of personal finance, administrative records.
The new public intent data include location data from satellite imaging, digital identification, facial recognition from public cameras and public procurement data from e-government platforms
How can public intent data improve livelihoods?
The public intent data can improve livelihoods by increasing access to government services.
What is Private Intent Data?
Any survey conducted by private entities including public opinion surveys deployed by private entities, administrative data from company financial accounts. The new private intent data includes digital data on individual behavior/choices from digital platforms in the private sector
World Development Report 2021:Key Points
1. New social contract for data
•The report noted that new rules are needed for data to realize its potential to transform lives and for the same- a social contract for data is needed.
•The report noted that the need for immediate and reliable information about COVID-19 has tested the systems in place for protecting data.
•Such a contract would help in the use and reuse of data to create economic and social value at the same ensure equitable access to the value realized.
•The social contract for data will also help foster participants’ trust that they will not be harmed by data misuse.
•The report stated that renewed efforts are required to improve domestic data governance including closer international cooperation.
•It also highlighted that low-income countries also need to make their voices heard in the global debate on data governance.
2. Increase data use and reuse
•The report highlights the need to increase access to more users through open data, data sharing initiatives and interoperability standards, as it will increase the potential of data for positive development impacts.
•It noted that the recent explosion in new data has come from digitization of firm operations. It stated that combining these data with traditional sources such as national surveys, censuses, government administrative data and data produced by civil society organizations could help fill data gaps and provide faster and finer-scale assessments of programs and policies and better serve public policy needs.
•The report noted that realizing this increased value calls for changing both mindsets and frameworks guiding data use.
3. Creating more equitable access to data benefits
•The World Development Report 2021 noted that there are major inequities in the ability to produce, utilize, and profit from data across both rich and poor countries and among the people within them.
It noted that poor people tend to be excluded from the data systems for public and private and statistical capacity and data literacy remain limited in poor countries.
•It further highlighted that many lower-income countries lack the data infrastructure needed to speedily exchange their own data traffic over the internet and secure cost-effective access to modern data storage and cloud computing facilities.
•It noted that the low-income countries' small economic size also limits the availability of data for machine learning and constrains the development of home-grown platform businesses that could be globally competitive.
•The report stressed that efforts to improve the fairness of the global data system need to address both types of inequities.
4. Regulation of Personal Data to prevent misuse
•The World Development Report 2021 noted that the more data is reused, the greater the risk is of it being misused. It said that the risk is evident in growing concerns about cybercrime and the potential for politically or commercially motivated surveillance.
•It further noted that the scope for discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, race, gender, disability status, or sexual orientation may be further exacerbated by the growing use of algorithms.
•To address these concerns, the report calls for the regulation of personal data grounded in a human rights framework, supported by policies that secure both people and the data systems on which they depend.
•It also calls for a global consensus to ensure that data are safeguarded as a global public good and as a resource to achieve equitable and sustainable development.
5. Integrated national data system (INDS)
•The report states that implementing a new social contract to reset the rules of the game for data governance calls for an integrated national data system (INDS) that allows the flow of data among a wide array of users in a way that facilitates safe use and reuse of data.
•The report noted that a well-functioning INDS explicitly builds data production, protection, exchange, and use into planning and decision-making and actively integrates the various stakeholders—individuals, civil society, academia, and the public and private sectors— into the data life cycle and into the governance structures of the system.
•It further noted that achieving a well-functioning INDS requires proper financing and incentives to produce, protect, and share data. It said that greater investment in physical and human capital is needed to improve data governance, specialized analytical and data security skills, as well as data literacy of the general public.
The report stated that countries will need to work gradually toward this goal.
How can data support development?
Data can support development by improving the lives of the poor through multiple pathways. Following are three such horizontal pathways:
1. The top pathway is data created and used by civil society and academia to monitor and analyze the effects of government programs and policies and by individuals to empower and enable them to access public and commercial services tailored to their needs.
2. The middle pathway is the data generated or received by governments/ international organisations to support program administration, service delivery and evidence-based policymaking.
3. The bottom pathway is data generated by private firms. This data can be a factor of production that fuels firm and economic growth. It can also be a part of production processes in other ways and can be mobilized and repurposed to support development objectives.
The risk
Though the use, reuse, and repurposing of data offer great prospects for fostering development, they simultaneously also pose significant risks that must be managed to avoid negative development impacts.
Dark side of Data
•The report notes that there is often a concentration of power including both political and economic in the hands of those with privileged access to large volumes of data.
•In the private sector, the market forces are likely to lead data agglomeration and market concentration in data-driven business, preventing entry of small firms and creating conditions for the abuse of market power.
•The firms that control the greatest data agglomerations are among the world's largest.
•Besides this, the concentration of personal information in a handful of companies raises concerns about market power and discrimination.
•Hence, measures that limit this kind of dominance on data control need to be central to any data governance framework.
Deploying data to curtail violence against women and girls |
| •The violence against women and girls has been a deep, dark secret for too long with almost one out of three women and girls (35 percent) worldwide between the ages of 15 and 49 experiencing physical violence or sexual violence. •The report further noted that the violence against women and girls surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures. •However, new data collection efforts around the world are shedding light on this tragic problem and leading to solutions. •Reliable data is crucial to understand and address the situation and special care needs to be taken when handling data on violence against women and girl, as collecting such data has caused women to experience more violence. •The availability and accessibility of reliable, comparable and nationally representative VAWG data are leading to solutions, including laws banning domestic violence. •The data on reported cases of violence allow countries to understand who is seeking help, when and for what kind of violence and how often. Service-based data can be used to monitor important live-saving measures such as providing post-exposure prophylactics (PEP) to victims within 72 hours of sexual assault. •A gender-based violence information management system will help improve the quality and accessibility of services for survivors of violence. |
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