External publications

Data revolution for sustainable development: towards capacity development 4.0

Keijzer, Niels / Stephan Klingebiel
External Publications (2017)

Paris: Paris21 Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (Dicsussion Paper 9)

Volltext/Document

An ever-deepening ‘data revolution’ is shaping everyday lives in many parts of the world. As just one of  many mind - boggling statistics on big data, it has been estimated that by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will  be  created  every  second  for  every  human  being  on  the  planet.  The  benefits  of  the  data  revolution  extend  to different  groups  of  people,  social  movements,  institutions  and  businesses.  At  the  same  time,  many  people  and countries  do  not  access  these  positive  benefits,  while  in  richer  countries  potentially  positive  changes  raise  suspicion among citizens as well as  concerns related to privacy and confidentiality. To a large extent their availability is guided by  levels  of  development  and  income.  Despite  the  rapid  spread  of  mobile  phone  technology,  allowing  regions otherwise  disconnected  from  the grid to ‘leapfrog’ in terms of using and producing data and statistics, poor people still are less likely to benefit from the dramatic changes in the field of data.