World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives—Research Directions and Measuring Country Capacity

World Development 2021: Data for Better Lives focuses on the potential of data to improve the lives of poor people, including through the creative use and re-use of data, and the essential elements of a data governance environment in the form of data infrastructure policy, the legal and regulatory framework, related economic policy implications, and institutional ecosystems. These diverse elements can be conceived of as the building blocks of a social contract that aims to deliver equitably on the potential benefits of data while safeguarding against harmful outcomes. In this Policy Research Talk on May 25, 2021, members of the World Development Report team highlighted research being done by World Bank staff that illustrates the potential to combine private and public intent data to yield timelier, more granular insights to confront policy challenges, as well as new data sources released in conjunction with the report describing (i) countries’ capacities to deliver both foundational data and to leverage alternative data sources and (ii) domestic laws, regulations, and administrative frameworks to promote fuller participation in the digital economy.