GLOBAL DATA FACILITY

We envision strong data systems and data capital across countries, which enable leaders to actively transform data into decisions that improve lives and livelihoods of poor and marginalized people and safeguard the planet.

The opportunity

A new global consensus has emerged in recent years on the importance and urgency of increased investment in data and statistics. This worldwide agreement has been bolstered by the on-going COVID-19 pandemic and other crises, which have made digital acceleration more urgent and possible, and have created new opportunities for both public intent and private intent data. 

The challenge

Despite the global consensus on increased investment in data and statistics, comprehensive quality data to drive critical investments for achieving the SDGs is still lacking and the COVID-19 pandemic has further widened global data inequalities, exacerbating the global development data agenda’s two-pronged problem:

• chronic underfunding—funding for data from external sources has been almost static for the past eight years, failing to keep up with needs;
• fragmentation of support—lack of cooperation among multilaterals, bi-laterals, foundations, NGOs, and countries for optimized, long-lasting impact.

Increasing calls to action

The Global Data Facility is the World Bank’s response to increasing calls by the global community for enhanced investment in data and statistics priorities in recent years:

• In 2017, the United Nations Statistical Commission, the highest body of the global statistical system, adopted the Cape Town Global Action Plan, a roadmap of support for countries’ national statistical systems to meet populations’ needs and monitor progress toward SDGs.
• Many of the largest providers of international aid have recently acknowledged (PDF) that investment in data is insufficient to make National Statistical Systems fit to meet the 2030 Agenda and that that more systematic coordination is needed between donors and NSOs in partner countries.
• In 2021, the UN World Data Forum adopted the Bern Data Compact, which calls for more and better investment in countries’ data systems, data capacity, and data capital.
• The World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives, the first-ever edition of the World Bank’s annual flagship publication devoted entirely to data, has set an ambitious new global data agenda. It promotes an aspirational vision of an integrated national data system (INDS) as a way for countries to realize the potential of data for development. To turn this ambition into reality, the report proposes a well-functioning INDS needs to be sufficiently funded.
• 2022 marked the beginning of an historic new coalition between the World Bank, the United Nations, and our global partners. This partnership aims to assist the global community in raising $500 million over 10 years for “data with purpose” through a new financing architecture centered on the Global Data Facility and the UN-hosted Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d).

Meet our team