The UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science for Official Statistics (UN-CEBD) was created in 2014 with Australia as its first Chair. In 2016, Denmark took over the Chairmanship. With the development of the UN Global Platform at the end of 2017, the UN-CEBD created an additional chair. At that point, Denmark was leading as co-chair the task teams and UK as co-chair leading the development of the UN Global Platform. Aside from changes in leadership, the management bodies evolved as well. When the Regional Hubs were created in 2019 a management board was needed to oversee the UN Global Platform and the Regional Hubs. This led to installing the Advisory Board for the UN Global Platform chaired by the UK. Having the UN-CEBD Bureau and the Advisory Board as two management bodies of the UN-CEBD led to some confusion about where decisions were taken. Therefore, further changes were made, which have been described in the UN-CEBD report to the Statistical Commission in 2020. The membership of the Advisory Board was expanded, and this board was given the role to provide more strategic direction, whereas the UN-CEBD Bureau was reduced in size and was taking charge of more day to day operational issues. The current structure is show in below diagram.

This section describes the various groups, which are active under the umbrella of the UN-CEBD. Overall, the UN-CEBD is now led by one Chair (South Africa) and two vice-Chairs (Denmark and UK). Denmark is coordinating the work of the Task Teams; and UK is overseeing the developments of the UN Global Platform and the Regional Hubs. The Chair will represent the UN-CEBD in any official function, such as the Statistical Commission, will lead the UN-CEBD plenary meeting and will lead the Advisory Board. The vice-Chairs take turn leading the UN-CEBD Bureau meetings.

The UN-CEBD consists of 31 member states and 16 international organizations (see Annex 1). A plenary meeting of the full membership will be organized once a year, usually in conjunction with the annual Conference on Big Data for official statistics. During this meeting the UN-CEBD membership can review and comment on all the activities and initiatives of the UN-CEBD.

As mentioned, the Advisory Board is the management body of the UN-CEBD. It is scheduled to meet about 4 times per year to review the work of the UN-CEBD and give strategic direction. The Advisory Board has the following members: South Africa (Chair), UK, Brazil, China, Rwanda, UNECA, UAE, Canada, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Netherlands, African Development Bank, Eurostat, UNECE, UNESCAP and UNSD. It has been further proposed to add OECD to the Advisory Board, given increased involvement of OECD with the Technical Delivery Board and some of the projects on the UN Global Platform.

The Bureau takes care of the ongoing operations of the UN-CEBD and has the following members: UK, Denmark, Canada, Indonesia, Netherlands, South Africa, UAE and UNSD. The Bureau meets every two weeks. Meetings are alternated with focus on developments of the UN Global Platform, led by the UK; and with focus on the work of the task teams, led by Denmark.

The Technical Delivery Board is composed as follows: Canada (Chair), Netherlands, UK, UAE, China, Rwanda, UNECA, UNESCAP, OECD and UNSD. The TDB reviews and approves all project proposals for the UN Global Platform and advises the Bureau and the Advisory Board on the IT architecture and continuation or addition of services on the UN Global Platform.

The Technical Support Team does the operational support of the UN Global Platform and reports back to the Technical Delivery Board. Currently, UNSD, UK and the Netherlands are part of the technical support team. The UN Global Platform needs more support than currently available, and UN-CEBD members are asked for additional IT support.

Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data has teamed up with the UN-CEBD to manage the UN Global Platform. GPSDD has also been tasked with an evaluation and review of the platform.

Seven Task Teams are currently active under the UN-CEBD. For more information on the UN-CEBD Task Teams, check the Task Teams page.

Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. (https://www.data4sdgs.org/) GPSDD has teamed up with the UN-CEBD to manage the UN Global Platform. GPSDD has also been tasked with an evaluation and review of the platform.