Page History

Background

The first United Nations World Data Forum (UNWDF) took place in Cape Town, South Africa, in January 2017. At that Forum, the foundations were laid for a new joint endeavour to explore opportunities and identify good practices for enhancing data interoperability in the area of sustainable development.

These aims are today embodied in the Collaborative on SDG Data Interoperability

. The Collaborative was formally established at a side-event to the 48^th UN Statistical Commission

(UNSC) which took place in March 2017. It is convened by the UN Statistical Division (UNSD) and Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD).

Over the past two years, the Collaborative has grown significantly in size, with over 90 individuals representing entities from across the data for development spectrum – from official statistics representatives to local civil society groups – now engaged in its processes, discussions and events. The Collaborative is founded on the belief that data interoperability can: a) help to generate better quality and more holistic information that can facilitate in the achievement and monitoring of progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); and b) help to foster more coordinated, coherent and data-driven cooperation and collaboration between official statistical entities and the broader data ecosystem.

At the Data for Development Festival in Bristol in March 2017, the Collaborative agreed to produce guidance on data interoperability for development practitioners. This

document is the first attempt at producing such guidance. It is our hope that it provides a useful starting point for statisticians, government officials, development practitioners responsible for data management, as well as suppliers of information and communication technologies (ICT) solutions in the development sector. As this Guide will further explain, interoperability is both a characteristic of good quality data and a concept that can be used to help frame data management policies.

How to use this Guide

The Guide is structured around five areas that the Collaborative has collectively identified as being integral to the development of more interoperable data systems at scale over time:

1. Interoperability, data management, and governance;
2. Canonical data and metadata models;
3. Classifications and vocabularies;
4. Standardized interfaces; and
5. Linked data.

The five areas covered by the Guide address some of the key dimensions needed to scale interoperability solutions to macroscopic and systemic levels. The Guide has been developed as a practical tool to help improve the integration and reusability of data and data systems. New sections, examples and guidance will be added to the Guide over time to ensure its continued relevance and usefulness in this fast-evolving space. Not all chapters will be relevant to all audience groups. We envisage that the introduction and first chapter will be most relevant to those engaged in policy, management and planning work; with the remaining four chapters being most relevant to technical specialists and statisticians across stakeholder groups who are looking for specific guidance on how to improve the interoperability of their information systems.

The Guide aims for clarity and accessibility while simultaneously exploring technically complex issues. This is a difficult balance to strike but one that we have striven to maintain throughout, in some areas probably more successfully than others. It is our hope that this corpus of knowledge and examples will grow in time as the Guide matures from this first edition.

Each chapter concludes with sections entitled ‘Building a Roadmap’ and ‘Further Reading’. These are key components of the Guide’s practical application. Collectively, the Roadmap components set out an assessment framework that data managers in development organizations and government Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) can use to assess the degree to which their systems are interoperable or not and where further action is required (see Annex A for further information). As with the Guide in general, it is hoped that this assessment tool will be developed further in the coming years and applied by organizations and institutions across stakeholder groups (drawing lessons from, and building on, sectoral initiatives such as the Health Data Collaborative’s Health Information Systems Interoperability Maturity Toolkit[1]).

The Collaborative on SDG Data Interoperability will continue to build and maintain the Guide

as it develops as a tool

. Focus will shift to the development of additional modules and examples for the Guide as well as the production of ancillary materials to help raise awareness of its existence and usability.

It is hoped that new synergies will form between data producers, publishers, users, and those providing capacity building and training. In this way, the guidance set out within the Guide can be incorporated into existing training materials and modules, and a consistent approach to the system-wide improvement of data interoperability can start to become a reality in the development sector.

To find out more about the Collaborative on SDG Data Interoperability and how to contribute to the next iteration of this Guide, please

contact info@data4sdgs.org.