Open Data Watch

Open Data Watch (ODW) is collaborating with key government and civil society actors over the course of 2024 and 2025 — including many fellow grantees within the Evidence-Informed Policymaking portfolio — to develop robust governance and management structures to tackle two critical data issues: (a) leveraging the power of citizen-generated data for decision making, and (b) sourcing commitments from data and policy actors to accelerate progress on the data for sustainable development agenda. This grant to ODW will support both efforts — enabling the finalization of a conceptual framework for citizen-generated data that will be syndicated at the U.N. Statistical Commission in 2025, as well as sourcing and compiling a range of commitments on the data for development movement ahead of the November 2024 U.N. World Data Forum in Medellin, Colombia.

This general operating support grant to Open Data Watch (ODW) bolsters its mission to bring change to organizations that produce and manage official statistical data to increase their quality, availability, and use. ODW's flagship product (the Open Data Inventory, or ODIN), has become the go-to assessment of the coverage, availability, and openness of official statistics in national databases worldwide — in fact, it is now part of the official measure for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 17.18.1, to monitor countries' statistical capacities to manage SDG data demand. Going forward, ODW will continue to extend its work into sectoral, practical applications — such as its Gender Data Compass assessing the state of gender data worldwide, and other research tools that apply open data principles and build public trust across the data value chain. ODW will also continue to provide technical advice, engage in advocacy, and build connections between the mainstream official statistics community and those interested in using technological advances to improve data quality and timeliness. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)

Open Data Watch’s mission is to bring change to organizations that produce and manage official statistical data to increase their quality, availability, and use. Open Data Watch encourages and supports countries in increasing the quality, coverage, openness, and use of official statistical data. Their flagship product has been an annual assessment of the coverage, availability, and openness of official statistics in national databases. Going forward, they are extending their focus to find ways to assess the value and use of data. The organization will also continue to provide technical advice, engage in advocacy, and build connections between the mainstream official statistics community and those interested in using technological advances to improve data quality and timeliness. (Strategy: Evidence-Informed Policymaking)