In a declaration agreed at the close of the 2018 UN World Data Forum in Dubai on Wednesday, leaders in the field agreed on measures to boost funding for data and statistical analysis, to speed up progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The first in a series of special episodes of The Lid Is On, looking at how digital technology is being used to tackle some of the world's biggest problems, from climate change to disaster relief.
By investing in data and making sure that it is used responsibly, some of the world’s biggest challenges can be solved, said Claire Melamed, CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD), at UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday.
It was 2009, at the height of the financial crisis, and world leaders were struggling to understand how they had been so taken by surprise by an economic shock that had struck their populations with the ferocity and suddenness of a natural disaster.
