Global Issues: Big Data for Sustainable Development

Introduction

The amount of data generated globally is growing exponentially. Data creation reached 64.2 zettabytes in 2020, a 314 percent increase from 2015. The COVID-19 pandemics' heightened demand for information also contributes to the stronger-than-anticipated growth. The majority of this output is made up of "data exhaust," or passively gathered data from daily interactions with digital goods and services like credit cards, social media, and mobile phones. Big data refers to this flood of digital data. Data is expanding due to the proliferation of low-cost, widely available information-sensing mobile devices as well as the fact that during the 1980s, the world's capacity for storing information has nearly quadrupled every 40 months.

The revolution in data

Society is already changing as a result of the data revolution, which includes the open data movement, the development of crowdsourcing, new ICTs for data collecting, the explosion in the availability of big data, as well as the emergence of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. Big data processing and analysis can now be done in real time thanks to developments in computing and data science. Official statistics and survey data can be supplemented with fresh insights obtained by data mining, giving information on human actions and experiences more depth and richness. This new data will be combined with existing data to create detailed, timely, and relevant information of the highest quality.

Opportunities & Risk

Data is the foundation of accountability and the lifeblood of decision-making. Using consumer profiling, personalized services, and predictive analysis for marketing, advertising, and management are now prevalent in the private sector. Similar methods could be used to monitor people's wellbeing in real time and concentrate aid on the most vulnerable populations. If used responsibly, new data sources, technology, and analytical methods—such as satellite data—can enable more swift, effective, and evidence-based decision-making, as well as more accurately and fairly gauge progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

To take use of the opportunities offered by big data, fundamental aspects of human rights must be protected. Privacy, ethics, and respect for data sovereignty call for us to weigh individual rights against the advantages of the group. Many new pieces of information are passively gathered via sensor-enabled products and the "digital footprints" people leave behind, or they are inferred by computers. The elimination of specific personal information may not fully safeguard privacy because big data is a product of distinctive human behavior patterns. By combining different databases, it may be possible to re-identify certain people or groups of people, perhaps putting them in danger. To avoid data misuse or improper management, appropriate data protection measures must be implemented.

Big Data for Humanitarian Action and Development

The Sustainable Development Goals, which serve as the basis for the new development agenda, were adopted by the globe in 2015. (SDGs). A emphasis on inclusive, participatory development that leaves no one behind is necessary to achieve these goals, which call for combined action on social, environmental, and economic concerns.

There is still a paucity of essential data for national, regional, and global development policymaking. Many governments still lack access to sufficient information about their whole population. This is especially true for the poorest and most marginalized people, who are also the ones that leaders must prioritize if they are to eliminate extreme poverty and all emissions by 2030 and, in the process, "leave no one behind."

Big data can reveal social inequalities that were previously concealed. Women and girls, for instance, who frequently labor in the unorganized economy or at home, face social restrictions on their mobility and are underrepresented in both private and governmental decision-making.

The private sector gathers a large portion of the big data that has the greatest potential to be used for the benefit of the public. Public-private partnerships will therefore probably spread more widely. Making sure they are long-term sustainable and that there are clear frameworks in place to define roles and expectations on all sides will be the difficulty.

Here is one illustration of how big data could be utilized to support the achievement of each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set forth by the UN:

SDG 1: No Poverty

Mobile phone service spending trends can serve as proxies for measures of income levels.

SDG 2: Zero Hunger

Online food price tracking or crowdsourcing can be used to check food security almost immediately.

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being

Predicting the spread of infectious diseases by the movement of mobile phone users

SDG 4: Quality Education

Why students drop out of school can be found out through citizen reporting.

SDG 5: Gender Equality

Financial transaction analysis can show spending habits and the various effects of economic shocks on men and women.

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation:

Monitoring access to clean water and sanitation via sensors attached to water pumps

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Utility providers can alter the flow of energy, gas, or water with smart meters to cut waste and guarantee a sufficient supply during peak times.

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Global postal traffic patterns can provide data on trade, GDP, remittances, and other economic indicators.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

GPS data can be utilized to improve public transportation and traffic control.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequality

Local radio content's speech-to-text analytics can highlight discrimination issues and help with policy responses.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

The invasion of public lands and spaces, such as parks and forests, can be monitored via satellite remote sensing.

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

The frequency of e-commerce or online search activity can provide insight into the rate of the transition to energy-efficient items.

SDG 13: Climate Action

Tracking deforestation can be done by combining satellite photography, witness reports from the general public, and open data.

SDG 14: Life Below Water

Data from tracking maritime vessels can identify unreported, uncontrolled, and illegal fishing activity.

SDG 15: Life on Land

Monitoring social media in real-time can provide information on the location of victims, the severity of forest fires, and the smoke cloud.

SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Social media sentiment analysis can show the people's perspective on good governance, public service delivery, or human rights.

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Partnerships that make it possible to combine statistical, mobile, and internet data can help us understand today's hyperconnected world better and in real time.

Key roles of the UN and other international or regional organisations

Setting guidelines and standards to direct collective action around the safe use of big data for development and humanitarian action within a global community and in accordance with common norms is one of the primary duties of the UN and other international or regional organizations. These standards aim to reduce inequality in data production, access, and usage, avoid invasion of privacy and violation of human rights, and promote the utility of data through a far higher degree of openness and transparency.

In our digital age, achieving the SDGs will entail understanding the need to ensuring that data is utilized responsibly when it may be for the common good, in addition to preventing its exploitation.

The Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development (IEAG), established by the Secretary-General, has provided specific recommendations on how to overcome these difficulties, urging the UN to mobilize the data revolution for sustainable development through:

Encouraging and pushing innovation to close information gaps
Mobilizing funds to address disparities between developed and developing nations as well as between persons with access to data and those who do not.
For the data revolution to fully contribute to the realization of sustainable development, there must be leadership and coordination.

Big data analytics use is accelerating across the UN system as more UN funds, programs, and agencies construct and scale operational systems for use in humanitarian aid and development.

The UN Development Group has released general guidelines on data privacy, data protection, and data ethics regarding the use of big data, collected in real-time by businesses in the private sector as part of their services, and shared with UNDG members in order to improve operational implementation of their programs and support the realization of the 2030 Agenda.

Over 1,400 data users and producers from the public and private sectors, as well as decision-makers, academics, and members of civil society, gathered for the first UN World Data Forum in January 2017 to discuss how to harness the potential of data for sustainable development. Important results were obtained, one of which was the introduction of the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data. The following gathering will take place in October 2020.

Global Pulse is an innovation initiative of the UN Secretary-General on data science.

A data science innovation project of the UN Secretary-General is called Global Pulse. Through its network of data science innovation centers, or Pulse Labs, in Indonesia (Jakarta), Uganda (Kampala), and the UN Headquarters (New York), Global Pulse raises awareness of the opportunities big data presents for sustainable development and humanitarian action, develops high-impact analytics solutions for UN and government partners, and works to lower adoption and scaling barriers.

Global Pulse launched a data privacy program to safely and responsibly unlock the value of data, which includes continuous research into privacy-protective uses of big data for humanitarian and development reasons. A Data Privacy Advisory Group was established by Global Pulse, and it is made up of privacy experts from the regulatory community, the private sector, and academia. The group provides advice to the UN on the creation of privacy tools and guidelines as well as engages in discussion on important big data issues. Global Pulse created a two-phase "Risk, Damages and Benefits Assessment" tool to help practitioners evaluate the proportionality of the risks, harms, and usefulness in a data-driven project in order to better understand the hazards associated with big data.

Additionally, UNICEF and WFP's UN Data Innovation Lab workshop series was organized with the help of Global Pulse. The series, which included five topic workshops, aimed to comprehend the UN system's current data innovation capabilities and needs.

Private-Public Partnerships

Global Pulse has been working with the private sector to operationalize the idea of "data philanthropy," whereby companies' data can be used safely and responsibly for sustainable development and humanitarian action, in order to ensure that access to insights from big data across many industries is widely available. For instance, Global Pulse and the social media platform Twitter partnered in 2016.

Numerous languages are used in the hundreds of millions of tweets that are sent daily by users around the globe. Real-time information on a variety of topics, such as food prices, employment opportunities, access to healthcare, educational standards, and reports of natural disasters, can be found in these social dialogues. The collaboration will enable UN development and humanitarian organizations to transform open data into useful knowledge to assist communities all across the world.

The GSMA's "Big Data for Social Good" initiative, which uses mobile operators' big data capabilities to address humanitarian crises like epidemics and natural disasters, Data for Climate Action, a competition that linked researchers worldwide with data and tools from leading companies to enable data-driven climate solutions, and Data Collaboratives, a new type of collaboration outside of the public-private partners are other examples of partnerships.