Robert Reich, former US Secretary of Labor, once joked that although he and Shaquille O’Neal have an average height of 6 feet, standing at 5 and 7 feet respectively, the NBA might be wise to consider more than just their average height before deciding to place Reich on the team.
Today, this sentiment
is becoming increasingly central in international development.
The importance of data
in driving evidence-based development has been increasingly
emphasized in development discussions.
The availability of real-time information in the developing world is
growing, and development organizations are harnessing that data to better
understand the needs of their constituents, and to devise policy and
implementation strategies that best meet the most urgent development goals.
However, Big Data,
along with the statistics it generates, often reflects broad, national averages
that can paper over the experiences and needs of the most marginalized segments
of society. Just as the average height
of 6 feet obscured Reich’s slightness relative to Shaq, so too the broad
experience of a nation, as reflected by its aggregated data, can hide from view
the needs of society’s most vulnerable groups.
The importance of
disaggregating data in order to shine a light on the experience of
disadvantaged groups was a common theme at two very different diplomatic events
I attended in the past couple of weeks.
The first, held in Davos alongside the World Economic Forum in January,
was a strategic discussion on how to engender a people-cantered approach to the
post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The second, the UN Economic & Social Council’s Youth Forum held in
New York in February, brought together hundreds of young people from around the
world to discuss the best ways to engage youth to become active global
citizens. Both discussions identified disaggregated
data as essential to ensuring that development practitioners can best address
the unique needs of those most in need.
In Davos, the point
was eloquently made by Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights
Watch, who noted that “it is rare for people to be heard as individuals; they
are usually heard as a collective.” Instead, Roth calls for a human rights
approach to development, requiring development practitioners to refocus on the experience
of the individual in order to ensure that those facing social exclusion or
discrimination are protected. The notion
was echoed by Susan Myers of the UN Foundation, who identified major attainment
gaps that become evident when data is reanalysed through a gender lens. Myers pointed to the Data2X initiative as a leading effort to
disaggregate data to reveal the unique situation of women and girls in
developing countries.
Data disaggregation
was similarly a focus at the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum in New York, where two days
of dynamic discussions emphasized the point that “youth” tends to be regarded as
a homogenous monolith, masking the needs of those young people who are
especially disadvantaged due to minority status, geographic remoteness,
disability, gender, or other distinguishing characteristics. Youth representatives from around the world
agreed that the needs of young people cannot effectively be addressed, nor
their meaningful engagement in development obtained, without a better
understanding of their heterogeneous characteristics and needs.
Increasingly,
development practitioners are questioning the “Big” in “Big Data”, seeking to
identify trends within broader datasets to ensure that the diversity of the human
experience is properly reflected. As we
pursue a new agenda for development post-2015, data disaggregation will be an integral
tool to ensure that no individual is left behind.
