A Few Reflections On The Novel Oecd Flagship Written Report On Information For Development

I wrote a curt comment on the 2011 World Development Report a long fourth dimension ago), but some paragraphs of the OECD study truly suggested themselves to live on included inwards a circular of ‘development bullshit Bingo’:

To create inclusive information ecosystems that produce goodness global evolution as well as private citizens, governments volition remove to transform their legal as well as strategic frameworks for information as well as statistics. Over the by 2 decades, developing countries direct maintain taken steps to reform their national statistical systems. Nonetheless, pregnant challenges remain, including the absence of legislative frameworks for statistics. The growing break of public, private, as well as civil club actors as well as institutions involved inwards the production as well as exercise of information brand the remove for clear legal, ethical, as well as lineament standards as well as protocols fifty-fifty to a greater extent than urgent. These should regulate the exercise of traditional every bit good every bit novel as well as non-traditional sources of data, fostering the trust that is needed for information to inform practiced policies as well as evolution results. (p.29)

Let’s supervene upon ‘data’ as well as ‘statistics’ alongside some of our favorite buzzwords from the practiced erstwhile days, for illustration ‘gender’…

To create inclusive gender ecosystems that produce goodness global evolution as well as private citizens, governments volition remove to transform their legal as well as strategic gender frameworks.
Over the by 2 decades, developing countries direct maintain taken steps to reform their national gender systems. Nonetheless, pregnant challenges remain, including the absence of legislative frameworks for gender. The growing break of public, private, as well as civil club actors as well as institutions involved inwards the production as well as exercise of gender brand the remove for clear legal, ethical, as well as lineament standards as well as protocols fifty-fifty to a greater extent than urgent. These should regulate the exercise of traditional every bit good every bit novel as well as non-traditional sources of gender, fostering the trust that is needed for gender to inform practiced policies as well as evolution results.
…or participation:

To create inclusive participatory ecosystems that produce goodness global evolution as well as private citizens, governments volition remove to transform their legal as well as strategic frameworks for participation.
Over the by 2 decades, developing countries direct maintain taken steps to reform their national participatory systems. Nonetheless, pregnant challenges remain, including the absence of legislative frameworks for participation. The growing break of public, private, as well as civil club actors as well as institutions involved inwards the production as well as exercise of participation brand the remove for clear legal, ethical, as well as lineament standards as well as protocols fifty-fifty to a greater extent than urgent. These should regulate the exercise of traditional every bit good every bit novel as well as non-traditional sources of participation, fostering the trust that is needed for participation to inform practiced policies as well as evolution results.

I shout out upward you lot larn the idea…

Data as well as thence becomes portion of the adjacent toolkit as well as checklist, but in that place is also the bigger work of how to introduce such a study alongside thence many stakeholders involved inwards a way that every fellow member signs off.

Maybe evolution communication deserves to a greater extent than than a modest box alongside an of import reminder that

Citizens desire to listen existent stories behind development. (…) Citizens desire to listen from beneficiaries of aid, passionate champaign workers, non simply politicians, diplomats or celebrities (p.104).

Governmentality: Investing inwards information as well as statistics volition legitimize novel powers
This signal is a fleck to a greater extent than academic, but truly quite important: The actions as well as ideas outlined inwards the study legitimize noesis as well as ‘stuff’ inwards the existent world, i.e. contributing to a discourse of ‘data for development’. The Director of the United Nations Statistics Division outlines this good inwards his curt ‘in my view’ commentary:
He talks almost ‘technical capacity building’, enabling ‘national statistical offices’ to larn ‘chief information managers’; in that place should also live on a ‘framework of noesis solidarity (…) across the globe’ (p.61). In some other contribution, the writer lists high-level commitments to statistics, sharing documents as well as global gatherings since 2004 (p.85).
So this is almost trainings, purpose setups, global conferences discussing global guidelines, meetings, jobs, hardware, software…an apparatus, a habitus of how information as well as statistics larn professionalized.
This is literally almost who counts as well as what counts, reimaging the the world of the 21st century! If you lot right away add together global companies owning specialized software, cloud storage or other services to the film nosotros should live on discussing the risks of digital neo-colonialism!
But the study does hardly engage alongside whatever critical aspects simply about exclusion, censorship, privacy as well as what it agency when a course of study of master copy information managers informs the government…

Data is practiced as well as non rattling political (like the remainder of evolution co-operation…)

(A Rohingya database) tin digitally enable discrimination. Rohingya direct maintain to follow a ”code of conduct” that forces them to remain within the camps as well as limits their interaction alongside locals. If the database of Rohingya people were to live on leaked, hacked, or shared (for example, alongside the Myanmar government), it could enter easier to deny Rohingya access to basic services, or target them, or discriminate against them. For example, Bangladeshi mobile telephone operators direct maintain been banned from selling SIM cards to Rohingya refugees. Biometric information could inwards theory live on shared alongside mobile telephone operators to enforce the ban.

This is from North Africa, Cameroon, Turkey or Zimbabwe is that ‘data’ is already portion of complicated battles as well as power/knowledge struggles inwards traditional as well as novel world spheres.

While the OECD study for sure captures of import technical aspects as well as macro policy challenges it fails to render a politicized vision for digital evolution cooperation for the adjacent decade as well as could live on some other instance of likewise little, likewise late…