By Winnie Kamau
As the world grapples with the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how to achieve them one thing is clear ,there’s need to have mechanisms in place on how to measure this achievements before we fall into the same pitfalls of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). At the 14th Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD 14) held in the Capital City of Kenya, Nairobi discussions on the use of Data were rife.
Speaker after speaker banding the word ‘Data’ during the International trade meeting. Now this got me thinking about Data and how this word is slowly changing and revolutionising the world. They say what you can’t measure you can’t achieve. This has been seen by pundits as the cracks faced by the United Nations (UN) which is still grappling with measuring its achievement since its 70 plus years of existence. A stray thought crosses my mind and wonder if the UN was to publicize its data and make it Open I believe a new world will emerge from this cavernous amount of data collected.
At the Innovation forum on SDGs Kenya’s Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of ICT and Innovation, Victor Kyalo noted the importance of data ,“It gives us an opportunity to improve the skills that are already existing of which are missing in gathering the data and being able to access the data and being able analyse the data.” Adding “In a nutshell I see an opportunity for us to be able to do much better data driven processes as opposed to the initial days when we just worked adhoc.”
Senior Partner at Global Innovation Fund Raymond Guthrie recognized the benefits of Big data that is being advocated to be open .“Big data is great because it is a way of forecasting future transfer It is all about relevant data it’s all about data you can access you can rely on that has credibility and that can be plugged into decision matrices.” In addition “Data that can support your systems up. Big data in general is all about getting relevant data”
There’s a big demand for data and it is increasing by the minute with ICTs enabling services trade and the transformation of global value chains. Though Statistical cognoscetis the current statistical system does not allow us to quantify as sufficient level of detail services, exports and imports which makes it difficult to evaluate their impact on national economies and benchmark the countries individual performance.
China’s Huawei Vice President for Global Public Affairs David Harmon noted how businesses had taken to the use of data in providing services to their customers “Big data as a sector is rising in terms of the number of business models that supporting by level of 40% year on year as a sector it is increasing by multiple percent compared to other technology sectors” Adding that “As a company we have had to plough in 650 data storage centers round the world as an application component.”
More and more companies and virtual industries want to analyse the information and see how best they can improve their products and services they deliver for their customers. There’s need to improve and replicate on the systems that have been using the big data in financial services and fashion designs. Harmon noted importance of replicability of structures .“It is very important structures are put in place to ensure people can replicate innovations that have been used in the advancements from the field of Big Data.”
Globalization, including a phenomenal expansion of trade, has helped lift millions out of poverty. But not nearly enough people have benefited as tremendous challenges remain. UNCTAD supports developing countries to access the benefits of a globalized economy more fairly and effectively.
