World Bank Launches SDG-Linked Bonds

“The World Bank-BNP Paribas initiative aims to allow investors to support and benefit from the SDGs, and to raise awareness of the private sector’s role in supporting the SDGs nationally and internationally. The bonds have raised €163 million from institutional investors in France and Italy.”

IISD

The Business Case for the Sustainable Development Goals

“It’s time to scrap “business as usual” on both sides of the coin for a real partnership based on trust and mutual understanding. Government leaders need to take into account the interests of business when they discuss investments. They need to be transparent and assure that the rule of law takes precedence. Business leaders need to see that the SDGs are not just a public good — they are good business.”

Huffington Post

Unesco to collate cultural, heritage data

“UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (Rosa) has partnered the government to collate data and statistics on cultural and heritage issues, as a way of establishing the contributions made by cultural sectors and using it to stimulate national development. (…) Statistical data are needed to plan, manage and measure the economic contribution of specific cultural domains (e.g. crafts, performing arts, book industry and music) to the economy.”

Newsday (Zimbabwe)

UN Global Pulse and Western Digital announces ‘ Data for climate action’ challenge

“Data for Climate Action will target three areas relevant to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal on climate action (SDG 13): climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and the linkages between climate change and the broader 2030 Agenda. The challenge aims to generate original research papers and tools that demonstrate how data-driven innovation can inform on-the-ground solutions and transform efforts to fight climate change.”

Dataquest

BBS to collect data from 35m houses for national database

“Underscoring the importance of the project, [the deputy project director] said, "The database will help ministries and divisions choose real beneficiaries for the social safety net programmes. It will also be of great use to avoid overlapping while implementing poverty eradication projects for ultra-poor,"”

The Financial Express (Bangladesh)

Official data leaks: regulator urged by Treasury Select Committee to investigate possibility

“On almost 60 per cent of occasions UK government bond futures moved ahead of the data in what proved to be the right direction. (…)Fears of leaking have long been stoked by the large list of UK ministers, special advisers and civil servants who are given privileged 24 hour "pre-release" access to official statistics.”

Independent

Access to drinking water around the world – in five infographics

“A new report by the World Health Organisation/Unicef Joint Monitoring Programme delves into data on drinking water from the last 17 years to give a detailed view of the state of access to drinking water today. (…) It also examines how the current situation matches up to the vision for universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water – set out by the sustainable development goals (SDGs). It considers gaps in the data and what we still need to know to achieve universal access.”

The Guardian

Human Development Report 2016

·         One in three people worldwide continue to live in low levels of human development, as measured by the Human Development Index

·         More than 250 million people in the world face discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity

·         In 100 countries, women are legally excluded from some jobs because of their gender

UNDP

Big Data and the Well-Being of Women and Girls

“The many forms of big data, from geospatial information to digital transaction logs to records of internet activity, can help close the global gender data gap. This report profiles several big data projects that quantify the economic, social, and health status of women and girls.”

Data2X

World Happiness report 2017

UN

Stanford researchers map fear and happiness in historic London

“The researchers used Named Entity Recognition technology, which labels sequences of words in a text, to plot literary references on a map of London. (…)The grant allowed the Literary Lab to crowdsource readings to freelancers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Readers were asked to identify happiness or fear (or their absence) in some 15,000 passages from novels set in London between 1700 and 1900. Their responses were then compared to close readings by graduate students in English and to the findings of a computer program that gauges sentiment.”

Stanford News

2017 NCAA Tournament: Stats, facts to know to fill out a March Madness bracket

CBS Sports

International Statistical Institute Regional Statistics Conference 2017

21-24^th March, Bali, Indonesia

Data Innovation Summit

23^rd March, Stockholm, Sweden

Data Summit 17

23-24^th March, Edinburgh, Scotland

Data Innovation Day 2017 – Building Smart Cities for Tomorrow’s Data Economy

28^th March, Brussels, Belgium