In August 2014, the Secretary-General of the United Nations established the Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. This group was charged with evaluating the global state of data and deriving recommendations that permit data to live up to their potential as “the lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability.” The resulting report, A World that Counts, posits that “Governments, companies, researchers and citizen groups are in a ferment of experimentation, innovation and adaptation to the new world of data, a world in which data are bigger, faster and more detailed than ever before.” This, they assert, “is the Data Revolution.” Read more