United Nations Secretary-General Appoints Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development

Experts from civil society, private sector, academia, Governments and international 
organizations named 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the establishment of an Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development. The Group will advise the Secretary-General on measures required to close the data gaps and strengthen national statistical capacities.

The Group is also expected to assess new opportunities linked to innovation, technical progress and the surge of new public and private data providers to support and complement conventional statistical systems and strengthen accountability at the global, regional and national level.

The Secretary-General has appointed two co-chairs: Professor Enrico Giovannini of Italy and Mr.
Robin Li of China. The full list of Panel members is available below.

“The data revolution is giving the world powerful tools that can help usher in a more sustainable
future,” said the UN chief. “The recommendations of the Group will be important inputs to the post-2015 debate and our efforts to shape an ambitious yet achievable vision.”
The Group is part of the Secretary-General’s efforts to prepare the Synthesis Report that Member
States have asked him to issue ahead of the intergovernmental negotiations leading to the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda.

The Special Advisor of the Secretary-General for Post-2015 Development Planning, Assistant
Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, and the Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-Agency Affairs, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Thomas Gass, will serve on the Group as ex-officio members and will provide the link to the UN system.

The Group is expected to submit its recommendations to the Secretary-General in the fall of 2014.
he Secretary General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on the
“Data Revolution for Sustainable Development”

Enrico Giovannini (Italy) 

Co-Chair
A Professor of Economics and Statistics at University Tor Vergata of Rome since 2002,
Professor Giovannini was the Minister of Labor and Social Policies in Italy from April
2013 to February 2014. He was previously President of the Italian Statistical Institute
(Istat) and Director of Statistics and Chief Statistician of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Robin Li (China) 

Co-Chair
Robin Li is co-founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Baidu, the Chinese
Nasdaq-listed internet search company. He was previously a staff engineer for Infoseek
and a senior consultant for IDD Information Services. Mr. Li also acts as the vice
chairman of the internet Society of China (ISC).

TCA Anant (India) 

TCA Anant is the Chief Statistician of India, with concurrent responsibility as the
Secretary of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. He is also a co-
Chair of the Friends of the Chair Group on Broader Measures of Progress. He was
previously a professor of economics at the Delhi School of Economics, and a member of
the advisory committee on regulations under the Competition Commission of India.

Shaida Badiee (Iran) 

Shaida Badiee is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Open Data Watch. During
her tenure as Director of the World Bank's Development Data Group, flagship statistical
products were launched such as the World Development Indicators and Global
Development Finance. In 2010, she led the World Bank's Open Data Initiative to
provide full and free access to the World Bank's extensive statistical databases. Prior to
that, she played a key role in the creation and operation of PARIS21.

Alicia Barcena (Mexico) 

Alicia Bárcena is the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). She previously served as the Under-Secretary-
General for Management at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Chef de Cabinet
and Deputy Chef de Cabinet to the former Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Carmen Barroso (Brazil) 

Carmen Barroso is the Regional Director, International Planned Parenthood Federation,
Western Hemisphere Region. She has served on the Millennium Project Task Force on
MDG 3 and the Brazilian Commission on Reproductive Health, and currently serves on
the board of the International AIDS Alliance, is co-chair of PAHO’s Panel on Gender
and Health, and is a member of the Independent Expert Review Group of the Global
Strategy on Women and Children’s Health, appointed by the UN Secretary-General.

Nicolas de Cordes (France)

Nicolas de Cordes is Vice President of Marketing Vision at Orange France Telecom
Group. An expert of the telecom industry, he joined Orange France Telecom in London
where he headed the Mobile Strategy Practice before moving to Paris to lead the Group
Strategy Team covering all lines of business. He was previously Head of Consumer
Marketing with Mobistar, the Belgian mobile subsidiary of Orange.

Haishan Fu (China) 

Haishan Fu is the Director of the Development Data Group at The World Bank. She was
previously the Director of the Statistics Division of United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). Prior to that, she was the Chief of
Statistics at the Human Development Report Office of United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).

Johannes Jütting (Germany) 

Johannes P. Jütting is the Manager of the PARIS21 Secretariat within the OECD's
Development Co-operation Directorate, where he leads the partnership’s work in
supporting developing countries to strengthen capacity to better produce and use
statistical data for policy-making and the monitoring of development outcomes. He was
previously Head of the Global Development Team at the OECD Development Centre.

Robert Kirkpatrick (US) 

Robert Kirkpatrick is the Director of the UN Global Pulse, an innovation initiative of the
Secretary-General to harness Big Data for a revolution in humanitarian action and
sustainable development. His work in government, UN agencies, NGOs and the private
sector has focused on developing solutions at the intersection of technology, policy and
social change. He was previously Lead Architect for Microsoft's Humanitarian Systems
Team.

Pali Lehohla (South Africa)

Pali Lehohla is the Statistician-General for Statistics South Africa. He is the current
Chair of the Africa Symposium on Statistical Development, and was the Chair of the
United Nations Statistics Commission in 2008 – 2009. He managed censuses for
Bophuthatswana in 1985 and 1991 and was also responsible for directing the South
African Census in 1996.


Tim O’Reilly (US) 

Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media Inc. A thought leader in
technology and innovation, he is also a partner at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, a
venture firm, and board member of Safari Books Online, PeerJ, Code for America, and
Maker Media.

Sandy Pentland (US)

Sandy Pentland is the Toshiba Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A
pioneer in organizational engineering, mobile information systems, and computational
social science, Professor Pentland's research focuses on harnessing information flows
and incentives within social networks, the big data revolution, and converting this
technology into real-world ventures. He is founder and director of the Human Dynamics
group, and the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program.

Rakesh Rajani (Tanzania) 

Rakesh Rajani is the Head of Twaweza, an initiative to enhance access to information,
citizen agency, and public accountability in East Africa. He was previously the founding
Executive Director of HakiElimu, an independent organization that promotes citizen
engagement in education in Tanzania.

Wayne Smith (Canada) 

Wayne R. Smith is the Chief Statistician at Statistics Canada. He was previously
Assistant Chief Statistician in the agency’s Communications and Operations division,
Director General of Regional Operations, Director of Special Surveys Division Branch,
and Director of Communications Division.

Eduardo Sojo Garza-Aldape (Mexico) 

Eduardo Sojo Garza-Aldape is the President of the Board of Governors of the National
Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico. He previously served as Chief
Economic Advisor to President Vicente Fox and as Secretary of Economy in the cabinet
of President Felipe Calderón.

Gabriella Vukovich (Hungary)

Gabriella Vukovich is the President of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. She
currently serves as the Acting Chair of the 45th Session of the UN Statistical
Commission. A specialist in Population and Development, she was previously the Head
of the Population Census Department in the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

Juliana Rotich (Kenya) 

Juliana Rotich is the co-founder and Executive Director for Ushahidi, an open-source
software project which uses crowdsourced geolocation, mobile phone, and web
reporting data to provide crisis reporting and information. Rotich is also a founder of
iHub, a Nairobi tech space and Mobisoko, a mobile marketplace for language and
location relevant apps in Africa.


Robert Chen (US) 

Robert Chen is the Director and Senior Research Scientist, Center for International Earth
Science Information Network (CIESIN) within the Earth Institute at Columbia
University. He is also on the faculty steering committee for the Columbia Global Center
Beijing and served on the University’s E-Science Task Force.

Edilberto Loaiza (UNFPA) 

Edilberto Loaiza is a Social Demographer working as Sr. Adviser for Monitoring and
Evaluation in the Technical Division of UNFPA in New York. Before joining UNFPA
in 2009, Mr. Loaiza spent ten years working in UNICEF at the Strategic Information
Section (SIS) where he coordinated the data production, analysis and dissemination for
the areas of child mortality, education and child protection

Katell Le Goulven (UNICEF) 

Katell Le Goulven is the Chief of Policy Planning at UNICEF where she was previously
Head of Multilateral Affairs. Before joining UNICEF, she held senior positions with the
United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability, the
International Commission on Climate Change and Development, and the International Task
Force on Global Public Goods.

Eva Jespersen (UNDP) 

Eva Jespersen is the Deputy Director, Human Development Report Office at UNDP.
Prior to joining UNDP, she worked at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in
Florence where, as chief of the unit for research on social and economic trends and
policies she led two flagship reports, the Social Monitor and the Report Cards on child
wellbeing.

Thomas Gass (ex officio) 

Thomas Gass is the Assistant Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Inter-
Agency Affairs in UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Previously, as
Ambassador and Country Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and
Cooperation in Nepal, he established the Embassy of Switzerland in the country and
served as its Head of Mission.

Amina J. Mohammed (ex officio) 

Amina J. Mohammed is Assistant Secretary-General and the Secretary-General’s
Special Adviser on Post-2015 Development Planning. She previously served as Senior
Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on the Millennium Development Goals in
three administrations. In 2005 she was charged with the coordination of the debt relief
funds ($1 billion per annum) towards the achievement of Millennium Development
Goals in Nigeria.

Comments

  1. Mr Dodds the data is in already and since the leaked IPCC report indicates a minimum 40 % reduction carbon emissions is required
    Coincidentally fossil fuel powered electrical generation accounts for 40 % of Carbon emissions. according to the EPA .

    I redirect you to my comment in your Blog
    http://earthsummit2012.blogspot.ca/2014/08/moderating-resource-nexus-food-water.html
    Water, Food, Climate and Energy NEXUS
    for my solution to climate change
    Thank-you for your time and consideration
    Dennis Baker

    ReplyDelete
  2. this isnt data on climate change only it covers the other 16 SDGs

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Mr Dodds I just browsed the 17 SDG's and without any Agenda driven rhetoric My proposed solution directly impacts all but # 4 & #5 although I personally and my solution are an example of the benefits of inclusive education for all.
    #5 perhaps a little of a stretch, in that the collective impacts of the other SDG's would reduce divisive issues associated with Women s inequalities, in ensuring the basic's are not an overwhelming burden to provide for their children.
    Therefore I respectfully 15 out of 17 SDG's is more than sufficient potential to ask your learned group to entertain the possibilities.
    Thank-you once again
    Dennis Baker

    ReplyDelete
  4. the SDGs are not mine but have been negotiated by governments and form the basis for further negotiations in January-September 2015 when they will hopefully be agreed by Heads of State. The hope is that what has been put forward is the floor of the agreement and that next year this will be built on further. You shoudl enagge with your government about what theior position is

    ReplyDelete

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