
World Data Forum: from data to policy
The first World Data Forum was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 15 to 18 January this year. Over 1,500 participants from 100 countries - including three from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) - attended this United Nations event. More than 100 sessions were organised to discuss proposals for innovative ways to collect, analyse and communicate data. The CBS delegates gave a number of presentations and workshops on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Urban Data Centres, Big Data and Open Data.
Urban Data Centres
The first UN World Data Forum gathered data producers, researchers, statisticians, policymakers, academics and users from across the world to discuss the best ways to use data for sustainable development. Robert Hermans, programme director at CBS for the Urban Data Centres: ‘We gave around ten presentations about Urban Data Centres, Big Data, Open Data and the SDGs. These all centred on data input for policymaking.’