Monitoring national development plans and the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development requires high quality data, broken down by socio-economic groupings and with a strong spatial dimension. This is difficult even for the most developed statistical systems. It is increasingly recognised that traditional statistical approaches may have to be complemented by exploiting new, innovative data sources to “[…] increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts”.

 

Big data, defined as traces of human actions picked up by digital devices, has come to be seen as one solution to fill data gaps and provide data more efficiently, in a timely manner and with greater detail. The topic of big data therefore is currently a subject of enormous interest as this represents a huge change to the world of official statistics. 

 

The workshop will explore the potential of harnessing data from non-traditional sources and players such as private companies for use in official statistics to contribute towards timely and regular monitoring of SDG indicators in the Philippines.  It also presents an opportunity for private companies to understand their potential role in data sharing and exchange for the benefit of the citizenry as part of their corporate social responsibility.  

 

Further, the workshop will advance discussion on the possible incentives, applicable business models, and protocols for engagement for future partnership between private companies and the national statistical system (through Public Private Partnership modalities) in relation to the use of big data for official statistics.