Using Data to Advance the 2030 Agenda: Recommendations for the G20

Ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali in November 2022, India pledged that the principle of ‘data for development’ (D4D) would be integral to its G20 presidency. At its first meeting in December 2022 as India assumed the Presidency, the G20 Development Working Group stated that it would focus on the collection, sharing and analysis of D4D to support efforts to achieve the SDGs. This Policy Brief notes that the data landscape across the G20 remains highly uneven, with some countries doing better than others in leveraging data for the achievement of the Development Agenda. There are three main obstacles to current D4D efforts: (i) The prevalence of marked data divides between the Global North and South, and within countries; (ii) The difficulties posed by issues of data privacy, security, interoperability, and sharing; and (iii) The need for greater technical and institutional capacity, particularly to rejuvenate legacy datasets by applying emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs) and to produce next-generation datasets using EDTs. The brief proposes eight strategic actions that G20 member states could jointly undertake to address these challenges, promote D4D, and advance the 2030 Agenda.