• Discussion paper
  • 10 February 2016

The Sustainable Development Goals: joining-up new standards in a disconnected world

While more & more data is becoming available, much of it cannot be turned into useful information because it's published in different formats or to incompatible standards.

Author

Beata Lisowska

Data has immense potential to help drive poverty eradication and sustainable development. While more and more data is becoming available, much of it cannot be turned into useful information because it is being published in different formats or to incompatible standards. Through the Joined-up Data Standards (JUDS) project, Publish What You Fund and Development Initiatives, with support from the Omidyar Network, are working to identify priority areas and technical approaches to join up data standards.

This paper aims to shine a light on the dilemmas and challenges facing standards setters and to suggest approaches and methodologies that can improve the comparability and interoperability of data.

This discussion paper was written as a part of the Joined-up Data Standards project, a joint initiative between Development Initiatives and Publish What You Fund.