The United Nations convened the first World Data Forum (UNWDF) in Cape Town, South Africa on January 15-18, 2017, which has become an annual event. At the conclusion of the first event, “the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data was launched” [1, 2, 3, 6]
“The Forum was organized with the guidance of the UN Statistical Commission and the support of the UN Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the High-level Group for Partnership, Coordination and Capacity-Building for statistics for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (HLG).”
This platform was used “for intensifying cooperation with various professional groups, such as national statistical offices (NSOs), information technology and geospatial information managers, and data scientists among other representatives of government, intergovernmental organizations and civil society.” [4] With “particular focus on addressing the monitoring needs of the 2030 Agenda”
“The decision to organize a series of UN World Data Forums followed a recommendation in the report titled, “A World That Counts: Mobilising the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development,” [6] which was presented in November 2014 by the UN Secretary-General’s Independent Expert Advisory Group on a Data Revolution for Sustainable Development” [5]
On day three in the session titled ““Capturing the 21st Century through Data and Algorithms.” Speakers emphasized that the public’s world view and knowledge do not mirror reality, and suggested that schools are better places to create a more fact-based world view than the media; emphasized the value of building narratives from data to steer the narrative to implement the SDGs…”