While geospatial data and technology are helping governments worldwide answer critical COVID-19 questions, each country deals with unique but related constraints that impact response efforts. Many world leaders are forging partnerships and creating collaborative strategies to gather data and analysis to address their constraints and deliver data-driven responses. This work builds on a 2015 commitment from nearly 200 countries to strengthen resilience to environmental, social, and economic challenges—outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals, the Sendai Framework, and the Paris Climate Agreement. Five years later, the world confronts a devastating pandemic that could significantly hinder these efforts and alter strategies moving forward. Before an agency or government can act, it needs accurate information about population count, movement, and accessibility to essential services. But, gathering robust data during a pandemic is no easy feat.
Read More‘Driving science to action’ was a critical theme at the 2019 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall meeting where TReNDS, alongside CIESIN and GPSDD, presented on how to make information about integrating new data sources for population estimates more accessible to policymakers as well as insights from our forthcoming report, Leaving No One Off the Map: How Gridded Population Data Can Help Realize a More Sustainable World.
Read MoreThis week, representatives from eight very diverse countries (Bangladesh, Columbia, Ghana, Mongolia, Nepal, Paraguay, Rwanda, and Senegal) convened in Kigali, Rwanda to discuss priority data needs; specifically, the kinds of timely (even real-time) data they need to effectively track sustainable development. In spite of varied data priorities across the countries (from poverty, to agriculture, to education) commonalities emerged that can expedite the accessibility, timeliness, and quality of data, such as focusing on the better use of satellite imagery and co-investing in administrative data.
Read MoreGeospatial data and technologies can support the Sustainable Development Goals – but only if the community helps make the case for them by improving communication and integration across stakeholders and processes. TReNDS Manager Maryam Rabiee reflects on this and more from the Ninth Session of the UN Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).
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