Summary and outcome of the event
The PARIS21 Spring Meeting event, organized by the Swiss Confederation in cooperation with Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) and the Canton of Basel-Stadt, took place on the 22nd of March 2023, at Halle 7 in Basel, with more than 200 participants online and physically.
The main aim of this event was to understand how and where sub-national and local data are bringing transformative change, and to identify financing solutions to issues of data localisation.
The conference featured a series of in-person sessions bringing together policymakers, national and local statistical offices, private sector representatives, foundations, international organisations, civil society, and academia to explore the promise and pitfalls of local and sub-national data in developing country contexts.
Mr. Beat Jans, President of the Government of the Canton of Basel-Stadt, Switzerland, underlined the importance of local data, as well as the gaps and challenges that still need to be overcome to obtain the necessary local data. He stressed that the potential impact of these data on the welfare of communities is even more significant during humanitarian and other crises where timeliness is of the essence to ensure lifesaving support for affected and vulnerable communities.
In addition, Mr. Georges-Simon Ulrich, Director General of the Federal Statistical Office, emphasized the need to focus on the local data, especially when it comes to challenges as complex as the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to make fact-based decisions. He made his point through an example, showing the costs of a day in hospital care for Switzerland, on the national level in 2021, which was CHF 2’229, and comparing it with the costs of different cantons such us the Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, where a significant difference of 64% higher than the national average was highlighted. These costs for the Canton of Basel-Stadt, were 22% higher compared to the national average, and for the Canton of Wallis, 38% lower than the national average. The message given was that the national data gives you a picture of the whole country, but if we use just the national data, the decisions taken could be misleading, that’s why the local data are crucial for the decisions making process.
Mr. Juan M, Lavista Ferres, Vice President, Chief Data Scientist, and Director of the AI For Good Lab at Microsoft gave a keynote address on new horizons for data partnerships emphasising the power of data.
Mr. Johannes Jutting, Executive Head of PARIS21 in his presentation introduced the Climate Change Data Ecosystem (CCDE), stressing the need for a more coordinated climate action at the local level.
Over the day, four sessions focusing on local data were held. A wide range of speakers participated such as representatives of the National Statistical Institutes of Rwanda, Malawi, and Lesotho, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), PARIS21, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Development Initiatives, United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Novartis Foundation, University of Basel, Canton of Basel-Stadt, Microsoft, Ministry of Sustainable Development and Climate of Belize, Data-Pop Alliance, Meta, and civil society. They underlined the importance of local data to inform, improve and support local efforts to shape the city into a more sustainable and equitable place.
For all of that and more you can follow the entire event here.
That was a great day! Here are some impressions of the day.
Check out the presentations held during the event. You don’t want to miss them.
Futher information and programme
To continue the work towards our goal to make fact-based decisions, we need the missing piece. What better than going local to complete the puzzle?
Investing in local data systems will help countries develop policies and programmes that support the needs of diverse populations. Moreover, it will help during times of crisis by ensuring that measures are effective and appropriate. Both scaling up and smarter financing are key to local data.
The 2023 PARIS21 Spring Meetings seek to unpack these issues, to understand how and where sub-national and local data are bringing transformative change, and to identify financing solutions to issues of data localisation.
The conference will feature a series of in-person events that bring together policymakers, national and local statistical offices, private sector representatives, foundations, international organisations, civil society, and academia.
The event will culminate in a call to action to leverage the potential of local data to address global challenges.
Check out our programme and our delightful guests. The event is open to everyone so please feel free to join!
And for people who want to join us online, follow us here.
For further information check this event page , and register here by 10 March 2023.
Stick around, there is more to come. We have some other events planned for the day before, on Tuesday, 21 March. More information will be uploaded soon.
Stay tuned!