There are many gaps in the data available about the UK’s interactions with other countries - without that data the UK can’t hope to achieve its international objectives, and civil society can’t hold government to account for what it is doing (or not doing).
This draft briefing sets out some concrete examples and suggests that government could undertake an audit of the data necessary to support its international objectives.
It would be great to get further comments on the paper, including other examples of data gaps and views on the suggestion of a data audit.
Thanks for sharing @justinmoore
here at Publish What you Fund we have been working on an advocacy project to open up more data from development finance institutes, including the UK’s CDC.
Great work @JustinMoore And I agree re: gaps. Too often, policy makers start by looking for answers within the data we have. Yet the real start must always be to define the question, what needs to be addressed, then identify what data is required to answer it.
Thanks all for the feedback. One of the additional challenges in this case is that responsibility for collecting relevant data for foreign and development policy objectives falls right across government. I think this should in theory be the responsibility of Cabinet Office to ensuring joining up but I wonder if we’ve seen that happen in practice?
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