Open humanitarian data in 2021
Discover a report by the United Nations that assesses data availability across crises
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) recently published a report on data availability across humanitarian crises. The goal of this report is to raise awareness on the current available data and to identify which information is lacking by means of the OCHA’s Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) platform. Through this, UN OCHA can further support humanitarian operations across the globe.
The HDX platform is a proxy for measuring data activity and availability worldwide. According to this tool, roughly half of the relevant and complete crisis data are present for the 27 global humanitarian operations. However, between these operations, there is great variability. These data include for instance humanitarian needs, health services, population characteristics, and poverty rates.
In order to respond to crises, timely, accurate, and complete data is essential. The past year has been greatly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and this has translated into a record-breaking need for data. Overall, the humanitarian data ecosystem is strengthening as many organisations implement automated ways of sharing data as opposed to manual, and the attention to responsibly collecting and sharing heightens.
Curious to discover more findings? Have a look at the full report.
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