鈥淎s the United Nations marks its seventy-fifth anniversary and the world deploys data to face a common challenge, let us use World Statistics Day to spotlight the role of statistics in advancing sustainable development for all.鈥 With these words Secretary-General Antonio Guterres invites us to celebrate this year鈥檚 observance while highlighting the vital role of data in meeting the challenges of our time. This year鈥檚 theme 鈥溾 reflects the importance of trust, authoritative data, innovation and the public good in national statistical systems.
Science and Technology
Over 2,000 participants from the data user and producer communities will come together this month to discuss some of the greatest data challenges in our changing world.
submitted a draft recommendation on Open Science to its 193 Member States, a major step in facilitating international cooperation and universal access to scientific knowledge. The draft notes the potential of Open Science and highlights its importance in reducing the digital, technological, gender and knowledge divides that separate not only countries but people living in the same place. The successful transition to Open Science, outlined in the preliminary draft requires a change in scientific culture from competition to collaboration.
reports on how digital finance can be harnessed in ways that empower citizens as taxpayers and investors to better align people鈥檚 money with their needs, collectively expressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the pandemic demonstrates the immediate benefits of digital finance, the disruptive potential of digitalization in transforming finance is immense. Mobile payment technologies have transformed mobile phones into financial tools for more than a billion people.
One of the most striking images of the coronavirus pandemic is the contrast between farmers dumping milk, smashing eggs, and ploughing vegetables back into the soil and consumers facing empty store shelves and long lines at food distribution centres. How is it possible to have over-abundance on one hand and scarcity on the other? The argues that the digital revolution can accelerate the shift towards a more sustainable food future by collecting, using, and analysing machine-readable data.
Crises have a way of urging people to develop new tools to help them resist disaster. -funded projects in north-eastern Brazil, carry on their work by using remote technical assistance to respond to participants鈥 questions and solve problems. Project staff also realized that the current situation presented an opportunity to gather some much-needed data: consistent data on project performance and the impacts of COVID-19. Due to the preventive measures, surveys were conducted using smartphones.
reports on human rights-centred recommendations, by a coalition of 50 cities worldwide, to guide leaders as they use digital technology in response to crises such as COVID 19.
Named after pioneer physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Marie Sk艂odowska-Curie, the Programme aims to inspire and to encourage young women to pursue a career in nuclear sciences and technology and non-proliferation.
2020 began as a normal year for the Dr Fridtjof Nansen, the only marine research vessel to fly the UN flag. The Nansen was meant to sail along West Africa, collecting data off the coast and in the deep-seas for its research into the state of marine resources and the health of our oceans. As the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a pandemic and more and more borders closed to stop the spread of the virus, reports on the plan for the vessel and its crew to get back home to Norway.
While the digital era and new technologies have brought societies many benefits, we also face challenges such as growing digital divides, cyber threats, and human rights violations online. This report lays out a roadmap in which all stakeholders play a role in advancing a safer, more equitable digital world.
Refugees at the Innovation Lab in Za鈥檃tari refugee camp have designed a robot prototype made from LEGO which automatically dispenses sanitiser so people don鈥檛 have to touch the bottle. Their aim is to help prevent coronavirus and contribute towards the global effort to control the disease.
COVID-19 has made the world a more challenging place than ever for many of us, but have all the physical precautions we are taking made us forget about keeping connected online in a safe manner?
The International Atomic Energy Agency is helping dozens of countries use a nuclear-derived technique called rRT-PCR to detect the new coronavirus, by providing the necessary equipment, guidance and training.
Many new technologies debuted during the epidemic. New disinfection technology uses a physical-static method to disinfect, which is safe for both humans and the environment.
Young, creative and bold minds, who are helping redefine their own areas of expertise, are highlighted every year by the US business publication, Forbes.聽This year, the World Health Organization鈥檚 () yo