Speech

Opening Remarks at Development Data Partnership: Bridging the Data Gap for Public Good

October 13, 2020

Thank you, Eric.

Yes, at the IMF we place tremendous value on global collaboration. The three organizations involved in this data partnership collaborate in many different ways. An important example during this pandemic is the way the World Bank and IMF came together in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic to champion debt relief for the poorest countries, leading to the G-20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative.

But this is just one example, and our institutions work together all the time at both the leadership and staff levels, since we know that we provide the best service to our member countries when we collaborate and leverage synergies in our respective areas.

In February 2019, the World Bank, IMF, and the IDB – all of us neighbors here in Washington, DC – came together to create the Development Data Partnership. This has moved our collaboration to the next level, as we are bringing in the private sector as well. We agreed to join forces to resolve the myriad technical, legal, and coordination barriers to public-private data collaboration in the public interest. We knew that to address a challenge of this importance and magnitude, we had to work together. And this event today is itself a product of this collaboration.

It has been a challenging process! It’s required legal counsel, IT specialists, data engineers, data scientists, communications specialists, app developers, web designers, and economists to work closely together on a single objective. Compounding this logistical challenge, these specialists were required to not only work with each other, but also with their counterparts in the IDB and World Bank.

Once the staff of the three organizations were able to connect with each other, they had to find ways to work both in parallel and in concert. Every component of the Partnership is interdependent – the legal framework, the IT architecture, the portal on which potential users make their proposals, the data partner management system, and the code collaboration tools. Not only did all these elements have to be designed, but they also all had to work together seamlessly.

We know that this Partnership could not exist without the support and efforts of our private sector partners. The greatest achievement of this Partnership is to have created a new data sharing model that works for both public and private sector entities.

In closing, let me say that I am incredibly impressed by what has been achieved in such a short time. I am proud of the IMF’s role in these ground-breaking initiatives, and excited to see the analysis that will now be possible through the Partnership.

Now it’s my pleasure to hand over to Carmen, to talk about how our staff are using this platform today.