GCRO profiled at the UN World Data Forum in Cape Town

With the support of the Statistics Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics South Africa hosted the first ever UN World Data Forum in Cape Town from the 15th to the 18th of January 2017. This event was a unique opportunity for, statisticians, data scientists and experts from various fields (academia, private sector, civil society organisations and international organizations) to grapple with, and unpack, the endless possibilities of data in contributing towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Samy Katumba, Samkelisiwe Khanyile and Mncedisi Siteleki from the GCRO attended the forum and engaged in a variety of sessions that correspond to GCRO’s core research themes (in particular ‘Analytics and visualisation’). The forum included a range of themes related to innovative ways of collecting, analysing and visualising data, and focused specifically on addressing issues that currently impede the attainment of the SDGs. A number of GCRO’s online data sharing and visualisation outputs were profiled by Esri South Africa, as examples of how data can be effectively used to engage local government and society. The outputs that were profiled included GCRO’s GIS Viewer, Ward Profile Viewer and ‘Transforming transport in the GCR’ story map.

The second UN World Data Forum will reconvene in Dubai in two years’ time.