'Intermediaries' to play key role in future of data for development

By // 19 May 2015
Nongovernmental organizations have started to hire more data scientists, but collaboration of analytical capacity should take precedence over competition, experts say.

Increasing data capacity within an organization is not just about hiring the young person who recently graduated with a degree in data science, said Emmanuel Letouzé, director and co-founder of Data-Pop Alliance. It’s also making sure to employ the right mixture of people who collectively understand the history, politics and ethics of data.

The development community is going to see more focused collaboration between different types of organizations that work with data as well as a huge role for the data intermediary — or the person who knows how to translate data to community groups that might not have the same statistical literacy, according to Elizabeth Stewart, research fellow for the Overseas Development Institute.

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    Kelli Rogers

    Kelli Rogers is an Associate Editor for Devex. Based on the U.S. West Coast, she works with Devex's team of correspondents and editors around the world, with a particular focus on gender. She previously worked as Devex’s Southeast Asia correspondent based in Bangkok, covering disaster and crisis response, resilience, women’s rights, and climate change throughout the region. Prior to that, she reported on social and environmental issues from Nairobi, Kenya. Kelli holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, and has since reported from more than 20 countries.

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