UN Makes Its Statistical Data Free and Searchable

NorseWolf writes "Since its foundation, the United Nations system has been collecting statistical information from member states on a variety of topics. The information thus collected constitutes a considerable information asset of the organization. However, these statistical data are often stored in proprietary databases, each with unique dissemination and access policies. As a result, users are often unaware of the full array of statistical information that the UN system has in its data libraries. The current arrangement also means that users are required to move from one database to another to access different types of information. UNdata addresses this problem by datapooling major UN databases and those of several other international organizations into one single Internet environment. The innovative design allows a user to access a large number of UN databases either by browsing the data series or through a keyword search."

YERRSS!!!

*does victory dance*

I love that things like this happen. Free, open and searchable - Bill Gates must be turning in his... Oh, wait...

Re:YERRSS!!!

Turning in his deckchair on his billion dollar yaught?
Turning in his feather soft mattress on his million dollar gold plated four poster bed?
Turning in his 1988 Porsche 959 Coupe?
Turning in his 1999 Porsche 911 Convertible??
Turning in his wife to the authorities???

The suspense is killing me!!

Re:YERRSS!!!

...turning in his Vista laptop for a Dell/Ubuntu offering.

TADAAAAAAHHH! *drrrrummmrrroolllll*

Re:

I'm not really sure how he's turning in his whatever since UNData is written in ASP.Net 2 powered by Windows 2003. He's probably laughing all the way to bank though.

Innovation?

Not to knock this applaudable achievement, but what exactly makes this solution innovative? Or has the meaning of this word simply been diluted more than I thought.

That aside, interesting project

Re:Innovation?

Innovative? Well, to get multiple departments, countries, people to agree on a single thing is amazing if not innovative. To get them to agree on a database, and data formats as well? I've not seen to much of that in the world of governments or big business. Perhaps there was some innovation going on there? It may well have been just innovation in how to politically leverage a size 10 shoe into a size 2 ass, but it does sound like they have done something different. :)

Re:Innovation?

I don't think they are in as much agreement as you might think. The UN requires individual countries to record their own data and sets guidelines but doesn't expect a country to duplicate efforts if they are already collecting similar data.

What this will lead to is information that is useful withing a well defined set of parameters but on the whole can't be directly compared between countries. Crime rates and infant mortality are a couple of prime examples on how reporting differences can change the entire outlook on things. So at least keep that in mind when looking at it.

Re:Innovation?

This kind [un.org] of statistics that I can actually link to while making a point... That's about as innovative in my book as wikipedia was. This will forever change how geeks discuss things.

Re:

Those emissions of China and India in 2004 at a lot relatively lower than I expected.

Re:

That's because China has 5 times the population as we do or more. Here is one on usage without the per capita BS. [un.org] Something else to remember, the data stops at 2004 for some reason. A lot has been going on in 4 years. I doubt any of those numbers are close

Re:

Add a graphing tool that plots statistics over time and it will also be easy to point to collapsing fisheries, diminishing harvests, etc.

Re:Innovation?

Like this [gapminder.org]?

Gapminder [gapminder.org] is the tool. I hope they incorporate these fresh stats soon!

Re:

could you, please, tell how can one choose which data goes into rows, and which into columns ? :)
i'd like to see other stats in a layout similar to your link, but can't grasp that one.

Libaration

I wish that every organization and government would do this. It is a great tool for research. In the Netherlands "public" data is still regarded as property and our government charges us for this.

Re:

Translated from cbs.nl:

http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/cijfers/statline/default.htm [www.cbs.nl]

"StatLine is the free electronic database of the CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics). You can create your own tabels and graphs. The information is free and easy to print and do

Maybe

Data is worthless unless you know how it was collected.

Without such information, you cannot ascertain the accuracy of the data & you cannot compare it to any other data sets.

Where are the links to the source reports?

Funny you should say that

I remember one of my professors mentioning that he was in the office of the president of some African country assisting them with "determining" the value of various financial (and other) metrics for large, unnamed NGOs like the UN.

For most countries, statistical information is really wishful thinking. If you can't control your borders, tax your citizens effectively, or provide infrastructure, you can't collect accurate statistics. Indeed, even for developed countries statistics may be suspect, especially trade data.

However, as people like to say, even bad data is better than no data.

Re:Funny you should say that

However, as people like to say, even bad data is better than no data.

Whoever says that deserves the bad policy they get that was based on that bad data. You can never achieve 100% accuracy but it is a goal that still should be attempted. To accept otherwise is not only foolish but also dangerous. It leads to such stupidity as the US is currently experiencing with global warming and evolution. Screwing up the data bad enough gives the opposition to proper policy the ammunition to call "junk science" on that policy. So no, it isn't better to have bad data over no data.

Re:

However, as people like to say, even bad data is better than no data.

It depends how bad (inaccurate) the data is. For instance, I'd rather have no data on violent crime in a particular area then inaccurate data if I was deciding to buy a house there.

Re:Maybe

Its there for anyone who cares to look, eg. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods.htm [un.org]

MOD parent up.

Touche!

Re:

Fair point. Good question. But before tossing the relevance of the data away, I think one should consider that yours is a high standard to which most data collection made public may not meet -- the CIA (of the USA) publishes a lot of data on their website,

Re:Maybe

If you really would have been interested in the source, you would have seen the BIG BOX below the data that says 'SOURCE' with a short description and a link ORIGINAL DATA that links to the organisation that provided the data. and after 2 minutes of browsing, I found this: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=749 [un.org] where you can find information how the data was collected.

stop whining, start looking. thanks.

Drugs

So now we can see how much money it spends trying to force its futile prohibitionist American-style anti-drugs policy on the world?

What about all the others?

Now if only they will be followed in this by the World Bank, IMF, OECD... Not to mention all those national level organisations.