Recent Blog Posts
25 May 2021 By Kyoung-Soo Eom, Chief of Geospatial Information Section, Technology Operations Service, Operations Support Division, OICT Since the establishment of the United Nations, cartography and geospatial information have been an important component of the Organization. In 1948, the Committee of Experts on Cartography sought to answer two questions: What should the United Nations do to stimulate and assist Member States in the development…
12 April 2021 By Stefan Lemm, former Head, Military Operations Unit, OICT Data Privacy and Protection is one of the key aspects of the Secretary-General’s Data Strategy. It is clear that protecting people from indiscriminate data collection is important because it might result in data misuse, for instance, by businesses. But a potentially more dangerous scenario would be that data collected in good faith ends up in the hands of ill-meaning actors…
24 February 2021 By Lambert Hogenhout, Chief of Data, Analytics and Innovation, OICT Collecting data, organizing it, and sharing it is useful. Ultimately, however, the aim is to create business value. We want to turn data into insights that result in productivity gains, better decisions and/or faster response. There are multiple ways to do that — from simple dashboards to interactive data visualizations, deeper analysis with statistical methods…
29 January 2021 By Martijn Lampert, Research Director, Glocalities In this Q&A, Martijn Lampert, Research Director, Glocalities, shares a methodology he and his team used to measure international trust in the UN. He argues that research focusing on the links between values, issues and cultures is key to quantifying qualitative data. What is Glocalities? Glocalities is an international research program specialized in understanding and quantifying…
14 December 2020 By Olabisi Shoaga, Political Affairs Officer, Division of Policy, Evaluation and Training, Department of Peace Operations Over the past few years, there has been a rise in the use of data, particularly quantitative data, to showcase progress and performance during reporting and briefings on peacekeeping. A good deal of the work done in this regard has been in operational support, military operations, conduct and discipline…