In so much of the world, there are serious challenges to education and health for young people, and at the other end of the scale there are difficulties around healthy and responsible ageing. As the United Nations agency responsible for promoting health and equal opportunity, the UNFPA is dependent upon excellent data to inform how it tackles these serious questions.
Information, and the technology to gather and understand it, are essential to us. Without these factors, we cannot plan, implement change, or assess the effectiveness of what we do, and neither can the countries we work with. As the go-to organisation for global and national censuses, we are relied upon by many countries to get data right.
Historically, a lack of information from some countries has led to the exclusion of large numbers of people. We work with the governments, private sector and civil societies globally to provide technology to gather accurate information on topics such as age, sex, ethnicity, geographical location, access to education and health, transportation and potable water.
Serious questions
Many of the challenges we face are very serious indeed. In a number of countries around the world, around 70 per cent of the population is below the age of thirty.
In many such nations, young boys and girls don’t stay in school, and there are major issues around early and forced marriage, unwanted teen pregnancies and people without good access to health. In order to tackle these problems, we need to know exactly what is going on. While there is data about pregnancies for adults, imagine the lack of information available about girls who are 10 to 14, but pregnant. We have tounderstand the scale of the problem in order to tackle it.
On the other side of the equation, we have to recognise that the world is ageing in many places, even in parts of Africa where there is a large young population. We are working with governments on how to prepare for the ageing of their nations’ people, to help them with supporting healthy and responsible change and allowing opportunity. Japan has always been a reference point here, but there are many other countries looking to change how they deal with the issue.
Elderly age does not mean one cannot contribute; quite the contrary, the technical skills, experience, wisdom and mentoring abilities of older people in the workforce is essential for nations. Again, understanding the demographic change enables us to help.
Big data on an enormous scale
We have gone out in the field, around the world, using various types of technology to gather the data we need. One of the biggest areas for us is making the most of mobile phones to collect data and share it with people globally. This is possible because of the proliferation of the technology around the world – in Nigeria alone, where I was health minister, in under 20 years the number of cellphone lines has gone from 400,000 to nearly 200 million.
In Somalia, we were able to plan for humanitarian response by gathering mobile-based information on density of population and where it is located. In Guinea, with the recent Ebola crisis, a mobile app enabled us to locate and track people who may have been exposed to the virus – as part of our efforts in all countries affected to stop the spread of the disease and to support health services. In Brazil, an app could enable young people to get the information on services they need, with phone numbers and addresses for treatment or for the contraceptives we provide.
Gathering data is not always easy, and there can be broader questions such as which information is accurate. When we conducted a complex census in Tanzania, people called for it to reflect the religion of individuals, and we found that in practice it was difficult to report accurately given the push by certain groups for their numbers to be higher than others. This meant we had to drop that category of information in the interests of accuracy, while keeping all of the other data.
Smart conclusions
By gathering all of the information in an effective way, we are able to draw out smart analysis. When you disaggregate the data, new things become clear. By separating information and analysing it carefully, we could better assess maternal mortality rates – when there is real, detailed data on maternal mortality at all ages, we will be able to help tackle the problem much more effectively.
I could spend all day talking about the serious problems faced in different countries, and exactly how we are working to tackle them, by ensuring good health and education access are provided, alongside safe living and voluntary contraception, responsible ageing, and the development of a skilled workforce.
At the end of the day we have to have the information and good governance to do our work. We are determined to make the difference.
Top photo: Fatoumata Diallo, community health supervisor, supervises training given to contact tracers in Ratoma commune, Guinea. Credit: UNFPA
End photo: Screenshot of the contact tracing commcare system, for Guinea Credit: UNFPA
Dr Babatunde Osotimehin is under secretary general of the United Nations, and executive director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund). A global leader of public health, women’s empowerment and young people, he is particularly focused on promoting human rights, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as population and development. He is also chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Demographic Dividend.
