The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Good morning everyone, distinguished guests. Welcome to this session of the IGF entitled Internet Powered Citizen Data For Inclusive Public Services.
My name is Alexandra Wilde. I am UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance. My pleasure to moderate this exciting panel and session this morning.
Today we will be really focusing on pioneering experiences of Ghana and Columbia exploring potential of citizen‑generated data and improving the engagement of citizens in the measurement and assessment of public service delivery.
We have many colleagues here with us in the room and colleagues online who have also tuned in to this session. Some of those online include also some of the people speaking in the session today.
First we will have some opening remarks by Sarah Lister, codirector for UNDP governance and rules of peace building hub. Introduction to citizen data and contributions of the collaborative citizen data that will be shared with us by Charlotte Huntsman DC an united statistics session and cohost today. Experience garnered from my colleague Omar Seidu, head of social statistics, garner statistical service and experience of Columbia citizen data from my colleague with the department of statistics in Columbia. Then we will hear from two discussants that will sort of share their perspectives on some of the very exciting advancements we will hear today.
Session is only an hour. We have very hard cutoff time, so without further ado, I'm going to hand over to Sarah Lister to open the session. Over to you.
>> SARAH LISTER: Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening excellencies, distinguished colleagues, friends and partners, those in the room and those online. Welcome to this session on empowering marginalized communities, harnessing internet powers citizen data, include public service. Data real Latin American, timely discussion on how digital tools and citizen engagement can transform how we understand and deliver public service especially those often most often left behind.
Many of you know United Nations statistical commission highest decision‑making body in the global statistical system, took a landmark step earlier this year by endorsing the Copenhagen framework on citizen data, which we will hear more about in this session.
Copenhagen marks critical traditional data systems alone are not enough and demand for people to contribute to generating information about themselves in a manner that reflects and serves their interests. To build truly inclusive institutions we need data that reflects people's lived experience especially those of marginalized and underserved groups, but inclusion doesn't stop at collecting or using that data. It also means returning that information to the people themselves, empowering communities through access transparency and accountability.
This is why the expansion of citizen data as approach is so important for UNDP. At UNDP, we support over 130 countries in buying institutions inclusive, accountable responsive. Strengthening public service central to power is central to this mission. Governments can't improve what they don't understand and can't understand without taking into consideration different viewpoints including from the people they directly serve. That is where citizen data powered by the internet can be game‑changer. By putting digital tools in the hands of people, we can help communities not only access services, but shape how those services are designed to, delivered and valuated.
This helps answers most fundamental governance questions. What do people need? Are services working? Who is being left behind and why?
Today, we're fortunate to hear from two countries at the forefront of this approach, Ghana and Columbia. Both have been an exploring how citizen‑generated data enabled by internet access and digital innovation can improve inclusivity and responsive public service of their would, offers practical lessons how to connect officials data systems with community level realities ensuring that services are not just available, but equitable and effective.
This discussion is especially relevant to the context of Intergovernment Governance Forum because the IGF is about ensuring that digital transformation serves people, rights, and democracy. When people share data online to improve their communities, it shows that digital tools can strengthen connection between people and their governments. Citizen data powered by the internet helps build trust, promote accountability, and make public services more responsive.
It's allows for form of digital participation that is granted in every day realities and promotes accountability from the bottom up. UNDP is the UN entity responsible for the global monitoring of SDG indicator 16.6.2, which measures people's satisfaction with public services such as health care, and he education and general government services. This indicator focuses not on abstract perceptions but on actual experiences, access, quality, and affordability. By combining official data sources with citizen input, we can create richer more accurate picture of service effectiveness and drive more informed decisions.
Ultimately, this is about bringing governance closer to people. It's about ensuring that digital transformation doesn't widen gaps, it closes them, and it's about showing that when communities are empowered to contribute their joys and experiences, they become cocreators of better public service and stronger institutions.
Thank you very much for joining us, contribute their voices, look forward to the rich insights from today's presentation and discussion. Thank you very much. Alex back to you.
>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Thank you Sarah. That's a very helpful framing for the session. I just want to pick up on one particular issue, fundamental idea of that's not just about collecting data from people, but also returning that data back to communities to empower them to be able to engage in governance.
Introduce Char Huntsman representing collaborative citizen data to take us through who is citizen data and how that whole very idea is so central to understanding of citizen data and share work on the collaborative and Copenhagen framework on citizen data. Charlotte is online. Hoping that we will have a smooth handover to Charlotte. Over to you.
>> CHARLOTTE HUNTSMAN: Hello everyone from Copenhagen. Citizen data and Copenhagen data framework on how it's implemented collaborative on the citizen data. Next slide please.
Copenhagen first, what is citizen data. In the Copenhagen framework, defined and it basically refers to data originating from different initiatives of which citizens are engaged in bare stages of data value chain. This is whether or not data is integrated into official statistics or not. Is there a problem with the audio? Unclear to me. I can hear you fine, Laura. I'm not sure about others in the room. We can all hear you. Thank you.
>> CHARLOTTE HUNTSMAN: Key aspect sufficient and meaning participation of citizens, citizens are engaged through the entire data value chain, so there are many different types of citizen data. For those of you who might not be so familiar with citizen data, I have a few examples. Can be Civil Society organizations. Gather data on marginalized organizations, usually people they represent.
Could be communities, whether they are geographical communities, automatic communities, gather data on topics relevant to them.
Another example is crowd source data. For example, from digital platforms, gather realtime information on various topics. Can be pollution monitoring, waste on the beach, infrastructure people are using and can give information. Give information to authorities how well services are working.
Sarah already mentioning some of these different types of contributions that citizens can have on data and what that data does. Just something to highlight here is, of course, a way to empower communities and improve dialogue with public authorities. It's also about having marginalized voices heard, having those voices respected, marginalized expanding production of power to citizens.
Since citizen data is a fairly new area particularly in official statistics, different challenges with this data for the time being. The key thing is lack of trust or engagement between partners that have used usually not worked together with institutions national office working with different type of nonstate actors. We have concerns about the data quality, so collected by nonstate actors because this is something that often has been done by national statistics office and we have a new type of data, this also links to the third bullet here, which is about limited knowledge about data and maybe lack of statistical capacity among these actors.
So there's a bit of concern around data quality being a big area among these actors. Stability of different type of actors. Statistics, word we like to measure how things develop over time. Can be sure that if you use these data sources, they are reproduced year after year or over a certain period of time to make sure we can progress because of these challenges and need to address them, but really to give power of citizens to contribute to data.
Copenhagen framework has been established. It was endorsed in March 2025, by the US statistical commission and kind of basic form conceptualized defined citizen data. Also kind of outlines many different roles as citizens and national statistical offices can play in the different stages of data production.
It has also some quite specific active points on how to produce have a sustainable production and use of citizen data.
The collaborative is network of a lot of organizations, communities, civil society, organizations and human rights institutions, academia, different types regional and international organizations. It was established in 2023 and has been mandated US commission to develop and finalized Copenhagen framework on citizen data now in place being implemented.
This network is also a space to share knowledge and collaboration and learn about citizens data because it's such a new area, collaborative, is very much engaged particularly in the enrollment of different types of development, guidances how to handle methodology gaps and some of all of these challenges that I mentioned before.
So the actual work at the moment of collaborative as just said really focused on developing this different type of knowledge projects to help facilitate work and the more extensive use of citizen data. We have a whole set of guidance that we expect to be completed by mid 2026 focusing on data quality, how to handle data quality of citizen data, engage citizens in the meaningful participatory way.
Form partners, different kind of actors in the countries. How do you work with intersectional and qualitative data. We see that citizen data have more quality data than national statistical offices used to work with. New area, particularly statistical offices, have a toolkit. How to develop national toolkits, look at the national context. Take into experiences from around the world and some of these more recommendations how to work with citizen data.
We also support countries. We have worked with Columbia, Malawi, work with others to come, going to come feed into the work two years. Learn from the countries and provide input into the develop of guidance we are working on.
Annual meeting, next one takes place in October 2025. Previous ones focused a lot on setting the stage and figuring out what citizen data is and developing the Copenhagen framework. Now moving on to more sort of implementation mode.
Yeah, everyone welcome to join the collaborative. Organizations or contributions in any form. We have a website. You can find a lot of information there. Updated at the moment and can't find what you're looking for, welcome to email us at the [email protected]. Thank you very much.
[applause]
>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Excellent. Thank you Charlotte. For everyone, please do check out the information online. It's a very inclusive collaborative and heard you have access to a lot of the practice and insights and guidance that is being developed within that. Energized the movement. Charlotte highlighted some of the challenges in sort of integrating citizen data with official statistics. We're going to hear a little bit about that now, but also some of the opportunities.
I'm going to ask my colleague Omar, head of social statistics Ghana statistical service, to share with us the experience of Ghana and integrating citizen data national statistics, elaborate on some of those challenges utilizing timely, accurate, and reliable statistics to promote trust in government and institution in their decision‑making.
>> OMAR SEIDU: Thank you very much. Already indicated, citizens data that is originating from initiatives which involves citizen engagement throughout various stages of digital chain guided by principles of inclusiveness, responsiveness, professionalism and ethical production and use of statistics.
Now, in Ghana, our motivation had been, in 2017, we did root assessment data assessment to understand our capability of monitoring SDGs and it came out clearly that if we do not do something different from what we are used to, we might not be able to measure all the SDGs. So motivations stems from the fact that we wanted to know how citizens data can provide timely data and actionable data for monitoring SDGs.
What technology‑based tools are appropriate for representative data collection and what pathways exist for addressing the quality issues and building trust in this data.
Now, we have had a long history of engagement with citizen data. Started in 2019, just before COVID. Piloting the use of citizen data for monitoring five SDGs indicators, four on the gender‑based violence. Tried to measure four SDG indicators. Developed another allocation same year called Clean up Ghana engaging citizens and waste management companies to try to measure another SDG indicator.
While first one was a success measuring those indicators, second one Clean Up Ghana, was not successful measuring SDG indicator. It was successful in engaging and providing tools for the government to engage with the citizens and build trust in solid waste management.
Third one was Malaika Ghana 2021, Ghana first country to monitor the SDGs. 4111B reports to the global repository. Received a lot of awards and last month, I was in the room to digital work base on this work. 2023, we tried another one basically on Leave No One Behind Policy in Ghana, a law actually to ensure that 3% of our governments resources are located to provide services to persons with disabilities. Wanted to assess effectiveness that they have and we used citizens data approach and for the first time, because of the level of engagement, we were able to develop functionalities for persons with disabilities to engage with application.
Based on that, then we work with the UNDP 2024. Citizens most recent one, public service, that will be the focus of this discussion today. Very good project because it shows how much citizens can contribute to providing feedback and services that are expected to receive.
Now, in all of these citizens projects, 10 key processes coming across all of them. What is important to note here is that in all the processes, the citizens are engaged in the planning stage, data compilation stage, developmental education and data use. And I would mention few instances where citizens use this data to demand some service improvements in India areas.
I will not attempt to go through all the processes, but it is important to note that coming from national statistical office to well‑established technologies, you need to have institutional buy‑in within the institution to get everybody to assert this is a good way to invest time and resources, then you need to ensure that the key stakeholders are mapped and identified, different interests groups, bring them on board.
Institutional analysis to ensure, very important. Barriers of use of data. If you are in a country where a lot of people do not have mobile phones, or even when they have mobile phones, do not have Android phones that have internet, then you need to develop functionalities for them to be able to engage with their applications.
Very important features on this project. Importantly, public education and sanitization efforts. Get citizens to know about this and engage in the process and that is an important tool to ensure that people who not really left behind, data collection, in service, all of that, part of this process.
Now, let's look at some interest in results. Now, when we deployed this piece of work, you can see that most people engage, do not have 56% of the people engaged in the IGF process, interactive voice text messaging. Without that feature, for instance, it means that more than half of population wouldn't have engaged in the process, application download from Play Store or Apple Store, voice interaction within it and test options.
So for people literally prefer to use a test for people who are literate, people may not be literate, engage in local languages through the application. 24% of them provide functionalities for people to report on behalf of others with their consent and that also should be 40%. Showed 40% of the users had to get someone to file a report on their behalf. Different local languages, recording all of this in the different local languages.
And also, with the functionality for persons with disabilities, ensure that we have wide coverage in this. When we're done with this, after going through data quality all this, understand whether it represents the situation on the ground.
You can see on the pie chart, shows we share obligations in two districts. Census Ghana conducted population 2021 and census from the citizens data almost same for both districts. Batch on my right, persons with disabilities in those two districts. First one looks at what we have from the census, and second one is looking at the persons with disabilities who are engaged in the app. And you can see also that quite some good representation of the different populations subgroups.
Now, beyond census, in 2019, Ghana had actually implement national representative sample on this same as the 16.6.2 with the support of UNDP, and you can see that at a time in 2019, 97% of children below 18 years had been in need of help, medical treatment within the previous four weeks. And in 2024, using this same citizens data on the same, we see that almost 90% of children have been in need of health, so which means that yet there's some level of representation in this data.
Then the right‑most charts showing the level of satisfaction citizens are indicated with the health care delivery from the public health service. We can see, of course 2019, 2024. For those of us who live in Ghana, this reflected sentiments within the country within the period.
And you can clearly see some similarities there too. Then education, and this is very important. In the 2019 national representative sample, we see that 55% of households had children five to 18 years in those households. 2024 using internet‑based citizens data, you can still have 56% of households have children between five to 18 years, which means that there's some level of representation, and right most chart is giving the public satisfaction or public education delivery in both samples survey and citizen data.
Next, on the third one, which has to do with people needing national ID system, and to obtain it or knew it, 2019, we see that third of the population had indicated that they had been in need of national ID system. In 2024, this increased to 70%.
In fact, recent survey we have done 2025, realize that fourth most important public entity that citizens in Ghana visit is other countries, ombudsman other countries. Reflect finance from this citizens data. 72% had been in need of national ID. And in the report you see that 2019, most important sort of national ID was a Ghana card. In 2024, it was Ghana passport.
People frustrated also if you look at satisfaction level terms of timeliness of service and all of that, interestingly, publish this not long after that, minister of foreign affairs directly people have applied for passports, taken a long time to get the passports, sent out to them. Country situation cause of passports being reduced.
Important to note that successful roll‑out overcome common challenges, inclusive nature of developing the application with both local people and national stockholders and establishment of regular and consistent internal feedback mechanism.
Shareholders for public engagement very important. Developing this, there are 12 different domains persons with disabilities in Ghana. We mix it with different domains that tell us to develop the functionalities for persons partially blind, persons have hearing impairment, and all that engage with application.
And one other important thing is minimizing user cost through optimization of the application. These have been some of the key challenges that we have over a period being able to mitigate and ensure that there is wide participation in this project.
So we have, because this is learning process, we have documented even the processes that we started with from the beginning, not just technical report, processes also have been adopted to provide information to other countries and other people who want to duplicate this. And of course, we also did another report comparing this survey data with the citizens data report.
Thank you very much.
>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Thank you so much. Please call colleagues to look into this documentation. Very rich, not only findings, but also the processes of engaging citizens, utilization of digital including the app.
And I might add to that, too, there is further documentation in the widely sustainable development journal. A lot of resources that really capture this important experience for SDG monitoring and particular of indicator on satisfaction with public services.
Without further ado, I'm going to invite minister of Department of Statistics in Columbia to share with us, also Columbia journey with citizen data. And in particular, data and action initiative. Over to you.
>> MARIANA NEVES: Today I'm going to show you how experience has been working or has done working on especially citizens data in this case. Important to show you that we are in the same line that Copenhagen framework in terms finding citizens data initiatives that in which citizens participate but not only regular way in terms of collecting data, or giving information or data to the institution, for example in this way. So important participation of the citizens different stages of the data.
We consider that these participation has to be sufficient and meaningful, process or know the state. According to that, we have developed or have identified important to create citizens data framework in Columbia. This is initiative for document that we want to build. Thanks to the support for partnership for substantial development data on the United Nations, citizens data could be difficult.
Participation of Civil Society, academia, entities belongs to the statistical system in any way in order to develop the initiative we have to establish different stages or different actions in terms of developing framework creating different workshop in which we can interact with different Civil Society organizations and citizens as well in order to define which aspects they consider so relevant in terms of considering build of these framework we have working with the workshop and later strategy, identify if we are going to create a document for the citizens.
We need to establish collaboration or cocreation with the citizens. On the other hand, have been considering including maturity model in the framework because we consider that is important to establish different dimensions, level of criteria evaluation to Civil Society organizations and citizens in general to be able to do our self‑assessment in terms of defining which step in which process they are in terms of construction of citizens data. In that way, we can assign data, give all support, all the help that institutions need in terms of which tools they can apply, which standard they can apply in generation of citizens data.
We have developed a form in which, or idea of this form, to identify how many civil social organizations are in Columbia and how many of those interact with citizens producing citizens data.
One of the strategies that we have working on creation of a pilot application, it is called ABIS, the same. And they have the ability to measure sensitive topics as discrimination, for example, in order to have led or have the possibility to identify how or these topics, how it works, and have the possibility as well to measure some SDGs indicators initiative of data in action followed different normativity.
In Columbia, we have statistical law in which these documents or this keeps laws, establish the importance of inclusion of different characteristics of the population and idea that characteristics are included or visible request.
We work in the same line for the law. We have Columbia National Statistical Plan in which goal of 35, specifically they mention importance to create document that is our citizens data framework in order to give some recommendations, good practices, some advice in terms of how interaction with the citizens, civil association organization in the process validating and use of statistical data.
Obviously, importance of the statistical culture that is so important to identify. Citizens act is not only as person that giving information continuously to institutions, important to identify citizens' important role in the ecosystem data.
Obviously, if we interact with or we create citizens data, we can identify possibility citizens has in terms of part of government agenda or show different situations that Civil Society can face.
In terms of the workshops idea, to create these workshops, we can then identify or establish different ways in which we can cocreate with civil social organization. We have been working together in terms of the identifies dimensions, what criteria they use in terms of producing a citizens data.
And obviously we try to not focus on Bogota, capital city. We try to develop these workshops in different areas. Identify different situations that people face in the territory and not only in the capital. So that is important we have created workshops in Cali, in Medellin, other places that is so useful for us to identify topics.
The thing that we have been about identifying in terms of the quality of these workshops is that we can establish we create network in which different social organizations can identify which topics they can work together or support each other, so it's helpful, and we have been main actors in our workshops.
We have participation of focused organizations, academia that has identified potential citizens data to identify sensitive topics, what we consider maturity model or, yeah, maturity model. Identified importance in which self‑assessment can help to civil social organizations in terms of identify in which they are in terms of production of citizens data.
Mentioned before, idea is that as institution that can provide different tools, guidelines how they can improve the level or the statement in the different aspects of production of citizens data. So in that case, idea is we're together, cocreate as well these maturity model. We have been developing our shop directly to identify how civil social organizations identify what dimensions are so important, criteria evaluation so important in terms of these maturity model and specific aspects they can use, and in that case, interact with different areas or different, yeah, different areas in terms of which methods, which tools they can use.
As I mentioned before, we developed a form in order to identify how many civil social organizations are in Columbia. We identify that one, 150 civil social organizations work in the different stages of the data value chains. We identify most common stages in which citizens participate in the data collection and analysis and dissemination of the data.
And from these 150, we identified 95 civil social organizations directly with citizens on the main topic, is environment, one of the most relevant or common topics that civil social organizations work with, and the gender topic as well. Can identify which aspects they worked.
Obviously idea is to increase amount of civil social organizations we label to identify and work with in the same or in the other areas as workshops and other spaces that we create.
Finally, in terms of app, final strategy working on in terms of identify sensitive topics, we have developed pilot application with the support of global partnership app Office of Columbia and ideas, I mentioned before, to identify or measure these sensible possibilities as discrimination. We have discrimination as the main topic and developed these modules. Idea is to keep working on other module, gender‑based violence aspect service in order to identify some data. Gender‑based violence topics let us measure SDGs, for example, in terms of discrimination, 16‑B1.
Here, we identify these can tell us more collaborative area because tests that we have been doing with the citizens, we collaborate or we cocreate as well in terms of to identify the aspects, questions, if they're correct, if they are clear, in order to develop the app.
And we identified importance that app help not only interacting one way, interacting different ways, not regular obtain capture data for these citizens. In these cases, citizens have to have the opportunity to interact constantly in its building of this app and importance that app can have in terms of going to the territory, because regular way, censor‑based, so difficult to go directly with those territories that could be difficult to access in a normal way or normal survey.
In this case we consider that could help in terms of identify aspects relevant that may be not so usual to ask in a normal way. Here you can ask for access to the QR code, which we develop, or production. Idea will be launching in October. So we are working on this and idea is that if you want to search discriminating model. You can access it. Structure is in Spanish, but if you like to take a look, go ahead.
Thank you.
>> ALEX KLIMBURG: Thank you so much. Running short of time. I've been transitioning very quickly, but I would like us to take a moment to give a round of applause both to Omar and Mariana for this really excellent sharing, very frontier and really inspiring experience, so please do follow up with them both during the IGF and look at the resources made available online.
I'm going to turn now to one of the co‑organizers of this session, really important partner in our broader work on citizen data and integration with officials statistics, and that is to invite Dilek Fraisl who joins us online. Senior research scholar International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. She's going to kick off just the discussion. Hoping we have questions from the audience to share their slides, those of us share their views. Highlight couple points coming from this experience to kind of share with us and allow us to sort of further reflect on. Over to you.
>> DILEK FRAISL: Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for attending this important event. I'm really sad that I couldn't be there with you today, but I would like to talk about a few points that is related to this project, in general, to citizen data projects, related to citizen data projects.
So I really find the conversation we're having today is extremely important and very timely. As we can see, also the UNCD and partners Citizen Data Collaborative is also understanding and supporting the importance and timeliness of the work as a person who is heavily involved in citizen data both as a scientist looking at the topic from theoretical perspective, but also practitioner using citizen data for scientific research and production of knowledge.
I'm very excited to be here and to be part of this important conversation in session. And I would like to mention a few points regarding the project that was presented by Omar and led by the UNDP policy for government and Ghana Statistical Service. So greatly privileged to be involved groundbreaking project since the start.
Saying groundbreaking because, the project was innovative in many fronts, but mention one. First one, National Statistics Office together with the UN Custodian Agency for a particular SDG indicator came together to launch a citizen data project and to honor to governance indicator, and there has been conversations in the past a lot about integrating already existing data together through the citizens data initiative to SDG monitoring important processes to address large data gaps in the SDGs, but this initiative paid the way for more active leading role in locus groundbreaking way and hope create a path forward for all the worldwide to see the benefits, show the benefit citizen data approach and adapt it to their own context.
And as mentioned, very detailed recommendations. Works through the reports published by Ghana Statistical Service and signed paper mentioned by Alexandra, all information is to out there and talk about all details including limitations, including opportunities. I think great resource.
I would you like you to think about a few things about the citizen data initiatives in general and this came up a lot in this conversation today. We really need to, especially this approach really new to NSO data, monitoring and gathering for global frameworks, really important to carefully consider strategies and citizen data initiatives that ensure data collection is really participatory and inclusive, particularly in terms of engaging underrepresented and hard‑to‑reach communities as mentioned in Ghana work.
A lot of measures take to be able to reach out to these communities using sign language and translating the application to several different languages. The goal really should be to avoid that, or citizens as free labor.
This has been tackled and discussed a lot in the citizens data community where I come from, academic community, vital that is shared with participants. Create value.
Hear from Ghana and also Columbia experience, people who are really at the forefront of these initiatives are well aware of this. Very promising. And speaking of inclusion, we need to be careful of potential digital divide inconsistencies to smartphone technology. Important in the Ghana project, not only smartphones used, but also voice recording, many other aspects, so people didn't have smartphones to participate.
Data‑driven initiatives depends on strong ethical foundations that prioritized transparency, informed consent from participants, and really fairness. And there are a lot of important frameworks and principles to guide citizen data initiatives and looks like the national statistical offices in UNDP as well as UNCD well aware of that.
For instance, from the academic community, what I come from, we have the 10 principles of citizen science Copenhagen framework building on existing principles. Has its own principles for citizen data Copenhagen framework, human rights‑based approach to data or peer and care data. Highlights find accessible and probability of use of data, share principles about collective benefit, authority to control responsibility and ethics in data initiatives, usability, citizen data initiatives.
So I will just close or finish by saying empowering communities to take part not just data collection, but decision‑making process is really important. It helps ensure governance structures are accountable and look into public needs.
This is aligned with public need, motivation of UNDP colleagues and National Statistical Office of Ghana to really implement this project approach through citizen data supports Leave No One Behind principle of the SDG agenda that is the subject to this conversation today. Helps strengthen democratic data governance.
Happy to stay around if there's any questions. Thank you.
>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Thank you so much for the important reminder principle to approach, particularly inclusion. Real shift from looking at citizens as free labor and data production to really driven by inclusion and to be very conscious of the digital divide.
We have with us one last, but not least, important panelist who is Mariana Neves within the Digital Government Division the Ministry of Finance Sweden responsible for AI policy to give a little take on what you have heard. Whether you are new or not to the citizen data community, I think you bring a very interesting perspective.
>> MARIANA NEVES: Thank you for having me. This has been an interesting and inspiring session.
I work mostly on AI. As you all know, data is essential for AI Similarly, AI can be used to enhance actionability of citizen data.
We need AI policy and practice to see that your AI systems are transparent and accountable. That starts with data. Sweden national principles for making information available, those principles developed by our agency for digital government. They provide framework for organizations to publish and share data, promote transparency, innovation, and societal values.
Principles were developed for public organizations. I think they are very relevant to the context of citizen data as well and they relate a lot to what has been said here today.
There are seven principles in total and one of the principles is on the Meta data of the data being collected, so this is important to ensure transparency.
This is on how data is collected, by whom, and in what conditions. Similarly, what is done in Ghana, I think shows that this is really important because, in turn, AI governance can ensure transparency of how citizen data is used in AI models. Another principle is related to risk‑based approach.
Even if data isn't personal data, must be assessed for risk. Data site could reveal vulnerabilities or be misused. Government frameworks that can help assess and mitigate risk related to bias, to misuse, or unintended consequences when the data is then processed by AI.
Citizen data can be used to mitigate biases when used in AI, but also have biases in itself. You need to be aware of potential biases when the data is done and processed by AI. Traceability in this context is very important.
Finally, AI governance today promotes participatory design, so citizens are involved in how their data is used. Heard this before. Today, I think citizen data, process of collecting citizen data, provides basis for dialogue crucial in establishing trust.
Authorities can engage with citizen data and validate rich and great data into public service as we have been told today, and but this requires principles, clarity on ownership, and consent. So data must be shared under open terms and under clear agreements to ensure respect for original contributors, not to undermine trust.
I think it was mentioned that citizen data, process of collecting citizen data can contribute to building trust in data. And similarly, I think citizen data can be utilized to building trust in AI with the help of proper AI governance.
Thank you so much for having me.
>> ALEXANDRA WILDE: Thank you so much, Mariana. Really important points raised around governance of AI and integration of citizen data into models, these issues around bias and how to utilize citizen data to mitigate that, but also to be very aware of it.
So thank you. Kept the time. Unfortunately, not much time or any time, actually, for questions and discussion, but again, please follow up with any of us, UNDP, with Omar with Mariana, and we'll be very happy to share more information on these experiences.
And with that, thank all for being part of this session. Also to you, Mariana, and to Dilek and Charlotte online, and to Sarah, of course, over here to be able to look at the empowerment.
Thank you to all colleagues joining online, coming for this session. Have a wonderful rest of day. Thank you.
