Insights into the OECD Data Science Engine Room

The OECD's Multilateral Development Finance Report 2022 traces the funding of international organizations and the financing of sustainable development through multilateral agencies. The data analysed for the 2022 report show that a succession of mutually reinforcing crises and a challenging geopolitical environment are putting the multilateral development system under increasing pressure. COVID-19 crisis has triggered a surge in the volume of funding channelled to and through the multilateral development system. At the same time, even the increased resources were not sufficient to meet the magnitude of the challenges faced by developing countries.
 
Producing this report requires policy-oriented data science by different OECD teams. It involves substantial efforts by OECD’s Financing for Sustainable Development Division (Data Collections Unit and Statistical Standards and Methods Unit) to collect data from major government donors and multilateral agencies. This data is then analysed, quality assured and channelled into the OECD Creditor Reporting System database. OECD's Policy Analysis and Strategy Unit then conducts further data analyses, before the findings are paired with extensive policy expertise inside OECD’s to produce the final report.
 
In this Hertie School Data Science Lab workshop, we look into this "engine room" of how OECD’s data collection and analysis teams work, what challenges they faced, and how OECD's multilateral finance data can be used to make global policy makers aware about recent developments in multilateral financing and inform them about future policy options.

Julia Benn (Statistical Standards and Methods Unit) and Abdoulaye Fabregas (Policy Analysis and Strategy Unit]) will discuss OECD's insights and experiences together with three multilateral finance experts: Henriette Keijzers, independent consultant and advisor on UN finance data to the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination Secretariat and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Svanhildur Thorvaldsdottir, Assistant Professor at the University of Iceland and academic expert on UN finance data, and Ronny Patz, Adjunct Faculty at Hertie School teaching the interdisciplinary course “The Financing of International Organizations“ in Fall 2022.
 
Participants with a data science or global public policy focus are invited to join the discussion in this hybrid event, raise questions, and bring in their own experiences.