Digital Development Compass
The Digital Development Compass is the most extensive collection of publicly available data sets on digital indicators. The Compass, which was developed through an innovative partnership with GitHub, is UNDP’s latest tool supporting member states’ with their digital transformation journeys. It aggregates and synthesizes digital development indicators from over 180 public data sources into interactive dashboards across the pillars of UNDP’s digital transformation framework.
The Compass is currently in its BETA version, and will be officially launched in mid-2023.
UNDP’s Digital Transformation Framework
Benefits of the Compass
The Compass helps:
- Countries better analyse the challenges they face in their digital transformation and how to best address them.
- Donors better identify areas that need funding.
- UNDP better track the progress and impact of its programmes.
Function of the Compass
The Compass provides a score that assess the digital maturity of a country across several key aspects of UNDP’s digital transformation framework such as business, foundations, government, infrastructure, people, regulation and strategy.
This enables data-informed decisionmaking by ministries, government agencies, civil society, businesses and other actors on priorities, policies, and investments in order to advance digital transformation. The information available on each country is based on 189 publicly available data sources.
Case Study:
Moldova
UNDP has been working closely with the Government of the Republic of Moldova on several crucial digital projects in order to support inclusive digital transformation:
In April-May 2021, UNDP implemented the Digital Readiness Assessment (DRA), a survey-based tool that provides rapid, high-level insights into a country’s digital strengths and opportunities. Then, in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNDP prepared a Digital Transformation Compact, that outlines the main gaps and opportunities for digital in Moldova. This all led to the creation of a Moldova 2023-2030 Digital Transformation Strategy that was developed by the office of the Deputy Prime Minister on Digitalisation with the support of UNDP.
The Digital Development Compass builds on these efforts. Using secondary sources from available reports and opensource data about the country, it provides a snapshot of Moldova’s performance across digital foundations, digital infrastructure, the government’s role as a digital enabler, available digital regulation, the space that enterprises have to do digital innovations, people’s understanding of digital technologies and their accessibility to it, as well as the current strategy and ambition for digital transformation.
The Compass clearly highlights the gaps in publicly available data. For example, there is no sufficient data on the digital capabilities of the Moldovan government. An area that requires further research.
The Moldovan Ministry for Digital Transformation can monitor the Compass and use its insights to inform its decision-making on future programs and policies that would help achieve its existing digital strategy. For example, the dashboard shows that under the Government Pillar, Digital Public Services rank well while Funding and Procurement have a relatively low score. This indicates a need for improvement. Additionally, there is missing data on Leadership and Coordination, and Monitoring and Capabilities under the Government Pillar. This indicates a need for further research.
Through Moldova’s collaboration with UNDP and other partners, it could overcome the challenges facing its digital transformation through an evidence-based approach.
Methodology
We use automations to scrape spreadsheets, PDFs, and documents into a machine-readable format. Scripts normalize the data according to a UN-defined list of countries, regions, sub-regions, income groups, and territorial borders. Data is automatically updated when international organizations release new reports. All code and data is transparent and available as a global resource on GitHub, on the path to becoming a Digital Public Good. Visit https://github.com/undp/digital-development-compass to see the latest.
About
The Data Futures Platform is a project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). UNDP works to eradicate poverty while protecting the planet. We help countries develop strong policies, skills, partnerships, and institutions so they can sustain their progress.
This platform is powered by data from:
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
