A promising close to an exciting year!

Dear CDL Friends and Partners,

2024 was a busy and exciting year for us at CivicDataLab!

This year we renewed our efforts to build inclusive and participatory digital public infrastructure & goods (DPI&G) with special focus on resilient Climate Action. Two critical efforts this year have included creating platforms to harness the potential of inclusive and participatory digital infrastructure and expanding our Intelligent Data Solution for Disaster Risk Reduction to address the needs of resilient Climate Action for the most vulnerable communities and geographies.

While deepening our collaboration in the north east state of Assam, India we also began new collaborations in the states of Himachal Pradesh and Odisha. We also got the opportunity to? expand our existing work in South East Asia, with a new initiative in Thailand and continued our collaborations in Indonesia and Philippines.

This year, our user base has grown to total 1.5 million citizens, 68 thousand data publishers, 50 data collaborations. Our total data convenings crossed the 150 mark this year, expanding our reach to all 6 major continents in the world. We are truly grateful to our partners, funders and community for making this year a rewarding and remarkable one.

As part of the UN World Data Forum where we hosted two significant convenings to take a deep dive into – a) how to harness data exchange platforms to accelerate SDGs and High Value Data Access and b) discussed the best way forward for co-creating a climate data ecosystem for long-term resilience.

We hope to build on the momentum gained this year into 2025 with your continued support, feedback and collaboration.

— CivicDataLab Team

Our Recent Engagements:

UN World Data Forum, Medellin, Colombia

At the 5th #UN World Data Forum was held in Medellin, Colombia, where CivicDataLab had the opportunity to moderate two plenaries. United Nations United Nations Statistics Division

Executive director and co-founder Gaurav Godhwani brought together a diverse group of data practitioners and other stakeholders to explore global practices and trends regarding:

• Harnessing Data Exchange Platforms for Accelerating SDGs and High Value Data Access.
• Co-creating Climate Data Ecosystem for Long-term Resilience, organised in collaboration with Wellcome Trust and Lloyd's Register Foundation.

Public Procurement Workshop at Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, Telangana

Our Climate Action and Open Contracting initiatives lead Kabeer Arora was invited to the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) in Hyderabad, Telangana to share CivicDataLab’s work and experiences on strengthening sustainable public procurement practices.

Data visualisation workshop with Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), Bangkok, Thailand

In November, CivicDataLab conducted the first of a series of intensive workshops with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) on data visualisation to enhance data driven processes for effective flood management. The workshop was attended by BMA officials from multiple departments, where our bandhus, Kabeer Arora, Prajna Prayas and Mayank Manish presented CivicDataLab's work and our data-driven interventions. The presentation was followed by a comprehensive discussion to address gaps and plan the strategy for development and deployment of a dashboard in the Bangkok metropolitan region.

Pre-budget consultation and workshop with Government of Assam’s Finance Department, Dispur, Guwahati, Assam

Strengthening our efforts in institutionalising data practices, we conducted some critical workshops with the state Government of Assam. Our bandhus Gaurav Godhwani, Bhanita Boro, Kabeer Arora and Mayank Manish in collaboration with Assam Finance Department, conducted a pre-budget workshop on Green Budgeting. The workshop objective was to introduce the refined proposed methodology for tagging schemes under #GreenBudget and incorporating #GreenPublicFinance Management practices.

Interactive workshop on Green Public Procurement with Government of Assam, Dispur, Guwahati, Assam

In collaboration with Assam Finance Department, we brought together 62 government officials from 14 state line departments for a day-long #capacity building workshop on #GreenPublicProcurement that explored the different features of government procurement processes to identify how they can be made more environmentally and financially sustainable. Bandhus Bhanita Boro Gaurav Godhwani Kabeer Arora and Mayank Manish conducted the workshop, marking the significant milestone in Assam’s commitment to advancing its sustainable development goals (#SDGs) and targets.

Stakeholder roundtable on way forward for the use of Generative AI in the public sector, New Delhi, India

At the roundtable discussion on Generative AI in Public Sector hosted by The Pranava Institute, our Digital Public Goods & Infrastructure (DPG&I) initiatives lead Nupura Gawde contributed to drawing a road map for ways to strengthen the role and practices of Generative AI in the Indian public sector. The discussion fostered a crucial three-fold lens, unpacking what makes Generative AI applications in the public sector distinct from private-sector counterparts, especially when used for citizen-facing service delivery.

Highlights to look out for in 2025:

• ParakhAI — Explore how to ensure high-risk ADS (Algorithmic Decision-making Systems) can be more participatory to provide more agency to citizens over how their data is used in Artificial Intelligence (AI) models.

• Stakeholder Engagement — Insights from our recent interactive workshops with government officials in the state of Assam, where we onboarded senior officials to our collaborative Intelligent Data Solution for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDS-DRR). ?Stakeholder engagement is a must to ensure impact of data-driven interventions.

• Gender Data Collaborative — The pursuit of gender equality continues to be hampered by a lack of reliable and comprehensive gender diaggregated data. Here, we showcase some of CivicDataLab’s work, built to address gender data gap.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year from CivicDataLab bandhus!

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