NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, December 23, 2016

The U.S. Agency for International Development collects data from employees, non-profits and contractors in 85 countries around the world.

And until now, USAID didn’t have a way to easily share, process and understand information from a global perspective. That means it’s not easy for agency employees working on malaria, for example, in Africa to communicate with colleagues working on a similar issue in Cambodia.

It also means that researchers and analysts back in Washington struggle to connect the dots on a global perspective and marshal resources to deal with crises.

This big data challenge is about to get a little easier. In the coming months, USAID will launch a development data library to more easily capture, share and visualize all of this information coming from around the globe.