West Bank and Gaza Data Governance Framework Assessment

Data serves many purposes in the public sector: first as infrastructure that supports services and enables transactions between diverse stakeholders in a network, from government to businesses and to citizens; and second as an evidence base for governance and decision-making. Most recently, the value of data was demonstrated through efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic using data to aid in disease contact tracing, provide information, guide policies, and inform spending of funds. Public sector and government data sources such as censuses, national surveys, and administrative data, combined with data produced by the private sector helping to fill data gaps, provide timelier and finer-scale assessments of programs and policies, and serve public policy and development needs. Businesses can create value from government data by integrating it with data produced by the private sector. This highlights the importance of efficient and effective data sharing, reuse, and interoperability between different actors to better realize development objectives. This report describes the key findings on: leadership on data use and sharing in the government; key enablers for better public sector data use; key legal, regulatory, and policy safeguards that facilitate the trusted use, reuse, and sharing of data in a safe and secure manner; key stakeholders and their role and responsibilities in the data governance framework; and a proposed action plan