Publication:
Data for Better Governance: Building Government Analytics Ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2024-11-25
ISSN
Published
2024-11-25
Author(s)
Santini, Juan Francisco
Sacco Capurro, Flavia
Lundy, Timothy
Kim, Galileu
de León Miranda, Jorge
Cocciolo, Serena
Casanova, Chiara
Editor(s)
Abstract
Governments in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region face significant developmental and institutional challenges, such as slowing growth, fiscal constraints, and inefficiencies in the public sector. At the same time, governments have invested significantly in government technologies (GovTech), making LAC a global pioneer in management information systems (MISs). This investment creates an opportunity for governments to leverage MIS data to strengthen the functioning of government and achieve development goals—that is, government analytics. This report provides a conceptual framework to assess and provide guidance on the regional government analytics agenda and how to harvest the benefits of GovTech investments. It examines how government analytics can inform policy making and improve accountability and efficiency, drawing on survey data and successful applications of government analytics. The report also explores the enabling conditions for government analytics—data infrastructure and analytical capabilities—and how to strengthen them. Finally, it provides practical guidance on how to develop a holistic government analytics agenda. "Data for Better Governance: Building Government Analytics Ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean" is part of the Government Analytics collection, which began with The Government Analytics Handbook (2023). This growing series features frontier evidence and expert insights on how to leverage data to improve government performance.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Santini, Juan Francisco; Sacco Capurro, Flavia; Rogger, Daniel; Lundy, Timothy; Kim, Galileu; de León Miranda, Jorge; Cocciolo, Serena; Casanova, Chiara. 2024. Data for Better Governance: Building Government Analytics Ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42413 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Associated URLs
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Government Analytics in Europe
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-29) Hasnain, Zahid; Khurshid, Ayesha; Lundy, Timothy; Rogger, Daniel
    This report is part of a collection examining how analytics using government microdata is revolutionizing public administration throughout the world. Its focus is on government analytics in the European Union. The collection is based on "The Government Analytics Handbook", a comprehensive guide to using data to understand and improve government. The reports in this collection aim to help public servants apply lessons from the Handbook to their own administrations by describing the unique opportunities and challenges for government analytics that arise in different regions. No two regions, countries, administrations, or organizations are alike—that is why using microdata to measure, understand, and improve government is so important!
  • Publication
    Effects of the Business Cycle on Social Indicators in Latin America and the Caribbean
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2019-04-04) Vegh, Carlos A.; Riera-Crichton, Daniel; Puig, Jorge; Camarena, José Andrée; Galeano, Luciana; Morano, Luis; Venturi, Lucila; Vuletin, Guillermo
    After mediocre growth in 2018 of 0.7 percent. LAC is expected to perform only marginally better in 2019 (growth of 0.9 percent) followed by a much more solid growth of 2.1 percent in 2020. LAC will face both internal and external challenges during 2019. On the domestic front. the recession in Argentina; a slower than expected recovery in Brazil from the 2014-2015 recession, anemic growth in Mexico. and the continued deterioration of Venezuela. present the biggest challenges. On the external front. the sharp drop in net capital inflows to the region since early 2018 and the monetary policy normalization in the United States stand among the greatest perils. Furthermore, the recent increase in poverty in Brazil because of the recession points to the large effects that the business cycle may have on poverty. The core of this report argues that social indicators that are very sensitive to the business cycle may yield a highly misleading picture of permanent social gains in the region.
  • Publication
    Afro-descendants in Latin America
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08-28) Freire, German; Diaz-Bonilla, Carolina; Schwartz Orellana, Steven; Soler Lopez, Jorge; Carbonari, Flavia
    About one in four Latin Americans self-identify as Afro-descendants today. They comprise a highly heterogeneous population and are unevenly distributed across the region, but share a common history of displacement and exclusion. Despite significant gains over the past decade, Afro-descendants still are overrepresented among the poor and are underrepresented in decision-making positions, both in the private and the public sector. The extent to which Latin America will be able to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity will therefore depend, to a very large degree, on the social inclusion of Afro-descendants. The objective of this study is to deepen the region's empirical understanding of the drivers behind the persistent exclusion of the afro-descendants, as a first step to design appropriate solutions. The report proposes a framework to organize and think of the myriad options available to address their situations, based on the experience accumulated by the region and the data available.
  • Publication
    Mangroves as a Coastal Protection of Local Economic Activities from Hurricanes in the Caribbean
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-10-01) Gunasekera, Rashmin; Miranda, Juan Jose; Butron, Luigi; Pantoja, Chrissie; Daniell, James; Brand, Johannes
    In recent decades, hurricane frequency and intensity have increased in the Caribbean basin. From 2000 to 2012, more than 100 hurricanes impacted lives, infrastructure, gross domestic product, and natural environments along the coastal shorelines. Recent academic references mention that the dense root system of mangrove forests might mitigate the impact of hurricanes, which would help stabilize the coastline and prevents erosion from waves and storms. Many tropical mangroves are found on the coasts of Caribbean islands, unfortunately, these wetland ecosystems have been cleared at a rate of one percent per year since the nineties by climatic and anthropogenic events. Given this critical context, this study quantifies the causal effects hurricane windstorms on local economic activity, using as a proxy nightlights in the Caribbean region at the highest spatial resolution data available (1 square kilometer), and then measure the level of mangrove natural protection against the impact of hurricanes, employing different widths of the mangroves belt, which leads to a broader socio-economic and environmental perspective study. The results suggest that major hurricanes show negative effects of approximately two percent in nightlights and even a greater negative impact of sixteen percent in storm surge prone areas. However, the presence of mangroves on the coast minimizes the impact of hurricanes, shows a reduction of nightlights between one and six percent. The paper contributes to the literature of natural coastal protection against natural disasters by providing robust estimates of the causal effects of major hurricanes windstorms in the Caribbean, producing regional evidence that could improve targeting of environmental policies and disaster risk management toward those most impacted islands.
  • Publication
    Assessing Latin America’s Progress Toward Achieving Universal Health Coverage
    (Project HOPE, 2015-10) Buisman, Leander R.; Wagstaff, Adam; Eozenou, Patrick Hoang-Vu; Dmytraczenko, Tania; Almeida, Gisele; Cercone, James; Díaz, Yadira; Maceira, Daniel; Bredenkamp, Caryn; Molina, Silvia; Mori Sarti, Flávia; Paraje, Guillermo; Ruiz, Fernando; Scott, John; Valdivia, Martin; Werneck, Heitor
    Two commonly used metrics for assessing progress toward universal health coverage involve assessing citizens’ rights to health care and counting the number of people who are in a financial protection scheme that safeguards them from high health care payments. On these metrics most countries in Latin America have already “reached” universal health coverage. Neither metric indicates, however, whether a country has achieved universal health coverage in the now commonly accepted sense of the term: that everyone—irrespective of their ability to pay—gets the health services they need without suffering undue financial hardship. We operationalized a framework proposed by the World Bank and the World Health Organization to monitor progress under this definition and then constructed an overall index of universal health coverage achievement. We applied the approach using data from 112 household surveys from 1990 to 2013 for all twenty Latin American countries. No country has achieved a perfect universal health coverage score, but some countries (including those with more integrated health systems) fare better than others. All countries except one improved in overall universal health coverage over the time period analyzed.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    World Development Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-01) World Bank
    Middle-income countries are in a race against time. Many of them have done well since the 1990s to escape low-income levels and eradicate extreme poverty, leading to the perception that the last three decades have been great for development. But the ambition of the more than 100 economies with incomes per capita between US$1,100 and US$14,000 is to reach high-income status within the next generation. When assessed against this goal, their record is discouraging. Since the 1970s, income per capita in the median middle-income country has stagnated at less than a tenth of the US level. With aging populations, growing protectionism, and escalating pressures to speed up the energy transition, today’s middle-income economies face ever more daunting odds. To become advanced economies despite the growing headwinds, they will have to make miracles. Drawing on the development experience and advances in economic analysis since the 1950s, World Development Report 2024 identifies pathways for developing economies to avoid the “middle-income trap.” It points to the need for not one but two transitions for those at the middle-income level: the first from investment to infusion and the second from infusion to innovation. Governments in lower-middle-income countries must drop the habit of repeating the same investment-driven strategies and work instead to infuse modern technologies and successful business processes from around the world into their economies. This requires reshaping large swaths of those economies into globally competitive suppliers of goods and services. Upper-middle-income countries that have mastered infusion can accelerate the shift to innovation—not just borrowing ideas from the global frontiers of technology but also beginning to push the frontiers outward. This requires restructuring enterprise, work, and energy use once again, with an even greater emphasis on economic freedom, social mobility, and political contestability. Neither transition is automatic. The handful of economies that made speedy transitions from middle- to high-income status have encouraged enterprise by disciplining powerful incumbents, developed talent by rewarding merit, and capitalized on crises to alter policies and institutions that no longer suit the purposes they were once designed to serve. Today’s middle-income countries will have to do the same.
  • Publication
    Business Ready 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-03) World Bank
    Business Ready (B-READY) is a new World Bank Group corporate flagship report that evaluates the business and investment climate worldwide. It replaces and improves upon the Doing Business project. B-READY provides a comprehensive data set and description of the factors that strengthen the private sector, not only by advancing the interests of individual firms but also by elevating the interests of workers, consumers, potential new enterprises, and the natural environment. This 2024 report introduces a new analytical framework that benchmarks economies based on three pillars: Regulatory Framework, Public Services, and Operational Efficiency. The analysis centers on 10 topics essential for private sector development that correspond to various stages of the life cycle of a firm. The report also offers insights into three cross-cutting themes that are relevant for modern economies: digital adoption, environmental sustainability, and gender. B-READY draws on a robust data collection process that includes specially tailored expert questionnaires and firm-level surveys. The 2024 report, which covers 50 economies, serves as the first in a series that will expand in geographical coverage and refine its methodology over time, supporting reform advocacy, policy guidance, and further analysis and research.
  • Publication
    Global Economic Prospects, January 2025
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16) World Bank
    Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.
  • Publication
    World Bank Annual Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-25) World Bank
    This annual report, which covers the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, has been prepared by the Executive Directors of both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—collectively known as the World Bank—in accordance with the respective bylaws of the two institutions. Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors, has submitted this report, together with the accompanying administrative budgets and audited financial statements, to the Board of Governors.
  • Publication
    Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-15) World Bank
    The Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 is the latest edition of the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity. The report emphasizes that reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity must be achieved in ways that do not come at unacceptably high costs to the environment. The current “polycrisis”—where the multiple crises of slow economic growth, increased fragility, climate risks, and heightened uncertainty have come together at the same time—makes national development strategies and international cooperation difficult. Offering the first post-Coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic assessment of global progress on this interlinked agenda, the report finds that global poverty reduction has resumed but at a pace slower than before the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty with less than US$2.15 per person per day. Progress has essentially plateaued amid lower economic growth and the impacts of COVID-19 and other crises. Today, extreme poverty is concentrated mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile settings. At a higher standard more typical of upper-middle-income countries—US$6.85 per person per day—almost one-half of the world is living in poverty. The report also provides evidence that the number of countries that have high levels of income inequality has declined considerably during the past two decades, but the pace of improvements in shared prosperity has slowed, and that inequality remains high in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, people’s incomes today would need to increase fivefold on average to reach a minimum prosperity threshold of US$25 per person per day. Where there has been progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity, there is evidence of an increasing ability of countries to manage natural hazards, but climate risks are significantly higher in the poorest settings. Nearly one in five people globally is at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event from which they will struggle to recover. The interconnected issues of climate change and poverty call for a united and inclusive effort from the global community. Development cooperation stakeholders—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to communities and citizens acting locally in every corner of the globe—hold pivotal roles in promoting fair and sustainable transitions. By emphasizing strategies that yield multiple benefits and diligently monitoring and addressing trade-offs, we can strive toward a future that is prosperous, equitable, and resilient.