Abstract | The United Nations considers the development of Big Data analytics to be key to addressing a wide range of problems from sustainable development to disaster risk reduction and conflict management.1 The Economist magazine argues that Big Data is now the ‘world’s most valuable resource’ - the new oil: transforming the coming era to the same extent as oil drove development in the last century.2 Although there is no agreed definition of Big Data, it is often framed in terms of a qualitative transformation in the volume, variety and velocity of data with the development of new digital technologies of sensing and computation, thus enabling policy-makers to see ‘reality’ rather than relying on conceptual imaginaries or wishful thinking. Finally, or so we are told, the long history of international policy failure - in areas as diverse as tackling conflict management, sustainable development or global health - could be coming to a close. |
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